Trisha Meili, the woman who became known as the Central Park jogger after her brutal 1989 rape and beating in New York City, will be one of three presenters headlining the second annual Women’s Center of Jacksonville speaker series.
Meili is scheduled to speak May 1. She authored the memoir, “I am the Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility.”
The Women’s Center of Jacksonville 2012 Speaker Series, “Women, Words and Wisdom,” begins March 6 with Shannon Miller. Charlene Taylor Hill will speak March 27, and Meili will conclude the series. The lectures will be held at Theatre Jacksonville in San Marco.
Each program begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m. The lecture and a question-and-answer session will follow at 6:30 p.m.
Miller, a Jacksonville resident, is an Olympic gold medalist and the most decorated American gymnast in history. She is a health and fitness advocate and a cancer survivor. “Through her personal stories of trial and triumph, Shannon shares with her audience the importance of ‘balance’ in our efforts to be successful and live a healthy and fit lifestyle,” said a news release from the Women’s Center.
Hill is executive director of the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission. The center said that after a committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reported in 1996 that Jacksonville had the “worst race relations of any major city in Florida,” Hill became involved to reverse the title. She helped to start the Study Circle Program, designed to build bonds between participants.
“She believes passionately that discrimination should not exist in the laws governing employment, housing and public accommodations and works hard to improve race relations in Jacksonville,” according to the release.
Meili’s story “is about the capacity of the human body and spirit to heal. Her journey through the healing process allowed Trisha to move from victim to survivor to thriving. She reclaimed her life and become whole again. It is an amazing story that is worth hearing,” said the release.
In 1989, Meili went for a run in New York’s Central Park.
Hours later, two men wandering the park found her near death from a brutal beating and rape. In a coma, with an 80 percent blood loss, a traumatic brain injury and severe exposure, doctors worried that she would not survive, said the release.
The series benefits the Women’s Center’s Expanded Horizons Adult Literacy Program for Women. Ticket prices are $100 for the series, $40 for a single lecture.
For information, visit www.womenscenterofjax.org or call 722-3000.