Martin Luther King and Gandhi were the two most successful social reformers of the 20th century because they applied nonviolence to the gravest injustices of their day. If Gandhi and King were alive today, what would they be doing? Auroras Voice is devoted to updating the work of Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

In the 1950s and '60s in the United States, African Americans were treated like second-class citizens. The civil rights movement won them a greater measure of freedom and equality. In India during the 1930s and '40s, Indians were treated as second-class citizens in their own country by British colonists. The Indian independence movement won them national sovereignty. Today, average Americans are treated as second-class citizens by multi-national corporations and the political elite.

Auroras Voice* aims to foment a citizen-power movement to win average American citizens a greater measure of power and freedom to shape their daily lives and environments.

• Our mission: devotion to justice through peace
• Our vision: communities built on the three classical virtues—wisdom, courage, and moderation
  

Founded in 2007, Auroras Voice is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization.

Emma del Real feels that citizens must perform their duties, namely being informed and voting. Likewise, she believes that public servants must do theirs, and that includes consulting their constituents and adding their voice to the legislative process. She works with MultiLingua, a foreign language translation and instruction company

Pablo del Real is a poet; his area of focus is spiritual blindness. He is the author of P-poll: are you happy now?, a book-length political pamphlet published in 2008 about the historic opportunity for legislative preference polling. In 2006, Pablo began composing Fiscal Disobedience (a manual for happiness) as a response to the fraying of the national fabric. A work in progress, this is a hybrid project that he calls an “electro-poetic text” and “the only circular sight on the Web.” In 2005 Pablo published O I : the absolute value of infinity, a book of poetry commemorating the births of Emily Dickinson and Leaves of Grass, 175 and 150 years later, respectfully. He is the founder of Auroras Voice.

Michiko Kurisu, a freelance photographer and artist, has been a resident of Delray Beach for the past 10 years and was declared the city’s first official Artist in Residence in 2009. In 2006, Kurisu was commissioned by the City of Delray Beach to create and install a permanent public art installation. She was also the recipient of the Palm Beach County Cultural Council’s community-based Artist-in-Residency grant, which produced the photo documentary “Haitians of Florida.” Kurisu currently serves on Delray Beach’s Public Art Advisory Board, and volunteers with the Shimmy Club, a Miami-based non-profit that teaches Argentine tango to blind and deaf teenagers. Michiko is the founder & director of Delray Beach’s Swinton Community Garden, begun in 2008.

Dinyar Mehta believes that vibrant democracies are fueled by the active participation by politicians and their constituents in the political process. Apathy is not a choice for him which is why he strongly believes in the mission of Auroras Voice and The P-poll: Making government responsive to the will of the people by a process of requiring Reps to poll their constituents about House bills. In addition to being passionate about politics and representative democracy, Dinyar works for Thomson Reuters, the leading global provider of intelligent information solutions for businesses and professionals.

Dave Van Camp has fourteen years professional experience as the highest level technology manager in multiple organizations. Dave was a founding partner and Chief Technology Officer of a web consulting firm based in Cincinnati. His responsibilities and assignments were wide ranging, including guiding fortune 500 companies through complete site redesigns to leading the development of custom web applications for clients using open source tools. Dave is the CEO of Delray Consulting Group, providing CTO-level consulting to businesses, entrepreneurs, and designers.

* Auroras Voice, no apostrophe, is spelled correctly, like Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.