Speakers
Alejandra Pablos is a reproductive justice organizer and storyteller at the intersections mass incarceration and immigration. She shares her abortion story as an act of resistance to fight abortion stigma and bring awareness to abolition and racial justice. Fighting against her deportation for 12 years now has informed her advocacy. Her work and writing has been featured in Teen Vogue, Elle, NPR, Democracy Now, Colorlines, ReWire News, and many more. You can follow her journey to Abolish ICE and her own deportation case at KeepAleFree.org.
Alex Ames (any pronouns - 20) is a queer Georgia student and an organizing leader with the Georgia Youth Justice Coalition. The Georgia Youth Justice Coalition is the largest organizing force in the state, spanning 28 counties, thousands of students, and countless victories in multiracial, intergenerational organizing. Alex is best known for their leadership in victories against numerous racial gerrymandering attacks on school boards serving two million Georgia residents, securing the best budget for GA public education in two decades this past spring, and stopping GA’s Don't Say Gay with peers. She attends college in Atlanta.
Gomez, executive director of LUCHA, has dedicated her life to social justice and building community through power grassroots organizing. While at LUCHA, Alex helped lead the effort to raise Arizona’s minimum wage and turn Arizona blue in 2020. She comes to LUCHA following the Adios Arpaio campaign in 2010, which culminated in 2016 with the defeat of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And, rooted in her family’s immigration struggle, she led the organizing efforts for DAPA and expanded DACA at United We Dream National Network as the National Deputy Organizing Director. She also was a Regional Field Director for Organizing for America. Alejandra lives in Phoenix and holds a B.A. in Political Science from Arizona State University, and has graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School of Executive Education Certificate Program “Leadership, Organizing & Action.”
Alma Cervantes a proud Brown, Chicana, Indigenous woman and mother of two beautiful girls named Annavi and Aitana. She has led the Education Equity Justice Action Team for Building Healthy Communities-Monterey County for the last 8 years at a local, county and state level. Part of her vision with the education work is to transform our education system into a more Racially Just Relationship Centered. She has more than 10 years of expertise in community engagement, grassroots-organizing, policy advocacy and culturally rooted healing informed practices. Working closely with education leaders across statewide, parents, and students to dismantle the School-To-Prison Pipeline by creating positive and transformative environments where all students can thrive. She is a former consultant for National Compadres Network as a facilitator for Healing-Centered, Culturally Rooted curriculums for youth and parents. A former fellow for Women’s Policy Institute that focuses on building women leaders to work on public policies that support historically oppressed communities across California. She received a Bachelor of Arts in World Languages and Culture from Cal State Monterey Bay and a master's degree in Mexican American Studies with an emphasis on Policy and
Education at San Jose University.
Amani is a raptivist, storyteller and abolitionist with over 15 years of experience in youth education, performance arts and community outreach. Award-winning poet and rapper, amani combines artistic expression and project-based learning to facilitate healing dialogue and liberation workshops with individuals, groups and organizations. amani is driven to uplift love, creativity and service as necessary expressions of rebellion against a sense of disconnection and hopelessness that threatens our collective peace and wellness. Stardust aims to inspire all those they come into contact with to remember their magic, trust their vision and share their unique gifts with the world.
Amber has expertise in organizational and leadership development, change management, and capacity building of nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors, emphasizing awareness of context as a crucial component to advance equity and inclusivity in organizations and in the communities they serve. Her experience with racial equity includes the evaluations of a collaborative of nine national racial equity organizations enhancing civic engagement and cross-racial messaging, leadership development programs with equity at the core, and the development of an organizational learning agenda for a nonprofit intermediary. Amber served as the director of the Race, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiative at NeighborWorks America.
A first-generation student-athlete who graduated from the University of Arizona. Since graduating from the University of Arizona, he has been a Ted speaker, an Emerging Leader in Fair Housing, a Black Futures Lab Policy Fellow, and a Monzon Institute Policy Fellow. Most recently, Andres was a Senior Policy Advisor with the City of Tucson and left to run for City Council. After losing his election, he began working as the lead Pima County organizer with Mass Liberation His hobbies include traveling, Urban Planning, Health Equity, and jumping out of planes.
Anika is the co-founding Co-Executive Director of We Make the Future (WMTF) and We Make the Future Action (WMTFA). WMTF/A launched in early 2021 to combine strategic communications and coalition building to implement race forward narratives that motivate our base and persuade the middle for wins that allow all our communities to thrive. Anika leads WMTF/A’s strategic direction and engagements in partnership with researchers, content creators, labor and community based organizations to bridge narrative and practice through creative implementation. Anika was the former Director of Race Class Narrative Action where she led the outreach and partnerships of organizations spanning seven Midwestern states. Prior to Race Class Narrative Action, she managed the inception of the Race Class Narrative which originated through a collaboration between ASO Communications, Heather McGhee and Ian Haney López in 2017. In 2016, Anika also became a Registered Nurse and continues to practice pediatric and community health nursing to stay grounded in the impact of our policies on the lives of families.
Anna is a White mom in Phoenix, AZ with White elementary school-aged kids who attend a global majority school in their urban neighborhood. Anna has an undergraduate degree in public policy, management and planning with an emphasis in community organizing. She has been involved with Integrated Schools since 2016, and has served on the Caregiver Advisory Board and Leadership Team since 2019.
April Brown is an educator, artist, ordained minister, and Interim Director of the Racial and Environmental Justice Committee (REJC) of Providence living in Providence, RI. The REFC is a collaborative initiative by the City of Providence and its frontline, communities of color to bring a racial equity lens to the City’s sustainability agenda. The REJC developed the Just Providence Framework, the City’s climate justice plan, and implementation of the City’s Green Justice Zones. Ms. Brown holds a Bachelors of Arts (BA) degree from the American University, in Washington, DC, and a Master’s in Education from the University of Rhode Island.
Ashley is a Senior Staff Attorney at Advancement Project, she is on the Opportunity to Learn team, working to build out AP’s vision of abundance and liberation for Black girls and femmes in public schools. From 2018-2021 Ashley was the Policy Director and Senior Director of Campaigns at Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) in Brooklyn, NY. Ashley developed GGE’s policy and organizing infrastructure to expand opportunities and well-being for young people, especially cis and trans youth of color, through city and state policies, coalition work, and legislative advocacy. Ashley was previously a staff attorney at Youth Represent, where she led the representation of youth facing school suspension hearings, and supported the organization’s School Justice Project. She also represented young people in misdemeanor criminal court, licensing hearings, housing court, and other civil legal issues. She led the reentry legal representation for girls and youth placed on the “womens” side of NYC jails. Ashley’s life work is situated where education justice and the criminal legal system collide, she is committed to dismantling prisons and all forms of state violence, to build communities that invest in Black youth rather than harming them.
Ashley was previously a Stoneleigh Emerging Leader Fellow/Staff Attorney at the Education Law Center-PA, where she did special education litigation on behalf of criminalized youth, and policy projects focused on dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline, she also led a project focused on reducing the disproportionate school exclusion of Black girls in Philadelphia. Ashley is an alumna of the Howard University School of Law and Douglass College at Rutgers University. She is licensed to practice in the State of New York.
Ashley K. Thomas is a researcher, facilitator, and coach standing with communities healing for liberation and decolonization. She is the co-founder of 'Retreat + Reimagine', a collective respite space to reimagine our movements and to create community care for Black transwomen, Black non-binary folx, + Black cis women change agents in transformative movements in Southern California. She also serves as a Project Manager at USC Equity Research Institute where she conducts research on building governing power in disinvested communities, supporting transformative movement culture, and creating inclusive and equitable economies. She is also a liberatory coach supporting individuals and organizations to reconnect to collectivist power and craft radical cultures of being together. Ashley has spent nearly 15 years in movement work, building power with communities of color, particularly for women of color, as experts who can create innovative solutions to our collective challenges.
Asif is the Director of Strategy & Impact at PicMo. He has spent his career focused on the intersection of media, technology, and social impact, with a special focus on education, LGBTQ+ rights, & gender equality. He has worked for nonprofits and also served as an adjunct professor at the St. Johns University Graduate School of Communication. Asif started his career in social impact at the United Nations Foundation managing global programs and creating long-term partnerships. In addition, he has held high-level positions managing programs and guiding strategy at DoSomething, Games for Change, Room to Read, & Action Against Hunger.
Azza is a senior policy manager at Liberation in a Generation, a national movement support organization building the power of people of color to transform the economy. Previously, Azza worked as a senior program manager at the Groundwork Collaborative, and a research and advocacy manager for the Center for American Progress' disability policy project. Currently, Azza remains active in local community organizing formations. She is also an advisor to the Center for Democracy and Technology’s project on algorithmic fairness and disability rights, and an advisor to “Raising the Bar: Health Care’s Transforming Role,” a multi-year health equity project.
Barbara Ramirez GJ Associate Producer Barbara Ramirez is a 21 year old journalism student and facilitator born in Venezuela. She is a junior at the University of New Mexico majoring in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in Political science. Barbara has been a member of Generation Justice since 2017. She started as a GJ youth media producer, then become a Media Justice intern in the Summer of 2019. She was part of the 2019/2020 Cultivating Leaders Practicum, and is now the Associate Producer for Generation Justice. Barbara Ramirez was a co-facilitator for the 2022 Leaders for Change fellowship.
