Prairie Voice

Biography

Dan Kenney is an educator, activist, and investigative journalist. He is the co-coordinator of the DeKalb Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice. He is co-founder and co-coordinator of noprivatearmies.org and of the Clearwater Project to stop Blackwater. He also was a founding member of the Illinois Coalition for Peace and Justice. He is the Illinois state coordinator of Bring the Guard Home.

Kenney has presented at the School Of Americas Vigil in Columbus Georgia, and on college campuses, such as Northwestern University, University of Illinois, and Marquette University. He was a member of the panel, at an international conference at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The conference was entitled: “The Privatization of Security and Human Rights in The Americas: Perspectives from the Global South,” and was sponsored by the Havens Center for the study of social issues. After the conference he has been involved on the international level, working with members of the U.N. Working Group studying the use of mercenaries around the world.

His article “Lurking Beneath the Surface of Blackwater North” has been widely published on the web. He has often spoken in a variety of settings on the issue of private armies, private military contractors, mercenaries, and Blackwater in particular. He also has done extensive research, written and spoken about the danger to democracy privatization presents. His most recent article, “The Blight of Blackwater and Other Private Military Companies on Rural Lands” was published in the summer issue of Defender an international newsletter of the Family Farm Defenders.

Dan Kenney was also the keynote speaker at the Northern Illinois Peace Conference, a gathering of many peace and justice groups all across northern Illinois, held in Rockford Illinois March 1, 2008. He was also keynote speaker for the annual statewide Wisconsin Peace and Justice Conference held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Dan is a fourth grade teacher in the DeKalb School District of DeKalb Illinois. He also works as the energy manager/educator for the DeKalb Community School District. He serves on the Board of Directors of the DeKalb Teachers’ Union Local of the American Federation of Teachers and Hope Haven, a local homeless shelter. He also is a member of the City of DeKalb Environmental Commission.  He is the chair of the Social Justice committee of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of DeKalb. He is a poet and his poetry has been widely published.