Facing Race 2026 is rooted in the people, histories, and movements that have shaped Raleigh and communities across North Carolina. Our Host Committee brings together organizers, advocates, educators, storytellers, environmental justice leaders, legal experts, and movement builders whose work reflects the spirit of this year's theme: Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity.
These leaders represent decades of commitment to racial, social, environmental, and economic justice. Their lived experiences, local knowledge, and deep relationships within the community help ensure that Facing Race is not simply hosted in Raleigh but grounded in the people and movements that continue to advance justice throughout the region.
As ambassadors, advisors, and connectors, the Host Committee helps strengthen the conference's ties to local communities while creating opportunities for attendees to engage with the rich history, culture, and ongoing organizing work taking place across North Carolina!
We are honored to introduce the members of the Facing Race 2026 Host Committee.
Host Committee
Courtney Napier
Local Coordinator, Race Forward
Courtney Napier (she/her/hers) is a writer, convener, intuitive guide, IDEA consultant, and certified CRM teacher from Raleigh, North Carolina. She has a passion for guiding individuals and groups in becoming their favorite selves and empowering them to embody radical self-trust in order to achieve their goals and contribute to our collective liberation.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
“Rooted in resistance, powered by solidarity” is the perfect way to describe how North Carolinians have always approached liberation work. From the creation of the Fusion Party in 1894 to the founding of SNCC at Shaw University in 1960, and the students who formed Young Americans Protest in 2016, resistance efforts in North Carolina have been multi-cultural more often than not.” The slogan for this year’s conference honors the work North Carolinians have done to not only push back against injustice, but also become a beloved community.
Dania Santana
Language Justice Practitioner, Embracing Diversity
International Speaker, Published Author, and Language Justice Practitioner, Dania Santana, is a language worker of over 25 years. Her work within language justice, inclusion and identity has allowed her to guide organizations to expand language access and language justice across communities. She is an Afro-Latina journalist, writer, and popular education trainer with an antiracist lens.
Dania has worked for organizations at the national, regional and state levels both in the private and non-profit sectors. Her mission is to help build a multilingual society in which people are empowered to bring their whole selves to every space they enter. She has been featured in CNN en Español, Parents Latina, Ser Padres, Univision, Forbes Book Radio, and more!
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
To me, “Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity” means to be grounded in justice, cultural preservation, and collective action. It speaks to resisting systems that exclude, silence, or marginalize people while honoring the resilience, experiences, and histories that shape communities. I believe it emphasizes the belief that meaningful change is sustained through solidarity, relationships, and shared leadership.
Peter Gilbert
Litigation Director, NC Justice Center
Peter Gilbert is the Litigation Director of the North Carolina Justice Center and has been an activist in in labor, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, and environmental justice struggles for more than twenty years. Prior to law school, He worked as an organizer on the UFCW campaign to win union representation at the Smithfield Foods pork packing house in Tar Heel, NC After graduating from UNC Law, he worked for 4 years as a legal fellow at the UNC Center for Civil Rights with a focus on school desegregation, excluded communities, and environmental racism. Peter authored “The State of Exclusion,” a report on the legacy of housing segregation on political power, school districts, and environmental racism across North Carolina. He then worked at Legal Aid of North Carolina, founding the Durham Eviction Diversion program and then leading a statewide Tenant Eviction Diversion program and litigating Fair Housing cases before joining the Justice Center last year. He serves on the board of the Southern Vision Alliance and the NC Environmental Justice Network.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
Our best hope for defeating the increasingly violent oppression of people in the United States and across the world is solidarity among working and oppressed people here, in the belly of the beast, and internationally, that is rooted in an understanding of prior social movements and an understanding of the systemic racism and oppression at the core of this system.
Rania Masri
Co Director, NC Environmental Justice Network
Since 1990, Rania Masri has organized for justice and against systems of oppression and wars—through protests, teach-ins, and conferences; political organizing; public speaking training; and writings, research, and media work.
She taught holistic environmental sciences (including environmental justice) at the university level for nearly two decades. She served as an expert in the Court of Conscience, where she presented testimony on the environmental impact of the 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon, and as a juror in the 2025 Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal.