NEA president Becky Pringle is a fierce social justice warrior, defender of educator rights, an
unrelenting advocate for all students and communities of color, and a valued and respected voice
in the education arena. A middle school science teacher with 31 years of classroom experience,
Becky is singularly focused on using her intellect, passion, and purpose to unite the members of
the largest labor union with the entire nation, and using that collective power to transform public
education into a racially and socially just and equitable system that is designed to prepare every
student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.
Becky’s passion for students and educators, combined with her first-hand classroom experience,
equip her to lead the movement to reclaim public education as a common good. Becky was
elected in 2020 as COVID-19 ravaged Black, Brown, and indigenous communities nationwide.
Before assuming NEA’s top post, Becky served as NEA vice president and before that as NEA
secretary-treasurer. She directed NEA’s work to combat institutional racism, and spotlight
systemic patterns of racism and educational injustice that impact students. Under Becky’s
guidance, NEA works to widen access and opportunity by demanding changes to policies,
programs, and practices. The Association’s goal is to ensure the systemic, fair treatment of
people of all races so that equitable opportunities and outcomes are within reach for every
student. This is why Becky is a staunch advocate for students who have disabilities, identify as
LGBTQ+, are immigrants, or English Language Learners.
Those who know Becky best know that she is also a passionate Philadelphia Eagles fan, loves
anything purple, and for two special someones holds the coveted title of “Best Nana B” in the
world.
Bernard "the Famous" Moore is the Education Director of the Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) Racial Justice Center. With more than 30 plus years in the Labor Movement, Bernard has been instrumental in socializing the learnings of the Race Class Narrative and Analysis. Famous enjoys DJing and practicing photography in his spare time.
Bo is the Senior Projects Analyst on SGC’s High Speed Rail (HSR) and Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) team. Bo’s unique position focuses on project implementation efforts in HSR station communities in areas of existing state investments and builds cross-agency and programmatic partnerships. Bo served previously on SGC’s Health and Equity Program team and brings a strong health and racial equity lens to this position. He believes that the High-Speed Rail is more than transportation infrastructure – it’s also a way to transform communities and people's lives by creating greater access to goods, services, and ideas.
Bridgit Antoinette Evans is widely recognized as one of the foremost thought leaders in the
culture change strategy field. A professional artist and strategist, she has dedicated her career to
the relentless investigation of the potential of artists to drive cultural change in society. Fifteen
years of work at the intersection of pop culture storytelling and social change has evolved into a
vision for a new, hybrid culture change field in which creative and social justice leaders work
together to create and popularize stories that shape the narratives, values, beliefs and behaviors
that define American culture. In 2016, Bridgit was a Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow, piloting
Culture Changes Us, a coordinated learning system designed to accelerate the social justice
sectors’ understanding and use of culture change strategy. For Unbound Philanthropy and Ford
Foundation, she has led multi-year culture change research and strategy design projects aimed
at unearthing breakthrough narrative and engagement strategies for the immigrant rights and
gender justice movements.
In 2008, Bridgit founded Fuel | We Power Change, a culture change strategy studio in New York
City, as the home for her collaborations with leading social change innovators. Through this work
she designed long-term culture change strategies for social movements that used transportive
story experiences, often in the pop culture realm, to shift the thoughts and feelings of mass
audiences. Strategy design commissions include the NYCLU/ACLU Policing Project, Make It Work
campaign, National Domestic Workers Alliance’s #BeTheHelp strategy featuring Viola Davis,
Octavia Spencer, Cicely Tyson, Amy Poehler and other artists; Breakthrough’s #ImHere for
Immigrant Women strategy; GEMS’ Girls Are Not for Sale strategy featuring Beyonce, Demi
Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Sinead O’Connor, Mary J Blige and more; and Save Darfur’s “Live for
Darfur” campaign chaired by Don Cheadle and Djimon Hounsou. Drawing insights from these
commissions, Bridgit has traveled by invitation to the UK, France, Austria, Croatia, Brazil, South
Africa and throughout the U.S. to present talks, lectures and workshops for some of the world’s
most innovative movement leaders and artists. She often points to her roots as a professional Off
Broadway actor and devised theater producer as the source of her deep passion for culture
change strategy. She received her MFA from Columbia University and BA from Stanford
University.
Brittany Schulman is an enrolled citizen of the Waccamaw Siouan Tribe. As a traditional storyteller, Brittany’s perspective is grounded in her experience growing up in her Waccamaw Siouan community. As an advocate, Brittany has served in many leadership roles to ensure that Native Americans and Indigenous values are not only included but also at the forefront in every conversation. Brittany is currently the Vice President of Indigenous Leadership & Education Programs, where she continues her work as an organizer and educator.
Carlton Eley is Senior Director for Federal Strategies for Race Forward. He joined Race Forward following a long career of encouraging planning and policy solutions that are responsive to the needs of underserved communities and vulnerable populations. Carlton was the first urban planner hired by the Office of Environmental Justice at U.S. EPA. From 2015 to 2019, Carlton completed multiple projects that served to re-energize the American Planning Association’s focus on advancing equity, including chairing the Social Equity Task Force. Carlton was the 2021 Sojourner Truth Fellow for Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Charlene Sinclair is an organizer, thinker, and writer whose work centers on the intersection of race, economic justice and democracy. Charlene serves as a consultant, trainer, and adviser to leading social change organizations and individual prophetic leaders. Strongly influenced by the pathbreaking thought of the late James Cone, Dr. Sinclair helps to fashion strategies that embrace a liberationist approach to faith and spirituality in the context of popular struggles for racial and economic justice.
Christina Cummings serves as vice president of operations at Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE) and project manager of the Justice40 Accelerator, an effort to ensure federal agencies work with states and local communities to deliver at least 40 percent of federal investments in climate and clean energy to disadvantaged communities. Cummings works on the front lines with nonprofits and community organizations. A solutions-driven leader and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience across multiple professional sectors including the City of Atlanta, the City of South Fulton, her own restaurant, and as a United States Marine.
Christopher Coes serves as the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy. Coes previously served as Vice President for Land Use and Development at Smart Growth America (SGA), Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Professor at George Washington University, and Deputy Director and Senior Advisor for the Transportation for America campaign.
Christopher Wilson (he/him) is the 1st Vice-President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Ontario Canada Chapter. Christopher is a community and labour activist with over 20 years experience advocating for workers within their workplaces, Unions and communities. Christopher is co-investigator in the Green is Not White Research project that has engaged over 3,000 labour and community activists in participatory workshops to confront Environmental Racism.
Crystal Huang is the National Coordinator of the Energy Democracy Project. She has established a uniquely collaborative culture within the Energy Democracy Project since the publication of the book “Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions” in 2017 that spotlighted the accomplishments and resource needs of energy democracy practitioners across the country. Apart from her national work, she also works full-time leading a movement cooperative called People Power Solar Cooperative in California. She is a 2020 Roddenberry Fellow and a grassroots community-builder with more than 10 years of experience deploying climate solution technologies.
Crystal Reyes is the new Co-Director of Organizing at the NWBCCC, having previously served as SBUs Director, Crystal played an important role in developing an Academic Success Center model that brings together academics and organizing. As a first-generation Latinx from the Bronx, she's experienced in restorative justice practices, trained within an LGBTQIA anti-oppression framework, and has extensive knowledge of navigating the education system. Crystal brings a tremendous amount of expertise in supporting a diverse youth population, primarily female-identified, gender non-conforming youth, immigrant, and ESL youth. As an experienced trainer, she is committed to developing a powerful youth leadership pipeline.
Cynthia Diaz is an organizer for the ACLU of Arizona’s Demand to Learn campaign, aimed at ending exclusionary policies and practices that push children out of Arizona classrooms. Cynthia was born and raised in South Phoenix, as a first-generation American, daughter of immigrants (from an indigenous village in Guerrero, Mexico). Cynthia is a graduate of the University of Arizona with a dual-degree in Mexican-American Studies and Latin American Studies and a minor in Leadership Studies and Practices. In April 2014, Cynthia was successful in reuniting her family after her mother was deported in 2011 due to SB1070.
Dante King is a native of San Francisco. Dante is an author, historian, scholar, thought-leader, facilitator, and coach. He is also a human resources professional, specializing in the implementation of anti-racist practice, organizational development and change. This includes racial equity, racial repair, racial relief, and inclusion strategies. Dante also specializes in bias capacity building, with more than 20 years professional and academic experience.
With over 25 years of leadership and advocacy experience, Darlene joined Rockwood in 2012 as a member of the training team. She previously served as deputy executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, executive director of the BET Foundation, chief operating officer at NAMI and founder of its Multicultural and International Policy Center, and director of LGBT affairs in the Executive Office of the Mayor of D.C. Darlene, a native Washingtonian, is also an ordained interfaith minister, practices mindfulness meditation, deep presence, and living joy.
DeAngelo Mack has been a leader in community-based solutions to improve the overall health outcomes for the most marginalized. For more than two decades he has worked tirelessly to illuminate the vast disproportionate disparities experienced by blacks and people of color. He currently serves as Public Health Advocates Director of Equity Justice and the HAVI's Senior Advisor for Technical Assistance and Frontline Staff.
Deepa Iyer is a Senior Advisor at Building Movement Project and Director of Solidarity Is, a project that provides trainings, narratives, and resources on building deep and lasting multiracial solidarity. Iyer is a South Asian American writer, lawyer, strategist, facilitator, and activist whose areas of expertise include the post 9/11 America experiences of South Asian, Muslim, Arab and Sikh immigrants, immigration and civil rights policies, and racial equity and solidarity practices.
