New Peace & Justice director hired

Chris Moore-Backman, a 41-year-old Chico resident, Gandhi scholar and peace activist who grew up in San Diego, has been named director of the Chico Peace & Justice Center (526 Broadway). He replaces Tammy Wichman, who stepped down a few weeks ago after a year and a half on the job.

“He’s an amazing guy,” said Sue Hilderbrand, a former CPJC director who recently served as interim director. “He’s done peace work in Colombia, and [his graduate studies were on] Gandhi’s influence on Martin Luther King and the civil-rights movement.”

Moore-Backman (pictured) is currently at work on a “radio documentary series being distributed through PRX, based on Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” said Hilderbrand.