EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Roy DeBerry, a native of Holly Springs, Mississippi, is the Executive Director and one of the founders of the Hill Country Project.
Roy was active in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, first as a Freedom School student (whose teacher was Hill Country co-founder Aviva Futorian) and then as a general organizer.
Roy earned his bachelor's degree in Sociology at Brandeis University in 1973. Continuing his education at Brandeis, he went on to earn a Masters and later a Doctorate in Political Science. He has also pursued additional studies at Jackson State University, Duke University, Carnegie-Mellon University, the University of Michigan and Harvard. Roy is certified to teach at the high school level.
His administrative management experience is quite extensive. He has served as County Executive, Hinds County Board of Supervisors, Jackson, MS; Executive Director, Department of Job Development and Training, State of Mississippi; Director, Department of Planning and Policy; Dean of Academic and Student Affairs, Mississippi Industrial College, Holly Springs, MS; and Summer Program Analyst, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Rockville, MD.
Roy believes firmly in education and strongly in a collaboration among education, human service, faith-based organizations and the business community. He also works to expand parent, community, alumni and business support for higher education.
Active in many community, civic and professional organizations, Roy has received numerous awards and has been cited for outstanding achievements and contributions.
Roy recently retired as Vice President for Economic Development and Local Governmental Affairs at Jackson State University. During his administrative tenure at Jackson State, he also served as Executive Vice President and Vice President of External Relations. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Administration at JSU and teaches two courses there.
He has a wife, Rubye and one daughter, Aisha Isoke.
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BOARD CHAIR
Aviva Futorian is presently a lawyer in Chicago working on death penalty and prison reform. After coming to Mississippi as a freedom school teacher in 1964, she became an organizer for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Benton County. After leaving Mississippi, she went to law school, worked as a legislative assistant for Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, was director of the Women's Law Project of the Chicago legal services program, and represented death-sentenced defendants on appeal.
She first met Hill Country Project Executive Director Roy DeBerry when he was her freedom school student in 1964. They worked together in Benton County in the 1960s and have both maintained close contact with Benton County residents during the intervening years.
Aviva was also among the first organizers to initiate oral history interviews in Benton County in 1995.
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BOARD MEMBER
Stephen Klein was with the U.S. Agency for International Development and later President of an international consulting firm spanning a career of over 35 years addressing economic development issues.
He has served as energy policy advisor, worked in North Africa for five years on energy and natural resources, and was a member of the U.S. delegation for the worldwide U.N. Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
He lives in Washington, D.C., where he has been an active participant in community affairs.
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BOARD MEMBER
John Lyons is an Emmy® Award winning documentary filmmaker. The first film he co-produced and co-directed, "Too Flawed to Fix: The Illinois Death Penalty Experience," completed in 2001, was widely acclaimed and the recipient of several awards. After interviewing Aviva Futorian, a death penalty defense lawyer, she invited him to film a re-union of civil rights workers in Benton County, Mississippi, in 2003. For that re-union, John edited "My Mind Stayed on Freedom," a film made from oral histories of Benton County civil rights activists in 1995. He has since returned to film in Benton County several times.
He is currently a teaching artist in several Chicago Public Schools, and an artist-in-residence for the Snow City Arts Foundation at Rush Hospital. He is also an accomplished photographer.
He lives in Chicago with his wife Jessica and daughter Catie.
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