Iyer’s first book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future, received a 2016 American Book Award.
Dennis Chin serves as Director of Strategic Initiatives at the new Race Forward. The new Race Forward is the union of two leading racial justice non-profit organizations: Race Forward and Center for Social Inclusion (CSI).
In addition, Dennis serves as an organizational trainer/presenter, specializing in 1) the basics of structural racial inequity and 2) communicating effectively about structural racial inequity. Some of the organizations that he has trained/worked with include Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP), Arcus Foundation, Kresge Foundation, The California Endowment, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Detroit Equity Action Lab (DEAL), National College Access Network, Council of Michigan Foundations, Grantmakers in the Arts, and the United States Breastfeeding Committee.
Dennis is a member and former Co-Chair of the Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY). At GAPIMNY, Dennis grew the organization's leadership, helped launch the Asian Pride Project, and deepened volunteer engagement on issues of race, gender and sexuality. As a result of his work, he was awarded the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance's (NQAPIA) Community Catalyst Award in 2015.
Dennis also serves on the Board of Directors of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, an organization that builds grassroots community power across working-class Asian immigrants and youth in New York City. A five-year member of the Board, he currently serves as its Co-Chair.
Deyanira has 25 years of experience promoting cooperative and community-controlled finance, immigrants’ economic rights, and equitable neighborhood development. She has worked with groups across New York City and State to develop community land trust, public banking, and financial justice campaigns. She is a board member of the LES People’s Federal Credit Union, a financial cooperative serving historically-redlined neighborhoods. Deyanira received the Frances Perkins Working People’s Award from Fiscal Policy Institute, the Mujeres Destacadas (Outstanding Women) award from El Diario/La Prensa, and the Revson Fellowship on the Future of the City of New York.
Durryle Brooks, Ph.D is interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner and a social justice educator from Baltimore, MD. He is the Founder of Love and Justice Consulting, an organizational and leadership development firm that provides leaders with social justice learning opportunities. He is recent WK Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network graduate whose work focuses on racial justice and healing. He is the author of (Re)conceptualizing Love: Moving Towards a Critical Theory of Love in Education for Social Justice, which articulates a vision and framework for re-conceptualizing love in ways that produces intersectional justice for people of color, communities, and our society as a whole.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University, and the founding director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a CBS News racial justice contributor.
Dr. Kendi is the author of many highly acclaimed books including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, making him the youngest ever winner of that award. He had also produced five straight #1 New York Times bestsellers, including How to Be an Antiracist, Antiracist Baby, and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, co-authored by Jason Reynolds. In 2020, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. His next two books, coming out in June, are How to Raise an Antiracist and the picture book, Goodnight Racism.
Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. is a former Peridot District Councilman and Tribal Chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, which consists of nearly 17,000 tribal members on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. San Carlos stretches across Gila, Graham and Pinal Counties, totaling 1.8 million acres and is situated in the southeastern portion of the State.
Wendsler was born on July 10, 1959 on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. He was raised in the traditional Apache way of life. He graduated from the Globe High School in May 1978 and attended Merritt College in Oakland, California, attended Phoenix College in Phoenix, Arizona, and completed the State of Arizona Banking Academy. Dr. Nosie specializes in Bioethics, Sustainability and Global Public Health.
Following college, Wendsler Nosie returned to San Carlos and began his employment as the Tribal Work Experience Program Director in 1982. In 1988, he was elected to Tribal Council for the Peridot District, which governs the San Carlos Apache Tribe through its Amended Constitution and By-Laws, being federally recognized in 1954 through the U.S. Indian Reorganization Act.
Wendsler Nosie then founded Rural Opportunities of Arizona (ROA) in 1990, an individually owned business owned and operated by a tribal member, which provided opportunities for tribal members to become skilled in trade and trained for jobs throughout Arizona.
In 1995, Wendsler established Apaches for Cultural Preservation and founded the Spirit of the Mountain Runners in 2000, which is a traditional runners organization.
Wendsler Nosie was re-elected as the Tribal Council Representative for the Peridot District in 2004 to serve another four-year term. It was then he was inspired to run for Tribal Chairman. Then in 2006, he was elected by the San Carlos Apache People as their Tribal Chairman.
He was recognized in 2006 and given an Honorable Mention by Wake Forest University of Winston-Salem, North Carolina for his coordination bringing students from Wake Forest to the San Carlos Apache Reservation for a cultural integration program and was also recognized and honored in 2007 by the National Council of Churches from New York City for his accomplishments in Indian Country as a leader of spirituality among youth and organizing many events for over fifteen years, which includes having worldwide participation of sacred runs in protection of Native American culture, tradition and heritage. The National Council of Churches comprises over 30 million membership throughout the nation.
Wendsler Nosie Sr. became an executive committee member for the AZ State Democratic Party, District One and introduced the resolution which established the AZ Native American Democratic Caucus. He was the first Native American electorate member of the National Electoral College for Arizona for Obama’s first term as President.
He established the Apache Messenger Newspaper in 2011 and owns and operates the newspaper currently.
He received the honor of being added to the Globe High School Hall of Fame for Sports.
In 2010 and again in 2012, Wendsler Nosie Sr. was re-elected as Tribal Council for the Peridot District. Wendsler has been instrumental over the course of his political career with the Tribe in establishing, the Apache Gold Casino, Bashas, and currently, the Peridot District Enterprises which include Apache Burger, True Value Hardware, PDEE shopping center, etc. etc.
He has also been appointed as the San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Director and has marketed and expanded the Hunting and Recreational area of the Tribe.
In 2013, Wendsler Nosie Sr. received the Presidential Award from National Progressive Baptist Convention for his fight for human rights for all Native Americans. He is the first Native American to receive such an award.
Dr. Wendsler Nosie recently accepted a position with the American University of Sovereign Nations as a Professor in the Practice of Indigenous Knowledge, where he will be teaching a range of Masters and Doctoral program courses to students from around the world.
Wendsler is married to Theresa Beard Nosie, a member of the Navajo Nation. They reside in Peridot, Arizona on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation and have six children and 18 grandchildren.
Wendsler is a long distance runner and has participated in numerous marathons and half marathons over the years. He is dedicated to the preservation and protection of Native American culture, artifacts, history religion, and tradition. He is the founder and leader of the Apache Stronghold and Director of Gaan Bike Goz aa where he continues to advocate for indigenous religious and human rights and protecting the future for our next generations to come.
Ebony Walden is an urban planner and consultant who leverages her experience to design and facilitate racial equity training, strategy and community engagement processes that explore race, equity and inclusion in cities. Ebony is the Principal Consultant at Ebony Walden Consulting, an urban strategy firm based in Richmond, Virginia and an adjunct professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs. She is also the creator of Richmond Racial Equity Essays, a multimedia project focused on highlighting solutions to advance racial equity in Richmond, VA and other U.S. cities.
Eric K. Ward, a nationally-recognized expert on the relationship between authoritarian movements, hate violence, and preserving inclusive democracy, is the recipient of the 2021 Civil Courage Prize – the first time in the award’s history that an American has won the prize, revealing the dangerous proliferation of hate crimes and political violence by authoritarian and extremist movements in the United States.
Eric brings over three decades of leadership in community organizing and philanthropy to his roles as Western States Center’s Executive Director and Senior Fellow with Southern Poverty Law Center. Since Eric took the helm in 2017, Western States Center has become a national hub for innovative responses to white nationalism, antisemitism, and structural inequality, towards a world where everyone can live, love, work, and worship free from bigotry and fear.
Originally from Los Angeles, Eric began his civil rights work when the white nationalist movement was engaged in violent paramilitary activity that sought to undermine democratic governance in the Pacific Northwest. Eric founded and directed a community project to expose and counter hate groups with the Community Alliance of Lane County (1990–1994). With the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment (1994-2002), Eric worked with leaders from government, law enforcement, business, and civil rights groups to establish over 120 task forces in six western states, and successfully encouraged some violent neo-Nazi leaders to renounce racism and violence.
Joining the Center for New Community as National Field Director (2003-2011), Eric assisted immigrant rights advocates in addressing the growing influence of xenophobia on public policy. As Program Executive for Atlantic Philanthropies (2011-2014), Eric led grantmaking in immigration and national security and rights.
During his tenure as a Ford Foundation Program Officer (2014-2017 he invigorated the field that counters Islamophobia through innovative investments that opened up space for Muslim and South Asian leaders. Currently Chair of The Proteus Fund, Eric co-founded Funders for Justice with the Neighborhood Funders Group and has served as consultant or advisor to numerous philanthropic institutions including Open Society, Tides, and the Brooklyn Community Foundation.
Eric is an Advisory to the Center for Entertainment & Civic Health, a member of the Pop Culture Collaborative’s Pluralist Visionaries Program, and a former Rockwood Leadership Institute Fellow and OSI New Executives Fund recipient. Past board service includes Revolutions Per Minute, America’s Voice, Windcall Institute, The Moenkopi Group, Social Justice Fund Northwest (A Territory Resource), Western States Center, and McKenzie River Gathering Foundation. Eric has a special interest in the use of music to advance inclusive democracy.
In 2020 he helped to launch the Western States Center Inclusive Democracy Culture Lab which works with musicians to create new narratives that puncture the myths driving our political and social divisions, and invite people who don’t always trust politicians and movement leaders into the safe and trusting conversational space that exists between a performer and their audience.
