Jim Vincent, Primary Advocate of Rhode Island’s First Black Supreme Court Justice, Represents the Finest Tradition of the Civil Rights Movement
Detroit’s national and independent anti-poverty think tank, The PuLSE Institute, is launching a historic initiative called the Bankole Thompson First Amendment and Social Change Lecture Series named after Bankole Thompson, the founder and dean of The Institute and a nationally renowned journalist, social critic and standard-bearer for economic justice issues who has been a champion of the First Amendment reflected in his body of work which demonstrates his commitment to speaking truth to power.
Thompson was honored eight years ago with a U.S. Congressional Record officially placing his body of work into the record of the 115th Congress as a journalistic thought leader and a stalwart of the nation’s most vulnerable. Because of his impact and contributions, the University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library in 2015 requested to formally establish the Bankole Thompson Papers to document his work for students and for posterity. The Bentley houses the papers of every Michigan governor and other significant figures in the state’s history.
The inaugural keynote speaker for the lecture series is Jim Vincent, the former president of the Providence Branch of the NAACP in Rhode Island and a national civil rights activist. The program will take place virtually on Friday, Feb. 27, 4pm-6pm. Attendance to the event is complimentary but registration is required. To secure tickets click the following link https://www.eventbrite.com/e/inaugural-bankole-thompson-first-amendment-lecture-series-set-for-feb-27-tickets-1981982995493?aff=oddtdtcreator.
A graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania, Vincent, has been a longtime advocate for civil and human rights in Rhode Island and across the nation, helping to lead the push towards reparatory justice and pushing strongly for the empowerment of African Americans and other minorities. He was very instrumental in former Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo’s decision to nominate Melissa A. Long to serve as the first Black justice on the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which previously never had a person of color sit on the state’s highest court.
In 2017, Bankole Thompson won a seminal First Amendment case after James Edwards, a prominent and self-proclaimed White nationalist sued him and The Detroit News in 2016 for a column he wrote. Edwards whose radio program in the past featured guests like David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Holocaust deniers and racists, took issue with Thompson referring to him as a KKK leader in a column.
Despite the attempts to silent, intimidate, and discredit journalists, a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in favor of Thompson and The Detroit News, declaring that his column was protected opinion speech. Thompson was represented by two of the nation’s leading First Amendment lawyers Len Niehoff and Jim Stewart from the premier Honigman law firm in Detroit, who were retained by the late publisher and editor of The Detroit News, Jonathan Wolman. Niehoff is also a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
Wolman, former executive editor of the Associated Press respected Thompson’s journalistic work and added his voice on the opinion pages of The Detroit News after telling Thompson during a lunch meeting in June of 2015 that, “Your voice is needed on the opinion pages of The News.” Thompson accepted Wolman’s invitation to be an opinion columnist calling it an expansion of the franchise of opinion journalism.
Significantly, the victorious Appeals Court ruling was a published opinion, a rare occurrence, setting historic legal precedent and safeguarding a fundamental constitutional right. The case, which lasted for 18 months, is a victory for free speech, the bedrock of American democracy, and has generated strong interest from diverse quarters.
As a result, the Bankole Thompson First Amendment and Social Change Lecture Series seeks to encourage rigorous debate in the public square about the need to protect the free mosaic of experiences reflective of a diverse America, and to highlight the essence of free speech critical to maintaining democracy, the keystone upon which the nation was founded.
A foremost journalist whose work reflects the legacies of the 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the nation’s premier civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Thompson, has been an exemplary figure of foresight in the modern struggle for civil and human rights.
In 2023, veteran civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr., who is a trusted lieutenant of Dr. King, tapped Thompson to join the National Board of Directors of the historic Atlanta-based Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the signature civil rights group that Dr. King founded and served as its first president. LaFayette who is chairman of the SCLC National Board has expressed admiration for Thompson’s work.
A member of the National Press Club of Washington D.C., Thompson, is one of the first Black editors in the nation to conduct a series of exclusive sit-interviews with former President Barack Obama and wrote two books on Obama. The former top editor of the Michigan Chronicle, the state’s African American newspaper, Thompson, is the author of five books including his latest, Fiery Conscience, captures his decades of speaking truth to power. The book reviewed by Forbes, is listed in the Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, considered the premier repository on the global Black experience. His next book, HOPE: On The Mountain Of Fear is set to be out in April of this year.
