Speaking of taking the civil rights movement back from Glenn Beck and the right, have you checked out our upcoming Facing Race conference? ColorLines’ publisher, the Applied Research Center, convenes racial justice thinkers and change-makers every two years to brainstorm, build skills and generally network the movement. The right’s done a remarkable job of developing reactionary ideas and strategies to keep America unjust, and we’ve got to do the same intellectual work if we want to bring MLK’s dream back. So click over to the Facing Race page and register to attend in September. And if you can’t make it, watch out for Facing Race features in ColorLines’ Action channel, including video of keynote speaker Melissa Harris-Lacewell.

And if you participated in the Facing Race headline writing contest, the results are in. ARC’s communications intern Jessica Strong reports:

The Applied Research Center is excited to announce James Russell as the winner of Facing Race’s 2010 headline-writing contest and Sureshi Jayawardene as runner-up!

Winning headlines:

"Rand Paul Loses; At Least I’ll Have My Life Back" by James Russell

"Racing to the Top of Immigration Enforcement" by Sureshi Jayawardene

Other noted entries were:

"Pundits Stunned by Turnout" by Janet Cheatham Bell; 

"Obama Orders Guard To Arizona in Defense of Immigrants" by Jose Calderon; and 

"Obama, Sotomayor, G Beck Record Song Condemning Race Baiting" by Toni Armstrong, Jr.

Didn’t win the contest? Just hearing about the conference? It’s not too late to register! Just visit www.arc.org/facingrace. This year’s conference, happening Sept. 23-25 in Chicago, will be the largest forum of racial justice leaders, journalists, advocates and educators all working together to create change and fight for racial equality on all fronts.

This year’s highlighted speakers include keynote Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Van Jones and Malkia Cyril among many others.

See you in Chicago!