The recipient of the Peabody-Facebook Futures Media Award, Eric is an aspiring singer-songwriter under the name of Bulldog Shadow. In high demand as a speaker and media source, Eric has been quoted recently in The New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, ESPN, Black News Channel, NPR, BBC, Rolling Stone and numerous other media outlets.
The author of multiple written works credited with key narrative shifts, Eric currently publishes regularly on Medium; he contributed to the Progressive Media Project from 2008-14, and published the daily blog Imagine2050 from 2008-11. Seminal articles include “Skin in the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism” (The Public Eye, 2017); “As White Supremacy Falls Down, White Nationalism Stands Up” (Pop Culture Collaborative, 2017); “The Evolution of Identity Politics” (Tikkun, 2018). Popular recent essays include “Who Are We, America?” (Southern Poverty Law Center, March 2020); “The Struggles That Unite Us” (Oregon Humanities, April 2020); Authoritarian State or Inclusive Democracy? 21 Things We Can Do Right Now (Medium, May 2020); Winning the Peace (Medium, August 2020); Are We Moving Towards a Better Society or Regressing? (Moment Magazine, Sept/Oct 2020); Conspiracy Theories are Killing Us, America (Medium, February 2021); With Philanthropic Support, Artists Can Help Rebuild American Democracy One Song at a Time (Chronicle of Philanthropy, April 2021); The Hard Work of Democracy: A Case for Leisure (Center for Effective Philanthropy, April 2021).
Erika Gaitan is a Senior Manager of Community Impact on the Health & Racial Equity team at HRiA. In her role, she collaborates with public and private partners to support the adoption of methods to increase community power in neighborhood, municipal, and state level decision-making. She has extensive experience in community based participatory research, training and facilitation, and culturally responsive and equitable evaluation. She has a masters degree in social work with a concentration in community practice from Boston University School of Social Work and a bachelor’s degree from Texas State University.
Erin Heaney is the National Executive Director of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), the largest organization in the United States that organizes in majority-white communities to undermine the power of the Right and bring millions of white people into multi-racial movement. In her time at SURJ, Erin has shepherded significant growth and strategic shifts including the growth of the SURJ Chapter Network to over 175 local groups, the launch and growth of SURJ’s electoral organizing programs and the robust centering of and expansion of SURJ’s organizing in poor and working class, rural and Southern communities. Erin is currently a Fellow in the Atlantic Fellowship Racial Equity and a board member of the Action Center on Race and the Economy and a board member of the National Committee of the Working Families Party. Prior to her work at SURJ, Erin was the founding director at the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York, a multiracial, grassroots, member-led organization that supported front-line communities to win victories over corporations that harmed their communities including shutting down notorious polluter Tonawanda Coke and winning millions of dollars for the community, winning green infrastructure investments at major port, and winning a just transition at the Huntley coal plant. Erin is a queer woman from a white Irish-Italian union family from Buffalo, NY where she lives with her wife Emma.
Everette R.H. Thompson-François is a multi-faceted program and campaign director with more
than 20 years of non-profit and cross-movement leadership experience. He is a Southerner by
birth and choice and has dedicated his career to strengthening people and organizational
infrastructure. His life’s work started during his time abolishing the death penalty in the South as
the Regional Director of Amnesty International USA’s Southern Regional Office, based in
Atlanta, GA. It covered a region comprised of eleven states in the Southeastern U.S, also known
as the “death belt.” As Regional Director, Everette provided the overall strategic vision to meet
AIUSA’s campaign goals in the South, traveled extensively throughout the South building
strategic partnerships and coalitions, and served as the lead spokesperson for AIUSA South.
Everette leads from a place of joy and reverence of human dignity and creates places where we
all belong. Everette serves as the Purveyor of Joy and Movement Infrastructure Architect at
Grits and Greens, LLC. Grits and Greens is a consulting firm that offers human resources,
operations infrastructure, and coaching support with a throughline focused on love, rigor, and
mutual connection. Everette is a trainer with Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity
(B.O.L.D.), a national training intermediary focused on transforming the practice of Black
organizers in the US. In addition to secular organizing, Everette has worked in the national
settings of faith-based institutions, including but not limited to serving as the Political Education
and Spiritual Sustenance Specialist at the Unitarian Universalist Association and Social Justice
Movement Chaplain. Notably, Everette was the National Justice and Equity Coordinator for
350.org, an international climate change organization, where he supported the staff to integrate
intentional justice and equity frameworks within the fabric of all operations, and the National
Field Director for the Rights Working Group, a national coalition of over 300 community-based
groups and policy organizations dedicated to ending racial and bias profiling across the country.
Everette holds a B.A. in English and B.S. in Public Administration from North Carolina Central
University (Durham, NC) and an M.A. in Nonprofit Leadership and Development from the
University of Delaware (Newark, DE). He is currently an MDiv candidate at Eden Theological
Seminary. His greatest joy is creating memorable moments with his sun/son Elijah.
Faron McLurkin is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships. In this role, Faron will join Race Forward’s leadership team in shaping the organization’s direction in addition to his focus on developing and implementing strategies to increase Race Forward’s reach and impact.
Prior to joining Race Forward, Faron served as the Vice President of Programs for Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG). During his time at NFG Faron oversaw all of NFG’s programs as well as the development and evaluation of all new NFG programs, including establishment of NFG's newest program, the Midwest Organizing Infrastructure Funders. He also played a catalytic role in the founding of the Integrated Rural Strategies group (IRSG), NFG’s rural power building program.
Faron’s career includes serving as Program Officer at The Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, where he managed their New York State and Environmental portfolios; as Executive Director of the Center for Third World Organizing, one of the oldest and most storied racial justice organizations in the country; and as an organizing director for Change to Win and SEIU Workers United at the national and local levels.
As one of the Racial Equity experts on the FTF team, Faybra comes with a wealth of knowledge on the equity spectrum. She specializes in next practices of growing capacity for the successful development of anti-bias, antiracist institutions. She has dedicated 12 years of service to the St. Louis community within the Education and non-profit advancement sectors. She is an experienced facilitator and enjoys participating in courageous conversations. She is the 2018 recipient of the Annie Turnbo Malone Trailblazer Award and the Power 100-Game Changer Award. Faybra is a St. Louis Native and lives with her partner in University City.
Fernando Mejia-Ledesma has close to 20 years of organizing & policy experience with many labor, community, and immigrant rights organizations in WA and across the U.S. Fernando moved to the U.S. from Mexico at sixteen years old; he recently became a U.S. citizen and voted for the first time in 2021. He has worked with several state and national organizations including the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, Alliance for a Just Society, OneAmerica, Washington Community Action Network, United We Dream Network, United Food and Commercial Workers 3000, Communities for Our College, and Puget Sound Sage.
Gabrielle is a renaissance woman that has devoted her life to education, science, music and social activism. She has graduate degrees in Geology and Education, is a SCUBA instructor and a professional Cellist. At Syosset High School she inspires learning, advocating for student empowerment, introducing stewardship for science, and provides students opportunities for changing narratives that grow past the mono-lens of many communities. She advises the Breaking Borders and the Gender Sexuality Alliance clubs that present educational programs. In summer, she works as a facilitator for Earthwatch expeditions. Lastly, Gabrielle has performed at Womyn's music festivals for over 2 decades.
George is the Director of More Equitable Democracy. Prior to this, he served as Program Director for the Joyce Foundation’s Democracy Program and Co-Chair of the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation. Cheung was also executive director of the Win/Win Network, an affiliate of State Voices, and founder/executive director of Equal Rights Washington, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Brown University.
Giramata is a community organizer, artist, Ph.D. Candidate in the department of Gender and Women Studies & Research Associate for iLGBTSs whose work sits in the fields of Black feminist Studies, Black visual culture, Black girlhood studies and critical trauma studies. Their research interests include the development of Black feminist reading practices that enable scholars to analyze the ways in which time and form is used by Black women artists to offer new meanings of Black girlhood in the afterlife of slavery and colonialism.
Glenance Green is a writer, researcher, community organizer, filmmaker, and content creator who uses various art forms and strategies as tools of healing and liberation for systemic change. She is the Co-Founder of the Black Researchers Collective, a collective of Black researchers equipping communities with research tools to be more civically engaged and policy informed. Glenance is the author of Shades of Green, an anthology of poetry and prose, and has written, directed, and/or produced over 10 films. Keenly focused on institutionalizing racial equity, she serves on the Equity Advisory Council for the City of Chicago.
Glenn Harris is the President of the new Race Forward and Publisher of Colorlines. The new Race Forward is the union of two leading racial justice non-profit organizations: Race Forward and Center for Social Inclusion (CSI), where Glenn served as President starting in 2014. The new Race Forward will build on the work of both organizations to advance racial justice.
Glenn brings to the new Race Forward over 25 years of experience working on issues of race and social justice—working with community groups, foundations, and government agencies dedicated to building a more just and democratic society.
Prior to the new Race Forward and CSI, Glenn worked as the Manager of the City of Seattle Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI), whose mission is to end institutionalized racism in City government and promote multiculturalism and full participation by all residents. Glenn has supported the start of similar initiatives in jurisdictions across the country, and helped to found the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE).
Grecia Lima (she/her/hers) is the Executive Director of Community Change Voters PAC and the National Political Director of Community Change/Action. She leads the development of national electoral strategies while integrating innovative communication and field strategies into the community organizing work. During her time at Community Change/Action, Grecia has prioritized the planning and execution of electoral campaigns with state partners that lead to long-term power building for Latino, Black, immigrant, and native communities. Before joining Community Change/Action, Grecia was the campaign director for the California Domestic Workers Coalition and a community and electoral organizer with PUEBLO in Santa Barbara, California. She is a graduate of University of California, San Diego, where she studied economic development and researched educational opportunities and economic outcomes for young migrants.