He is a twice-a-week opinion columnist at The Detroit News and host of the podcast Bankole’s Nation.
The lecture series keynote speaker Vincent is a champion for the national movement for reparatory justice. His efforts helped the City of Providence establish one of the nation’s first Reparations Commission following a comprehensive study that was conducted documenting more than a century of political and economic subjugation of Blacks and other minorities in the state.
The 13-member Providence Municipal Reparations Commission established in 2022 of which Vincent is a member has been hailed as an important first step to tackle systemic racism in the City of Providence.
His selection to deliver the keynote address is the culmination of a longtime partnership between him and Thompson working together on issues of racial and economic justice. When Vincent was first elected president of the Providence NAACP Branch in 2011, he invited Thompson to serve as the keynote speaker for its 98th Freedom Fund Dinner, the same year the journalist was invited to speak at the annual conference of the federal bench and bar for the Eastern District of Michigan.
“I’m proud and very honored to be the keynote speaker for the inaugural Bankole Thompson First Amendment and Social Change Lecture Series. The PuLSE Institute’s Bankole Thompson is a champion of the First Amendment and a courageous advocate for social change,” Vincent said in a statement. “I’m very humbled by this very prestigious invitation and I’m looking forward to speaking about why democracy, civil rights, human rights and voting rights matter. If we are to preserve the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. then we need all hands on deck. Now is the time.”
Paschal Eze, the Chairman of the Board of The PuLSE Institute underscored the importance of the lecture series.
“A lecture series in Bankole Thompson’s honor is long overdue. His glaring body of work has been yearning for such an enlightening and empowering series,” Eze said. “I commend the choice of notable civil rights leader Jim Vincent as the inaugural keynote speaker. February 27, 2026 is a date with living history.”
Attorney Tina M. Patterson, the President and Director of Research of The PuLSE Institute applauded the initiative of a lecture series in Thompson’s honor.
“Bankole Thompson has been the media authority when it comes to tackling the issues of racism and inequality, gallantly holding the political structure accountable when it fails to consider the needs of the overlooked and the least of these,” said Patterson, whose legal work on property justice was cited in a Georgetown Law Journal on Poverty Law and Policy. “His direct challenges as a member of the fourth estate have not been without adverse effects, but his conviction has overcome these adversities as a living example of First Amendment freedoms. The PuLSE Institute welcomes this lecture series in Thompson’s honor as a necessary component of a free and equal society.”
Patterson also hailed the choice of Vincent as the inaugural speaker.
“In this age against inclusion and diversity, it is important to uplift a counter voice that would rise above the politics of the day. This is what the Constitutionally-guaranteed First Amendment is designed to protect. Our speaker Jim Vincent brings a level of commitment to righteous causes for diverse voices in spaces where exclusion was the norm,” Patterson said. “His body of work hasn’t been conformed to the political norms but has always come out on top because of its conviction that is rooted in the equality and humanity of all people. His leadership and perspective is a welcome voice at The PuLSE Institute and a perfect combination to the importance of First Amendment freedoms that cannot be quenched just because it is not the order of the day.”
She added, “It is important to continue to recognize this especially during Black History Month so that we continue to freely exercise our First Amendment rights to express our opinions and gratitude to those who have sacrificed so much for us to be here to advance the protection of civil and human rights for our generation and beyond.”
Thompson for his part praised Vincent as a powerful example of an individual who has devoted his life to fighting causes for the disenfranchised and dispossessed.
“Jim Vincent is a force for good and one who has always used his position and platforms to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice. That is why I’m honored that he accepted the invitation to kick off this annual lecture series which is going to put the searchlight on the unfinished business of advancing the cause of justice and equality,” Thompson said. “He is a courageous fighter for the downtrodden and a champion for the forgotten. His work represents the finest tradition of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Thompson said the lecture series underscores his own longstanding commitment to the ideas of equality.
“My life’s work has always been about making sure that people without a voice are heard even in their darkest hours of neglect. We owe it to this generation to stand up for what is right and not to be indifferent to suffering and dejection. I made a commitment long time ago never to look the other way or sit on the fence of indecision when injustice is taking place. And I’m able to do that because of the First Amendment guarantees available to us. We must never take that for granted,” Thompson said. “That is why I’m humbled to see that The PuLSE Institute is institutionalizing an annual lecture that will uphold the true meaning of the enduring First Amendment that has always been part of my life’s work.”
