Founded in Chicago in 2003, the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC) emerged as a call to challenge the collective prophetic, progressive faith voice of the African-American community. In a short period of time, SDPC has become a major social justice network, representing a cross-section of some of the most dynamic and progressive African-American faith leaders and their congregations in the United States.

Concerning the upcoming election in November 2008, SDPC understands that African-American women’s voices are not only critical to the outcome, but in some cases can define the outcome. At the last SDPC conference in February 2008, there were two sessions, “Our Voice…Our Vote…Our Victory To Win or Lose” and “Women as Global Prophets,” that together will form the foundation of The Women Activists Electoral and Civic Engagement Initiative. These sessions provided an opportunity to address issues from a womanist/feminist perspective and generated participants for post-conference civic engagement and for voter education.