James is an award-winning educator and consultant on issues of equity in education. He is the Principal at Filling the Gap Educational Consultants, LLC. and was appointed by Gov. Cooper to serve as a North Carolina State Board of Education member, representing the Southwest Region. He is the former Program Director at the Public School Forum of North Carolina, an education think-tank and policy advocacy organization.
James Logan is a mission-driven advocate with over fifteen years of experience in planning, creating and maintaining social justice entities. He currently serves as a Program Officer at the Greater New Orleans Foundation with a focus on environment, workforce and racial equity. He has previously served as a consultant, worked in city government, led a youth development nonprofit and worked as a community development attorney. James is the Immediate Past President of the 100 Black Men of Metro New Orleans, and serves on the board of multiple nonprofits. He is a graduate of Loyola College Maryland and Fordham Law School.
Jasmine Snipes (she/her) is the Owner and Principal Consultant of Jasmine Snipes Consulting, LLC. She provides versed and thoughtfully designed support and education on race, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. She supports institutions, groups, and individuals through base work, discovery, and action. Examples of the content of her work with other organizations include anti-racism, dismantling white supremacy, anti-discrimination, anti-bias practices, and social themes/awareness. She has been in practice for more than 19 years and is deeply passionate about it. Jasmine studied Communication and has a B.A. in Community Advocacy and Social Policy from Arizona State University.
Jeff Chang is a Senior Advisor at Race Forward, leading the Butterfly Lab for Immigrant Narrative Strategy. Born of Chinese and Native Hawaiian descent, he is an award-winning author, teacher, and cultural organizer. He served as the first Vice President of Narrative, Arts, and Culture at Race Forward. jeffchang.net
Jessica Acee is an educator, trainer, and program developer based in Portland, OR. She is currently the Director of Student Leadership at St. Mary's Academy and Senior Fellow at the national civil rights organization, Western States Center, where she co-authored the toolkit Confronting White Nationalism in Schools.
Jessica is a Minnesota native with a passion for social justice and cultural interpretation. A mother of two, Jessica came to California in 2013 in order to reconnect with family.
For 10 years, as the Education Systems Navigator at the Cultural Wellness Center in Minnesota, Jessica worked to further enhance her skills of strategic planning, collective communication, shared authority and motivational speaking. Jessica has worked to dismantle unequal systematic approaches in housing, employment, education and criminal justice institutions for many years.
Jessica embraces and is guided by the elders within her community. These relationships aid her in recruiting and organizing Black parents, to encourage their involvement in schools, and influencing policy, procedures, and paradigm shifts. Ultimately, Jessica’s passion to help Black people recognize the power and potential they possess led her to BOP. Through BOP Jessica hopes to continue her journey of achieving equitable access for Black people
As a first generation college student and community college transfer, Jimina Afuola found her purpose in service to her community. In her previous roles, she has served in academic spaces as a Project Coordinator for an ANNAPISI program PRISE and also in policy, as a Senate Consultant at the CA AAPI Legislative Caucus. Currently, Jimina serves as the Advocacy Coordinator for Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC) where she is able to share insights on how current laws and legislation will impact the NHPI community at the state level in Sacramento. Outside of her roles, Jimina’s
most favorite is being a mother to her 3 month old son
Judith LeBlanc is a citizen of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. As the executive director of Native Organizers Alliance (NOA), she has learned many intertribal secrets to good fry bread. She leads a national Native training and organizing network which supports tribes, traditional societies, and grassroots community groups in urban and tribal communities. Judith is part of a growing circle of Indian Country leaders who understand the necessity for an organized, durable ecosystem of Native leaders and organizers who lead with traditional values. NOA leads learning circles, training, and strategic planning sessions to support Native leaders in organizing the grassroots movements for structural reforms, leading to Native sovereignty and racial equity for all. Judith is a board member of IllumiNative and chair of the board of NDN. She was a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow and is a 2022 Fellow at the Instittute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Julia Daniel (she/her) comes to anti-racist organizing seeing it as key to our collective liberation and the right thing to do. Most of her organizing experience is with young people fighting the schoolhouse to jailhouse pipeline and for reproductive and housing justice in Miami. She helped found the Boulder, CO SURJ chapter. She also researches community organizing for racial equity in education and lives in the Bronx, NY. Julia identifies as upper working/lower middle class and believes that middle class people have an interest in ending white supremacy that is becoming increasingly clear.
Julie Nelson is the Senior Vice President of Programs at Race Forward. She was the Founding Director of the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a joint project of Race Forward and the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley where she serves as Senior Fellow.
Nelson is the former Director of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights where she served eight years, providing both vision and hands-on support to Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative, the first initiative in local government designed to dismantle institutional and structural racism and advance racial justice. She also served in other City of Seattle positions including with the Human Services Department, Administrative Services, Seattle City Light, the Office of Housing and Seattle Public Utilities, as well as other positions, including with Housing and Urban Development in the federal government and with Pima County Community Services in Tucson, Arizona.
Nelson has a master’s degree in Economics from the University of Washington and a B.S in Economics and Finance from the University of Arizona and has served on the boards of multiple nonprofits.
Nelson is driven by her passion to realize racial equity, social justice, and inclusive multiracial democracy.
Lynn Robinson is a creative reimagining standards and structures with new approaches to old ideas. She comes to the University of Arizona’s PhD in Arts and Visual Culture Education program with extensive background in exhibit design for small and large institutions, and as a curatorial assistant. Her research focuses on creating learning systems to mend gaps between under-resourced educators and over-resourced cultural centers.
Katherin Canton (they/them/theirs), based in occupied Nisenan, Maidu, and Miwuk land (Sacramento, CA), is a detribalized GuateMayan, weaver, healer, cultural organizer, and facilitator of magic raised on Yelamu (occupied Ramaytush Ohlone land/San Francisco) and Huichin (occupied Lisjan Ohlone land/Oakland). As the California Arts Council's inaugural Race and Equity Manager, they continue a lifelong journey of learning how to be in right relationship with themselves, neighbors, the land, and ancestors, in particular with queer and trans Black, Indigenous, communities of color.
Kelly is an experienced facilitator, organizer, and lawyer who for more than twenty-five years has led advocacy, organizing, racial justice, and women’s organizations promoting collaboration and civic engagement, both locally and nationally. She strives each day to develop and embody the heart, skills, and mindset of a facilitative leader for progressive movement building across the country and in communities. In both personal and professional settings, Kelly is known for her passionate belief in everyone’s potential and power, the ability of leaders to transcend barriers through shared leadership, and for organizations to do the work of justice.
Dr. Brown has extensive experience in issues of racial equity, organizational development, and capacity building and has supported numerous organizations that center and prioritize confronting racism, specifically anti-Black racism, in analysis and action. As a scholar-practitioner, she puts management theory, organizational theory, and social movement theory into practice to construct a multidimensional framework for racial equity and organizational transformation.
“I approach my work by drawing on the complicated connections and complex architecture between local and national politics, racial inequalities, and the myriad of ways in which these realities manifest in organizations while accurately assessing organizational needs, key issues, and factors that influence organizations’ responsiveness to social issues affecting organizational and leadership performance. I look forward to the opportunity this role provides to bring this approach organization-wide to Race Forward,” states Dr. Brown.
Dr. Brown holds a Ph.D. in Organizations and Management, an M.B.A., a BSBA in Finance, and is a Gestalt OSD Certified Practitioner. She leads an organizational development consulting firm, kmb, that partners with leaders and organizations to solve complex organizational and people challenges that interfere with strong, sustainable results and long-term organizational health.
Prior to kmb, Dr. Brown was instrumental in leading the second largest labor union’s organizational transformation in the way they approached race and accumulated close to two decades of strategic business experience in various domestic and international Finance, Organizational Development, and Operations roles with increasing responsibility at various organizations like Prudential Financial, Walt Disney Company, and Dartmouth College.
Kevin J. Allis is the founder and president of Thunderbird Strategies, LLC, a government relations firm specializing in advocacy of Native American rights, and a member of the Forest County Potawatomi Community. Allis is the former Chief Executive Officer at the National Congress of American Indians, and has years of experience working in Washington, D.C. as both an attorney and government relations practitioner.
Throughout his career, he has a demonstrated track record in leadership capacities and is fluent in building strong working relationships with key congressional offices, relevant administrative agencies, and other advocacy organizations, to strategically advance top priorities for Indian Country.
Kevin’s other previous roles include Executive Director of the Native American Contractors Association and Board Chairman of the Potawatomi Business Development Corporation. Alongside practicing Federal Indian Law and serving as a Labor and Employment litigation attorney, he is a former law enforcement officer who served the Baltimore Police Department for 8 years.
a graduate from the University of California, Davis, has worked in the community and in the youth development field for over 20 years and has managed multiple grants and projects focused on improving youth outcomes. Her experience has included program implementation, building collaborative efforts, community outreach and strategy development. Kim worked for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Sacramento for 14 years where she eventually became the Present/CEO. Currently, Kim serves as the Hub Director for Sacramento Building Healthy Communities which is focused on ending health and racial disparities throughout Sacramento. Working collaboratively with community members, organizations and key systems leaders, the focus of the BHC is to remove barriers and create new policies that will improve the overall quality in Sacramento.