She recognizes the intersectionality of struggles and the need to stand in solidarity, not in charity. In awe of the wonder, language, and beautiful socialist nature of trees in a forest, she dreams of a world in which we all strive to be Mother Trees. In honor of the land and the resistance fighters, she asks: What can we achieve today for tomorrow’s world?
Rania joined NCEJN in June 2022 as Co-Director, and Director of Organizing and Policy.
She got her PhD from NCSU in 2000, her Masters in Environmental Management from Duke University in 1995, and her BS in Conservation of Natural Resources from NCSU in 1993.
Rania has lived in Raleigh for 44% of her life.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
It is a strategy for revolution. Rooted means grounded, tied to the earth, to the land, to our history. Resistance starts with identifying the harm itself, and then honoring our ancestors by learning how to win. Rooted in Resistance means the rejection of the destructive, colonialist “inevitability argument.” Powered by Solidarity means recognizing the intersectionalities of our struggles, so that we reject the problematic 'siloed' organizing and stand together, organize together, and win together. Together for a transformational change, grounded in revolutionary optimism.
Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock
Lead Curator (Executive Director), WE ARE (working to extend anti-racist education, Inc)
Dr. Ronda Taylor Bullock, originally from Goldston, North Carolina, is an educator, motherscholar, and national thought leader in anti-racist education. She earned her doctorate in education policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where her research focused on critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, white children’s racial identity construction, and anti-racism.
She is the co-founder and Lead Curator (Executive Director) of WE ARE (Working to Extend Anti-Racist Education), a nonprofit that collaborates with children, families, and educators to build liberatory, culturally-affirming learning spaces that dismantle systemic racism in schools and beyond. In 2023, she was recognized as an emerging Black leader at Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence and participated in a White House convening on issues impacting Black communities; she previously taught high school English in Durham, North Carolina. A proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Dr. Taylor Bullock is deeply committed to educational justice and community engagement as a wife, mother of two, and lifelong advocate for racial equity.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
"Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity" reminds me that Black people have grown from a legacy of people who knew that better was possible. It reminds me that none of us can do this work alone and that we need each other to move racial equity forward.
Resistance is not simply opposition; it is the daily practice of choosing courage over comfort, truth over silence. As a Black woman, motherscholar, and anti-racist educator, I stand on the shoulders of those who resisted before me. Their resistance created possibilities that I now have the responsibility to extend.
Valerie Ann Johnson
Co-Director/Director of Infrastructure & Development, North Carolina Environmental Justice Network
Dr. Valerie Ann Johnson is a scholar/activist, currently working as Co-Director and Director of Infrastructure and Development for the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network (NCEJN) North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. Formerly Dean of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC, Dr. Johnson served in the Academy for over 30 years in a variety of positions. She is experienced in connecting undergraduate and graduate students, especially at HBCUs, with community groups working on health equity and environmental justice issues. She is also a member of the North Carolina Governor’s Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
Service on other boards and commissions includes: the North Carolina (NC) African American Heritage Commission (chair), the NC Historical Commission, NC Maritime History Council, the Humanities Action Lab (HAL) Advisory Committee, Preservation NC (immediate past chair), and NC Opera.
Dr. Johnson is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at North Carolina State University. Her research, conducted in Costa Rica, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, the Seychelles Islands and the US, centers on gender, bioethics, disability, the health of women and girls, African American foodways and environmental justice. She is co-editor with Dr. Lynn Harris of Excavating the Histories of Slave-Trade and Pirate Ships: Property, Plunder, and Loss about the intersection of maritime archaeology with the study of pirates and the slave-trade.
A core aspect of Dr. Johnson’s ongoing community/science-centered justice work is to promote public participation in science research as a board member for the Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences (AAPS) and through grants funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology from UC Berkeley, a M.A. in Sociology from Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), and a B.A. in Sociology from Spelman College. Dr. Johnson also completed doula training specializing in providing Black women birthing assistance.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
It brings to my mind a line from one of our Freedom Songs - "like a tree planted by the water, I (we) shall not be moved." And the roots of the trees planted by the water are interconnected creating a solidarity that is strong and not readily visible. That is what NCEJN is all about - the hidden power and strength of a network of organizations working and existing collaboratively drawing power from each other in fight for justice.
