Lance Hill

Lance Hill was born in Belleville, Kansas, and raised in Lawrence. He was active in debate and Student Council president at Lawrence High School and graduated in 1968.

He joined the peace movement at the University of Kansas and was expelled for a demonstration against the Vietnam War in his freshman year. He became a full-time anti-war and anti-racism activist and eventually moved to Kansas City where he worked as a welder and labor organizer. In Kansas City, he met his wife, Eileen Sanjuan, and they started raising three children: Lisa, John, and Joel.  In 1979, he moved to Louisiana to do anti-racist organizing against the Klan.

When neo-Nazi and Klansman David Duke launched his electoral career in 1989, Hill organized a multi-racial coalition to counter him, which played a pivotal role in defeating Duke’s 1990 bid for U.S. Senate and the 1990 bid for Louisiana Governor. Hill then founded the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University as a long-term anti-prejudice education project in the Deep South. The Institute provided teacher education using the history of the Holocaust and the Civil Rights movement to teach the causes and consequences of racial and religious bigotry.  The institute trained thousands of teachers during its 22 years of existence. 

Along the way, Hill earned a PhD in history from Tulane and wrote a book on a black armed self-defense civil rights group, The Deacons of Defense. In 2015, when Hurricane Katrina hit and flooded New Orleans, Hill refused to evacuate and stayed to provide aid to stranded residents.  Hill dedicated his remaining years in New Orleans to journalism and activism to promote justice for displaced black residents.

He returned home to Lawrence in 2022.