Kimberly Inez McGuire is an award-winning communications strategist, queer Latina reproductive justice advocate, and lifelong policy wonk with more than a decade of experience creating and implementing winning strategies to reshape the public narrative and policy landscape. As Executive Director of URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity, Kimberly leads the organization in building a world where all people have agency over their own bodies and relationships, and the power, knowledge, and tools to exercise that agency. Kimberly brings to her work with URGE comprehensive, intersectional experience with youth leadership, wins in federal and state policy and campaigns, and deep roots in reproductive justice organizing.
Kimberly Ming serves as a bridge between government space and a multitude of multicultural communities. She earned a BA in Ethnic and Women's Studies and has spent over 13 years doing community organizing and advocacy work. She uses her intersectional lens and creative background as a spoken word artist to connect communities to the decision-making processes that deeply impact their/our livelihood and well being.
Kou is Director of Embedding Equity within the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Center for Health Equity. In this role he is responsible for internal systems transformation to embed racial justice and health equity throughout the AMA. Prior to this role, Kou was Director of the Center for Health Equity at the Minnesota Department of Health, where he led the state’s health equity strategy using GARE's racial equity framework. Kou's career spans 15 years of social and racial justice work across non-profit, philanthropic and government sectors. He was honored as a 2012 White House Champion of Change by the Obama Administration.
Koya is a product engineer supporting the Utility Network project and the technical lead for the Racial Equity and Social Justice team at Esri. An urban geographer who is passionate about growing and developing as a thought leader. She's worked in spaces from state and local government to Fortune 500 companies, and grown skills as a mashup of geography, business and IT. Their joy in this space, so far, has been applying conceptual frameworks to solve real business problems across industries like utilities, transportation, and human capital management but still kind of figuring things out.
La-Tasha leads DAWI's collaborative national work to support business transitions to employee ownership. She is a servant leader who is passionate about underrepresented communities, serving on a number of boards, including Board Treasurer of The Collaborative, Board Treasurer of Self-Help Credit Union, Executive Team for City of Durham Small Business Advisory Committee, Treasurer & Co-Founder of NC Employee Ownership Center, Treasurer of The Collaborative, OIGO Advisory Board and Treasurer of Rebuild Durham. She holds Master of Public Administration and Bachelors of Business Administration degrees from North Carolina Central University, and a certificate from The College of Insurance in New York.
Laura Shmishkiss, founder of Regeneration Consulting, is an equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) consultant and coach committed to advancing racial justice and collective liberation. She brings 25 years of experience as an organizational leader, trainer and educator, and recently served as Co-Executive Director at Center for Racial Justice in Education. Laura specializes in training and facilitation; leadership coaching; white anti-racist practice; program and curriculum design; EDI strategy; and organizational development. As a white, Jewish woman, Laura has a vested interest in dismantling racism and all other interconnected forms of oppression, and approaches her work from an intersectional, anti-racist, healing-centered framework.
Leah Okamoto Mann is a dancer, choreographer, somatic practitioner, and arts educator, focusing on embodied social justice. They are Co-Director of Lelavision, a performance and production company based on Vashon Island, WA, that combines kinetic sculpture, dance and music, simultaneously. Leah is Artistic Director Emeritus of Moving in the Spirit, a youth mentorship program, utilizing the praxis of dance to develop life skills (Atlanta, GA). They work to cultivate community through the common denominators of the human experience, focusing on STEAM collabs, social and environmental justice actions, and inclusive art experiences.
Leandris Liburd is a veteran public health practitioner who has devoted her entire career to improving the health of communities of color. She has worked at the local, state, and federal levels, and currently serves as Associate Director for Minority Health and Health Equity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In this role, she works with federal, state, and community partners to advance health equity and achieve racial equity in the U.S. and globally. In addition, she plays a critical leadership role in the agency's change efforts to create an equitable workplace.
LeeAnn Hall has been a leader of social and racial justice movements for more than thirty-five years. She was a co-founder of People’s Action and is treasurer of the board of Race Forward. As Director for Idaho Community Action Network, she led the successful campaign to cover farmworkers by Idaho’s minimum wage laws for the first time. LeeAnn was the recipient of the prestigious Leadership for a Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation and the Prime Movers Award. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
Libero Della Piana is the Senior Strategist at Alliance for a Just Society. He has extensive experience as a writer, editor, organizer, strategist, and movement educator. Previously he was the Digital Director and then Communications Director of People’s Action Institute. Libero became involved in student organizing in high school in Salt Lake City, Utah and was a youth organizer at DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) in Providence, RI. Libero is a graduate of the Center for Third World Organizing’s Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program (MAAP) and its Community Partnership Program. As a Senior Research Associate at the Applied Research Center (now Race Forward), Libero worked as a researcher and trainer on racial justice issues in public schools and police issues. He received the Bannerman Fellowship for Young Activists of Color in 1997. He received the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's Push for Excellence in Education Award in 2000. He lives in East Harlem, NY.
Lindsay Schubiner directs Western States Center's Momentum program to counter the dangerous ascension of white nationalism across the country. She previously led advocacy efforts against anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim bigotry at the Center for New Community. Lindsay has served as a Congressional staffer handling housing, health, and immigration policy, and managed advocacy for sexual health and rights at American Jewish World Service. Lindsay has provided commentary for PBS NewsHour, the New York Times, and the New Yorker, among other outlets. She holds a Master's degree from Harvard’s School of Public Health.
Brasilian-American filmmaker Luisa Dantas works at the intersection of storytelling, social justice, and cities and her work spans both fiction and non-fiction content. Her latest fiction short film, "Sacred", recently premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival. Luisa also wrote and directed the multi-platform documentary "Land of Opportunity." Luisa is Project Director for the Rise-Home Stories Project, an innovative storytelling initiative training organizers and advocates in cities across the U.S. to harness the power of narrative in the fight for housing, land, and racial justice. The project includes an animated web series, a children’s book, non-fiction podcasts, and video game.
Luke Black (he/him) is an organizer in Phoenix, AZ. His primary focus for the last six years has been police abolition. In 2019, he started also organizing White People Against White Supremacy. Currently, Luke is supporting the campaigns of three abolitionists who are running for AZ state legislature and Phoenix Union High School District. He is a Gemini sun, an Aries moon, and a Pisces rising. And he’s left handed.
Maggie is a senior at Syosset High School that is passionate about racial and environmental justice. She joined Breaking Borders in her freshman year of high school and has helped organize many events. One such event was the Superintendent‘s Conference, where she and other leaders facilitated group decisions about important issues facing their school. She also has engaged in dialogues about race and privilege with students from various schools. She loves to bake and spend time with her family in her free time and she is looking forward to speaking at the Facing Race Conference!
Malcolm Shanks is a researcher, writer, organizer, and facilitator. They use popular and political education to build strong movements, resilient groups, and connected people. Hailing from Washington, D.C., Malcolm has been involved in political organizing and education for more than a dozen years. They have worked in movements for peace, for gender liberation, for racial justice, and for decolonization. In 2017 they co-created the zine Decolonizing Gender, which has since been discussed, read, and shared in classrooms, museums, and other revolutionary spaces in more than 40 countries and in several languages.
Megan Black is a Midwest-based organizer and trainer committed to race equity, inclusive democracy, and the common good. Since 2010 Megan has worked with organizations like Interfaith Youth Core, Faith in Action, and Western States Center to navigate the spaces and tensions created by divisions in race, religion, and politics, with a particular focus on antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, and Christian dominance. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Divinity Degree from Vanderbilt University. Megan directs the Common Good program at Western States Center from her home in Kansas City, MO.
Dr. Michael McAfee became President and CEO of PolicyLink in 2018, seven years after becoming the inaugural director of the Promise Neighborhoods Institute at PolicyLink. His results-driven leadership, depth of knowledge about building and sustaining an organization, and devotion to serving the nation’s most underserved populations made him the obvious choice to lead the 20-year-old PolicyLink as Angela Glover Blackwell transitioned to founder in residence.
During his time at PolicyLink, Michael has played a leadership role in securing Promise Neighborhoods as a permanent federal program, led efforts to improve outcomes for more than 300,000 children, and facilitated the investment of billions of dollars in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. He is the catalyst for a new and growing body of work — corporate racial equity — which includes the first comprehensive tool to guide private-sector companies in assessing and actively promoting equity in every aspect of their company’s value chain. Michael carries forward the legacy to realize the promise of equity — just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential.
Michael also understands the urgency of now. The nation is rapidly becoming a majority people of color. In cities and towns across the country many people are embracing the concept of equity and intent on achieving racial and economic equity for all. At the same time, as the word is used more, the concept of equity is in danger of becoming diluted, just another catchphrase of civil society, leaving the true promise of racial and economic inclusion unrealized. Michael is determined that this will not happen.
Michael is ensuring equity does not become watered down. He is turning movement leaders’ eyes toward redesigning the “rules of the game” so that all people in America — particularly those who face the burdens of structural racism — participate in a just society, live in a healthy community of opportunity, and prosper in an equitable economy. He is achieving this by enacting liberating public policies targeted to the 100 million people living in or near poverty, the majority of whom are people of color.
His legacy will lie in his efforts to stand in transformative solidarity with others, collectively charting a course to Win on Equity. He is building a well-planned, well-coordinated, well-executed, and sustained campaign that frees America’s democracy from the oppressive blend of patriarchy, capitalism, and racism.