Letha Muhammad
Co-Executive Director, Education Justice Alliance
Letha Muhammad is one of the founders and Co-Executive Director of Education Justice Alliance (EJA), based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is working to advance the organization’s mission to dismantle the School to Prison and School to Deportation Pipeline and to advance equity in public schools across North Carolina. Letha also represents EJA by serving as co-chair on the coordinating committee for Every Child NC, a statewide coalition working to ensure equitable funding for North Carolina public schools. She also co-founded HEAL Together NC coalition in 2022, a multi-racial coalition working to protect and transform North Carolina public schools from extremists’ efforts to dismantle equity priorities like the accurate teaching of history, culturally affirming curriculum, and social and emotional support for students. She serves as Senior Co-Chair of the NC Justice Center Board of Directors and Treasurer of the Board of As-Salaam Islamic Center of Raleigh. She is also a wife and the mother of three public school graduates and is a proud grandmother to one grandson.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
The legacy we have inherited from the oppressed people of these lands is one of resistance against colonization, white supremacy and racism. Our most powerful forms of resistance have happened when we have done it across race, class or difference. Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity means this is the way we win and create the world we all deserve.
Jenice Ramirez
Co-Executive Director, Education Justice Alliance
Jenice Ramirez-Garvin is a proud Latina with deep roots in Puerto Rico and an organizer who has spent over 15 years building power with families and communities across North Carolina. As Co-Executive Director of the Education Justice Alliance, she organizes Black and Latine parents and youth to lead campaigns that transform public education.
Jenice believes students and families most impacted by inequities must be at the center of change. She has supported parent and youth leaders statewide to challenge exclusionary discipline, advocate for fully funded public schools, and advance policies rooted in care, dignity, and belonging.
A former special education teacher, Jenice brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work in long-term movement building. Outside of organizing, she finds joy at the beach and spending time with her husband and daughter, Iva.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
For me, it means honoring the generations of people who have fought for justice not just in this country but my own, and that today more than ever resistance and solidarity is the only thing that is going to get us to true liberation.
Angela Ma
Committee Member
Angela Ma is an education director at a Montessori school in Raleigh, NC. She is a queer nature lover who lives in Durham, NC, though Angela is a Raleigh native.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
For me, as a white queer woman, I'm impassioned to show up in whatever capacity can lift Black voices in the community. The strongest resistance is powered by solidarity and it can only be achieved when the voices can speak the truths that power attempts to silence.
Ashley G
Social Innovator
I’m an Afro-Indigenous advocate, historian, genealogist, and psychic medium. Being born and bred in Raleigh equips me with passion I’m aiming to instill in others through dedication, education, & conversation about the city.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
This means that various ethnicities and marginalized communities that’ve adapted to various forms of disenfranchisement benefit by coming together to support each other.
Dreama Caldwell
Executive Co-Director, We are Down Home
Dreama J. Caldwell is the co-director of Down Home North Carolina, a grassroots rural organizing group working in small towns and country places across the state. Down Home NC is her political home and it is where she first learned more about local, state and national politics. She is a native to Alamance County where she attended school and raised her children. Before coming into leadership at Down Home, Dreama spent over 20 years in early childhood education and hospitality. After a negative experience with the Alamance County criminal justice system, Dreama joined Down Home as a member working in the Stop Criminalizing the Poor working group helping to start the Alamance Bail Fund. She later ran for County Commissioner as the first Black woman to run and win a primary election in the county. Using her own lived experiences and uplifting the experiences of others, she is focused on leadership development of working class people and fighting for racial justice.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity to me means honoring the struggles that came before us while building the collective power to create what comes next. Resistance is refusing to accept injustice; solidarity is choosing to fight for liberation together, across race, place, and difference. It means leading with courage, telling the truth, embracing principled struggle, and believing that lasting change happens when ordinary people organize, heal, and move as one.
Corina De La Torre, Ph.D.
