MISSION FORWARD SPEAKER SERIES

Mission Forward is YWCA Greater Cincinnati's annual speaker series that brings together bold voices and bold ideas to inspire action, advance equity, and move our community forward.

Wednesday, October 28, 2026 | Memorial Hall

Join YWCA Greater Cincinnati for the inaugural Mission Forward Speaker Series, an inspiring evening of conversation, reflection, and action featuring renowned legal scholar, civil rights advocate, and social justice leader Professor Anita Hill.

This new annual event is designed to spark meaningful dialogue, mobilize our community, and advance YWCA's mission to eliminate racism, empower women, and promote peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all.

The Mission Forward Speaker Series brings nationally recognized voices to Cincinnati to explore today's most pressing social issues while equipping our community to lead with courage, purpose, and action.

Whether you are a community leader, advocate, student, nonprofit professional, or someone passionate about creating a more equitable future, this evening offers an opportunity to learn, be inspired, and become part of the movement forward.

4:30 p.m. – Doors open – Cocktail Hour
5:30 p.m. – Program Begins
5:45 p.m. – 6:20 p.m. – Keynote
6:20 p.m. – 6:35 p.m. – Fireside Chat
6:35 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. – VIP reception

sponsor the mission forward speaker series

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

ANITA HILL

Hill’s book, “Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence,” is the winner of the 2022 ABA Silver Gavel Award for Books. It is a new manifesto about the origins and course of gender violence in our society; a combination of memoir, personal accounts, law, and social analysis, and a powerful call to arms from one of our most prominent and poised survivors. Anita’s previous book is “Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race and Finding Home”. She has also written an autobiography, “Speaking Truth to Power”. With Professor Emma Coleman Jordan she co-edited, “Race, Gender and Power in America: The Legacy of the Hill-Thomas Hearings”.

Professor Hill’s commentary has been published in TIME, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Ms. Magazine. She has appeared on national television programs including Good Morning America, Meet the Press, The Today Show, The Tavis Smiley Show and Larry King Live.

Professor Hill has received numerous honorary degrees and civic awards. She has chaired the Human Rights Law Committee of the International Bar Association. In addition, she is on the Board of Governors of the Tufts Medical Center and the Board of Directors of the National Women’s Law Center and the Boston Area Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.

The youngest of 13 children from a farm in rural Oklahoma, Anita Hill received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980. She began her career in private practice in Washington, D.C. Before becoming a law professor, she worked at the U.S. Education Department and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1989, Hill became the first African American to be tenured at the University of Oklahoma, College of Law, where she taught contracts and commercial law. She has made presentations to hundreds of business, professional, academic and civic organizations in the United States and abroad.

As counsel to Cohen Milstein, Anita Hill advises on class action workplace discrimination cases.