Before joining PolicyLink, Michael served as senior community planning and development representative in the Chicago Regional Office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). While at HUD, he managed a $450 million housing, community, and economic development portfolio where he partnered with local leaders to create more than 3,000 units of affordable housing and 5,000 jobs and to ensure access to social services for more than 200,000 families. Before his public service, Michael served as the director of community leadership for The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and Affiliated Trusts. He was instrumental in positioning the organization to raise $121 million from individual donors, an accomplishment recognized by the Chronicle of Philanthropy for receiving more contributions than any community foundation in America. Michael’s commitment to the needs of people of color and those living in poverty extends to his work on the boards of Bridge Housing, Independent Sector, North Lawndale Employment Network, and Sweet Beginnings, LLC, each of which is committed to creating opportunity for those among the 100 million economically insecure people in America.
Previously, Michael served in the United States Army and as Dean's Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He earned his Doctor of Education in human and organizational learning from George Washington University and completed Harvard University's Executive Program in Public Management.
He is a sought-after speaker on community and economic development, leadership, organizational development, racial equity, and youth development. His articles have appeared in Academic Pediatrics, Cascade, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia; Community Development Innovation Review, published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco; Harvard Education Press, New York Times, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Voices in Urban Education, published by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.
Michael lives in the Oakland Hills with his wife, Maja, and their two Brussels Griffons (Gigi and Griff). He is an avid off-road hiker and practitioner of yoga.
Michele Kumi Baer is a social justice practitioner, facilitator, and educator working to advance intersectional anti-racist knowledge and practice in the nonprofit arts and philanthropic sectors. Michele directs her own consulting practice, called Kumi Cultural; works as project manager for the Cultural New Deal; and serves as an advisor for the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project and as a coach for the MAP Fund’s Scaffolding for Practicing Artists (SPA) Program. They are a mixed race, East Asian, cisgender, and non-disabled woman based on the lands of the Tongva people, also currently referred to as Los Angeles.
Mimi is dedicated to achieving social justice and Black liberation. She is a Co-Director and Art minister at Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro. With a BS in criminal justice, a master's degree in justice studies, and currently working on a Ph.D. in justice studies at ASU, Mimi's plan is to continue engaging in work that furthers the liberation of all oppressed people with Black folks at the center.
Nicole Laport is a Chicago native that has been involved in the informal economy
throughout her adult life as a fine artist and graphic designer. Throughout her career as an artist she has been involved in community outreach, youth art education as well as centering social justice topics as the center of her artwork. She had the privilege of joining the team at Chicago Not-for-profit Equity and Transformation (EAT) as the Director of Communications at the beginning of 2019. Prior to her work at EAT she has had firsthand experience with the barriers that a prior felony has had in her gaining formal employment and the criminalization she has faced within the informal workforce. Her position at EAT has allowed her to live out her life’s passion in advocating for system-impacted individuals and against the systems that criminalize them and leave communities disenfranchised and under-represented.
Niketa Brar is a civic systems organizer and founding executive director of Chicago United for Equity. She comes to this after working as part of legal defense teams for indigent clients, as a middle school math teacher and dean, and working to bring a community-centered approach to government as a policy adviser to elected officials in school districts, municipal, and state governments. She co-founded CUE alongside Elisabeth Greer, as the two served on the Local School Council for National Teachers Academy and worked together to organize a citywide coalition that successfully blocked the school closing the school faced in 2017.
Paola Aguirre is the Partner & Community Designer for Borderless Studio. She was selected as part of CUE’s Fellowship program in 2019, and later selected in 2020 as Senior Fellow to collaborate & incubate the People’s Budget Chicago (PBC). As a practicing community designer, Paola’s role in the team was across different elements including research, design, engagement, documentation and narrative shaping. Alongside her colleagues, she was able to design and test multiple tools, processes and resources to engage communities of color in defining budget and investment priorities for their neighborhoods.
Paris Hatcher is a Black, queer feminist in love with the South. With over 10 years of experience on the local, national, and international level, Paris has been working with leading organizations to amplify the leadership of marginalized communities, win public policy campaigns, and advance reproductive and sexual health and justice, gender justice and queer liberation. Notably, she co-founded and was the Executive Director of SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW, one of the leading reproductive health and justice organizations in the Southeast. Under her direction SPARK led successful advocacy campaigns, increased the participation of women of color, queer and trans youth of color, and young people in the political process, and worked with stakeholders to begin to shift the narrative about reproductive health and justice in the state of Georgia and in the Southeast. She completed her Masters of Arts in Africana Women’s Studies at Clark Atlanta University with a research focus on Caribbean women’s activism and social movements. Paris is a Board member of SONG (Southerners On New Ground), a founding Board member for the Groundswell Fund(2007-2012), a founding Steering Committee member for the Black Reproductive Justice Think Tank, and a bike magician with Red, Bike, and Green. When not grinding for justice, you can find Paris on her bike, on the farm, dancing, or with her fabulous family including her beloved Jack Russell Terrier, Audre.
Promiti Islam (she/they) is a New York based writer and educator. A member of Seachange Collective, their work is rooted in education, youth development, restorative justice, human rights, and feminism. They seek to uplift the nuanced ways in which we experience the world through culture, diaspora, and a sense of belonging through their writing and collaborations. Promiti has a BA from Wesleyan University and an MA from Columbia University – Teachers College. They have received support from Kundiman, The Hambidge Center, and Asian American Feminist Collective. Promiti loves eyeliner, pop culture trivia, the ocean and other bodies of water.
R. Cielo Cruz is a writer, parent, racial justice facilitator, cultural organizer, intersectional feminist and tgnc witch. They have lived in and loved New Orleans, Louisiana for the last 22 years. Essays by Cruz have been published in hipMama, Bridge the Gulf Project, Colorlines and the anthology Mamaphonic. Cruz is a 2017 and 2020 VONA Voices Fellow. Their fiction has been published in Black Warrior Review and their writing practice is now centered on Speculative Fiction and Afro-Futurist influenced Magical Realism. They are the founder of Racial Justice Reads. You can follow Cielo on twitter, instagram or at rosanacruz.com
Rinku is a writer and social justice strategist. She is formerly the Executive Director of Race Forward and was Publisher of their award-winning news site Colorlines. Under Sen’s leadership, Race Forward generated some of the most impactful racial justice successes of recent years, including Drop the I-Word, a campaign for media outlets to stop referring to immigrants as “illegal,” resulting in the Associated Press, USA Today, LA Times, and many more outlets changing their practice. She was also the architect of the Shattered Families report, which identified the number of kids in foster care whose parents had been deported.Her books Stir it Up and The Accidental American theorize a model of community organizing that integrates a political analysis of race, gender, class, poverty, sexuality, and other systems. As a consultant, Rinku has worked on narrative and political strategy with numerous organizations and foundations, including PolicyLink, the ACLU and the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She serves on numerous boards, including the Women’s March, where she is Co-President and the Foundation for National Progress, publisher of Mother Jones magazine.
Robert Beckles is a community health worker and peer advocate from St. Louis, MO. His work is about achieving health equity for LGBTQ+ Black and Brown people in St. Louis, especially around mental and sexual health outcomes. He believes that all people desire and deserve lives of good health and connection, but that histories of systemic and interpersonal harm will continue unless we co-create equitable and sustainable systems for healing. Robert has been involved in social justice work for most of his life, but his involvement hit home during the uprising in his hometown of Ferguson, MO in 2014
Roberta Rael is a proud Nuevo Mexicana Chicana. She is the Founder and Director of Generation Justice, a multiracial, multicultural project that trains youth to harness the power of community and raise critical consciousness through leadership development, civic engagement, media production, and narrative shift in the areas that most impact New Mexicans- racial justice, health, education, early childhood development, and economic security. Since its founding in 2005, the project has evolved to include video, audio, and written content for both radio broadcast and online publication. The project works with youth in middle school, high school, and college.
Rosie Grant is the Executive Director of the Paterson Education Fund (PEF), where she has given 28 years of educational leadership. Rosie has trained more than 500 students and adults to be workshop facilitators including Restorative Practices circle keepers, to support relationship building, reducing suspensions, and student social and emotional wellbeing. She is skilled at convening cross-sector partnerships for education and leading difficult public dialog, particularly in the areas of multicultural communications and anti-racism.
Salina Begay's parents are one of the original resisters at Black Mesa, refusing to relocate from their ancestral homeland after the 1974 Hopi/Navajo land divisions, when she was young she joined the resistance. She lives a traditional life, caring for her sheep and using their wool to make Navajo rugs. Salina and her family's commitment to remaining on their homeland has helped defend it from the expansion of the Peabody coal mine. Living next to the old coal-fired powerplant and the continuous harassment from rangers who attempt to steal their sheep, she has faced many challenges but continues to resist.
Saudia Durrant has worked in community organizing, advocacy and campaign strategizing within the Philly labor, race, and gender justice movements for the last nearly decade. She began organizing with the labor justice movement to win a collective bargaining agreement with food service workers in the PHL International Airport in 2012. She graduated from Temple University with a bachelor's degree in Journalism obtained in 2015.
In 2017, she started working as a youth organizer for the Philadelphia Student Union, where she spent 4 years supporting black and brown youth in campaign organizing and leadership development around educational justice campaigns. She then worked as a racial justice organizer with the Abolitionist Law Center. She supported formerly incarcerated people in PA state correctional institutions as well as the Philadelphia Jail system working to end solitary confinement and other forms of torture and abuse within the mass incarceration system. She continued pursuing abolitionist centered work through managing a program for gender marginalized communities impacted by the prison and probation systems, for policy advocacy and service provision to restore and rehabilitate.
