James G. White

James G. White was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1962. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with honors, attended graduate school at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and was conferred the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Trinity Theological Seminary. White is currently the President & CEO of the Johnson Institute (Foundation). www.johnsoninstitute.org Founded in 1966 by The Reverend Dr. Vernon E. Johnson and philanthropists Irene and Wheelock Whitney, Johnson Institute was a pioneering force in the launching of the addiction recovery field, and the Minnesota Model of substance abuse treatment. Intervention for the addicted, and outreach to the families of the afflicted was their specialty. With offices in Washington, DC, Minneapolis, MN, and Austin, TX, Johnson Institute continues its long traditions of Advocacy, Intervention,Publishing,Training, and sponsorship of emerging recovery support initiatives such as Faith Partners. In 1994, White co-founded Faith Partners, the National Interfaith Alliance Against Substance Abuse with then partner, now Johnson Institute Vice President, Trish Merrill. Johnson Institute became an early investor in the Faith Partners congregational team training model in the mid 1990's. Faith Partners merged with the Johnson Institute and the Rush Recovery Center in 2004.www.rushcenter.org White relocated to Washington DC to lead the organization from its national headquarters on Capitol Hill.

White also serves as National Advisory Board Chairman of the Katrina Information Network (KIN). www.katrinaaction.org at the Washington, DC based Praxis Project. www.thepraxisproject.org As 1st District Milwaukee County Supervisor, White sponsored and secured passage the nations 1st local legislation to prohibit post hurricane rebuild contractors from doing business with local government until Federal authorities removed them from the list of companies who took money but failed to help rebuild New Orleans and other hurricane ravaged gulf region communities.

Currently, White is leading efforts towards the launch of a national advocacy,prevention, intervention, and recovery support campaign as a partnership initiative between the Johnson Institute, and the Congress of National Black Churches (CNBC). CNBC has a 30 year track record of engaging the Black community in progressive national campaigns through its network of 65 thousand congregations and 19 million members of the Historically Black Christian Denominations.

White is a former Hip hop music recording artist, producer, and musician, signed in the fall of 1990 as "Ghetto Priest", he was the first Hip Hop artist to hold a concert in South Africa after the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.Fact|date=September 2007 In the fall of 1990, Dr. White joined the national program planning team for the "Self Destruction: Stop The Violence in Hip Hop Movement" where he proposed the first touring national Hip Hop Summits to promote dialogue between the civil rights establishment and the hip hop community. He was a co-founder of NU-LITES, the National Urban League Incentives To Excel and Succeed, a model national youth leadership development program. As "Ghetto Priest" White served as the executive producer and host of "Slave Uprising"', a weekly radio talk show and lead newspaper column for Courier Communicationsin the late 1990s.

In the spring of 1996, White was elected to his first four-year term on the County Board of Supervisors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served three terms on the Board, serving at times as First Vice Chairman of the Board, Chairman of General Mitchell International Airport, the Milwaukee County Transit System, and the Milwaukee County Highway Commission. He was the only incumbent Milwaukee County Supervisor to lose his office to a challenger in the April 1, 2008 Milwaukee elections; his failure to collect enough petition signatures to appear on the election ballot may have cost him his seat. [ Some speculate that White expected to secure the Johnson Institute Presidency prior to the nomination paper deadline and was to make a retirement announcement. [http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=734589 Held, Tom. "Panel stays largely unchanged: 6 veterans outpolled challengers; 9 return with no opposition," "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel" April 1, 2008]

White is founder and chairman of; serves on the board of directors of the Milwaukee Regional Science and Engineering Fair (MRSEF); and serves on the advisory board of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Engineering School's Office of Diversity.

In the spring of 2004, White served as the keynote speaker for the Dialogue International Interfaith Conference on World Peace in Istanbul, Turkey, and continues efforts to promote dialogue and shared global responsibility among the Abrahamic faith traditions (Christians, Muslims, and Jews). He hosted a cultural exchange delegation of young professionals from the US to Turkey in the summer of 2006 and returned with a group of educators from the US in the summer of 2008.

White formerly served as the Senior Legal and Business Analyst for Lanier Law offices in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. He served as Chief Operations Officer for Clergy Strategic Alliances LLC, a Washington DC based social justice and human rights outreach training firm working with progressive organizations, and the historically black Christian denominations.www.clergyaction.org

White also served as Co-Chairman of the Hip Hop Congress National Advisory Board, www.hiphopcongress.com and is currently a National Board officer with H2A, the Hip Hop Association. www.hiphopassociation.comFact|date=April 2008

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