Manager of Policy, Research and Community Engagement
Corina De La Torre, Ph.D., is a first-generation Chicana scholar and grassroots organizer who bridges rigorous research and community-based advocacy to advance racial equity in education and public systems. She holds a doctorate in Teacher Education and Learning Sciences from North Carolina State University, where her research focused on the educational experiences of students of color and the psychological and structural dimensions of educational inequity. She currently serves as Manager of Policy, Research, and Community Engagement at the Center for Racial Equity in Education (CREED), where she leads evidence-based policy research, translates findings for legislative advocacy and communities. Her work spans research synthesis and analysis, policy translation, coalition building, and community organizing with a particular focus on making research a tool for organizing and systems change. Dr. De La Torre strives toward long-term policy change that results in safe, thriving neighborhoods and schools.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity reflects how I have come to understand racial justice work through organizing from the West Coast to the South. In Salinas, where I grew up, we fiercely cherish our history and deeply honor our immigrant roots. A story of sacrifice, resilience, and hope built on the labor and resistance of generations of immigrants whose organizing gave rise to movements like the Chicano movement and the United Farm Workers. This foundation shaped how I understand community power: as something collectively built, across generations and across differences.
Derrik Anderson
Principal, D. Anderson Associates, LLC
Derrik Anderson, based in Charlotte, NC, is a nationally recognized equity strategist, executive coach, and systems-change leader with over 25 years of experience at the intersection of racial justice, organizational transformation, and workforce development. He most recently served as the inaugural Executive Director of Race Matters for Juvenile Justice (RMJJ), where he led a cross-sector coalition of judges, attorneys, educators, human services, non-profit and community leaders, and policymakers working to eliminate racial disproportionality in juvenile justice.
Derrik is now Founder & Principal Consultant of D. Anderson & Associates, LLC, where he partners with executives, organizations, and teams on leadership development, executive coaching, and systems-driven organizational change. A sought-after keynote speaker and facilitator, he has addressed national audiences at events including the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), and the National Association of Social Workers-NC, and serves on the Executive Governing Board of the American Public Human Services Association and the Racial & Ethnic Disparities Subcommittee of the North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission.
A recipient of the 2024 MLK "Growing the Dream" Award, Charlotte, NC and 2024 NASW-NC Social Worker of the Year, Derrik brings clinical depth, executive acuity, and deep community trust to his work advancing racial equity across sectors and leadership development.
What does Rooted in Resistance, Powered by Solidarity mean to you?
I spent nearly a decade and a half with Race Matters for Juvenile Justice from the ground up, sitting across the table from judges, attorneys, education and juvenile justice leaders, government agencies, non-profit and community leader who didn't always agree but who kept showing up because something in them refused to accept that a child's future should be shaped by race in the juvenile justice system. That refusal, sustained over years, is what resistance rooted in something real looks like to me.
Now, in my work coaching executives and leading organizations through change, I see the other half of that equation, solidarity. Resistance rarely moves systems alone; it takes coalitions of people willing to lend their power and influence for a cause that isn't only theirs. I've watched unlikely partners choose each other over comfort, again, and again and that choice is where I've always found to be hopeful. To be rooted in resistance and powered by solidarity is to know that the work outlives anyone’s role or title, it’s carried forward by everyone who decides to stay in it together for a common cause.
Don Cavellini
Co-Chair, The Pitt Co. Coalition Against Racism, (CAR)
I’ve lived in Eastern NC for the last 41 years after being born and raised in Bronx, NY. I started community-based organizing with the East Harlem Tenants Council in 1965. I helped empower South Bronx residents in organizing rent strikes to get livable housing conditions as a member of Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) I then helped found a community-based organization of white ethnics called “White Lightening” which fought racism and collaborated with the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords Organization.
While in NC, I followed the revolutionary leadership of the Black Workers for Justice, (BWFJ), and helped found the Pitt Co. Coalition Against Racism, (CAR),, the NC Environmental Justice Network, and the NC Public Service workers Union, (UE Local 150). I am an active participant in 2 other Community-Based Participatory Research Projects (CBPRs) – The Center for Thriving Communities [previously, the Center for Health Equity Research, (CHER)], out of UNC-Chapel Hill and Edgecombe and Nash Counties, and the East Carolina University Water Resources Center. In a successful effort to stop a huge Data Processing Center from siting in Pitt Co., we formed the North of the River Association, (NOTRA), about 5 years ago.