She now works as a senior campaign strategist with the next generation, multi-racial civil rights organization, Advancement Project.
Growing up as a daughter of immigrants who fled political persecution, Sawsan learned the importance of advocacy work from a young age and throughout her life, watching and working with family to organize for a democracy in their home country Libya. She also grew up spending extensive time outdoors camping and hiking with family, gardening with her mother. She brings to the team a background in community grassroots organizing, union/labor organizing, climate science, and civic engagement. At the University of Arizona, she received a BS in Geography and Urban Regional Development, with emphasis on community and natural resource management.
Scott Winn is a racial equity consultant supporting a variety of entities, from grass-roots organizations to governmental institutions, in adopting a strategy of leading with racial equity. He has been involved in racial justice organizing for the past 30 years, including co-founding Seattle’s Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites. He is a faculty member in the Masters’ program at the University of Washington, School of Social Work. For eight years he was a Policy and Development Lead for the City of Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative.
Sendolo Diaminah is the Co-Director of the Carolina Federation, where s/he works building governing power for working people and communities of color in North Carolina. S/he is a strategist with over 15 years of experience in community and electoral organizing, as well as experience winning and holding elected office. Before founding the Federation, Sendolo worked as training director at Black Organizing for Leadership & Dignity (BOLD), where s/he developed somatically-based leadership curriculum for organizers and executive directors.
Sequoya D. Hayes is the founder of Red Linen Moon Wellness and Consulting, an organization that provides integrative wellness services to non-profit organizations. She is dedicated to helping organizations and individuals learn how to collaborate in ways that give power to all participants. Her approach is based upon a combination of experiences, both clinical and organizational. These experiences have allowed her to see first hand how power structures affect change from boardrooms, to classrooms, to social services. Through assessment, she guides clients through the process of identifying issues that are most detrimental to the health and growth of the organization.
Shaw San Liu is the Executive Director at the Chinese Progressive Association. In her 14 years at CPA, Shaw San led the development of grassroots organizing and leadership development programs with the Tenant Worker Center, which includes services for low-wage Chinese immigrant workers and tenants living in San Francisco’s Chinatown. She also spearheaded campaign and alliance building to advance policy on labor and economic issues in the Bay Area. She co-founded the Progressive Worker Alliance, an alliance of low-wage worker centers in San Francisco and has extensive experience with labor and community organizing.
Sophia (She/her) is a queer Bengali-American who is currently a senior at Syosset High School. Alongside working with Breaking Borders to counter the social and institutional barriers that separate communities on Long Island, she has organized protests in the region and is an active member of various organizations that aim to produce local change in her community.
Stephanie Gidigbi Jenkins champions public policy solutions that promote economic, social, and environmental benefits for communities. As a social entrepreneur, Stephanie co-envisioned the Communities First Infrastructure Alliance to advance community-centered plans, racial equity practices, and climate resilience principles serving as Vice President of Strategies. Stephanie is a 2022 Open Society Leadership in Government Fellow who previously served as a former political appointee in the Obama administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation and local government leader. Stephanie began her career working on Capitol Hill. She is a cultural bearer, wife, mother, and community advocate, who lives in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Stephanie Hargrove is a Clinical Associate at Duke University Medical Center. She earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from George Mason University. Dr. Hargrove’s research interests are focused on implementing liberatory and trauma-informed practices at the system, interpersonal, and individual levels utilizing critical, participatory and action-based research methods such as Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Her clinical interests are to facilitate healing from trauma-broadly defined, including the impact of various forms of oppression. Through research, consulting, and clinical work, Dr. Hargrove’s mission is to be a resource for communities that have endured historical and ongoing forms of oppression.
Sulma Arias is the new executive director of People’s Action Institute and People’s Action, a
national network of state and local grassroots organizations dedicated to fighting for justice and
helping communities take control of their destinies – or what we call, “power-building.” Arias is
also the first Latina immigrant to lead the two organizations.
At a time when more than half the member organizations of People’s Action are led by women of
color, with the underpinnings of democracy itself under threat, Sulma Arias is the right leader to
bring the power of organizing to bear on the future of all people seeking a hand in their own
destiny.
In taking on this role, Sulma is coming home to the network, having previously served as the
lead for immigration and worker justice at National People’s Action, one of three organizations
that merged in 2016 to become People’s Action.
Arias has been organizing on the ground, training organizers, engaging in strategic planning and
directing organizations for more than 20 years. This includes leading the country’s largest
coalition of grassroots immigrant rights groups with Community Change, organizing in Kansas
with Sunflower Community Action – and, once before, working with People’s Action – on a
range of issues that includes healthcare, payday loans and worker justice. While on staff at
National People’s Action between 2008 and 2011, she also helped develop and launch our
long-term agenda.
Sulma’s approach to leadership and organizing for political and economic power is rooted in her
personal story. When she was a child, her best friend took up arms, only to be killed in the civil
war that tore apart El Salvador, her birthplace, for more than a decade. By the time she was 12,
she and her four siblings were mostly raising themselves. She crossed the Texas border at 13
with a niece and nephew who were both less than half her age.
In her new home of Wichita, Kansas, Arias immersed herself in the Bible, and the church. In her
20’s, religious studies led her to discover liberation theology. The interpretation of the Bible that
addresses inequality and oppression and underscores the “wisdom of the poor” inspired her to
search for something more.
Ideas in liberation theology brought back memories of El Salvador’s civil war over economic
justice, human rights and other issues. She thought of her best friend, Chato, and the other boys
and men from her town that went to war. “I realized, ‘Oh, so this is what they knew. This is what
the fight was about,’” she recalls today.
In late 1999, Arias came into organizing when Laura Dungan, founding director of Sunflower
Community Action, needed an interpreter to help knock on doors in Wichita’s Latino
community. Dungan was mentored by Shel Trapp, one of the founders of National People’s Action, and has deep connections to People’s Action. Trapp went on to train Arias. Within
months, Sunflower hired Arias to organize Latinos in Wichita.
In 2010, Arias’ deep experience in the Black and Brown communities of Kansas made her the
ideal leader for a campaign centered on spreading the word about then-Secretary of State Kris
Kobach’s policies targeting immigrants and voters from marginalized communities. These
policies ranged from a voter ID law based on the false idea that undocumented immigrants were
voting fraudulently, to voters being kicked off rolls due to a verification system riddled with
errors.
Throughout the campaign, organizers reached more than 100,000 Black, Brown and poor white
voters who hadn’t been going to the polls, helping them become more involved in local and state
politics. The campaign also left an impact on organizers, many of whom went on to lead other
grassroots efforts or to run for office in local elections.
Kobach continued peddling his ideas in Kansas and beyond, leading the Trump administration’s
ill-fated Election Integrity Commission – which shut down in eight months, unable to produce
evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 presidential election. But in hindsight, the policies Arias and
her team exposed were early signs of what was to come – a nationwide assault on democracy,
mostly on the state level, touching everything from the number and location of absentee ballot
boxes, to who gets to count votes. We are living through nothing less than a full-scale attempt to
maintain political and economic power in the hands of white men tied to one political party.
In Kansas and elsewhere, Arias has approached her decades of grassroots organizing with what
she calls a “warrior” mentality deeply rooted in the social movements of Latin America’s history.
This includes maintaining “resilience,” a quality that is developed from withstanding tragedy and
learning that the struggle for justice and equality is continuous, and not tied to winning or losing
a particular election, or campaign. Her approach to organizing and building people power draws
not only on the resilience of human beings, but on the joy that comes from work worth doing.
“Good organizing,” Arias says, “radically transforms people and changes their lives forever –
like it did mine.”
Frustrated by the lack of diversity in tech, Sylvester Mobley launched Coded by Kids to build access to tech for underrepresented Philadelphians. Mobley has grown the organization’s impact to serve hundreds of children per week. In 2020, Sylvester launched the 1Philadelphia coalition aimed at making Philadelphia the capital of equitable tech and innovation. This initiative secured over $1M in funding from Bank of America, Comcast NBCUniversal, Lenfest Foundation, PWC and others in the first year of implementation. Sylvester was a For(bes) the Culture 50 Champions honoree. He is an Iraq war veteran, serving in three branches of the military.
Tameka Citchen-Spruce has been advocating over 15 years for access to affordable and accessible housing, fighting against voting oppression towards people with disabilities, racial and gender injustice, and health equity. Through the combination of her journalism knowledge and activism she learned the importance of telling a person's story. She has produced a short film and documentary based on her own experiences. She is a Program Associate for Michigan Disability Rights Coalition. Her work focuses on Black people with disabilities and leadership development of adults with disabilities. She has been selected for numerous fellowships and awards in the Detroit area.
Taté Walker (they/them) is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. They are an award-winning Two Spirit storyteller for outlets like "The Nation," "Pipe Wrench" magazine, "Apartment Therapy," "Subaru Drive" magazine, "Everyday Feminism," "Native Peoples" magazine, "Indian Country Today," and "ANMLY." They are also featured in several anthologies: "FIERCE: Essays by and about Dauntless Women," "South Dakota in Poems," W.W. Norton's "Everyone's an Author," and "The Languages of Our Love: An Indigenous Love and Sex Anthology" (forthcoming Summer 2022). Taté recently released their first full-length, illustrated poetry book, "The Trickster Riots." Learn more at jtatewalker.com.
if director of policy Temi F. Bennett is responsible for engaging local governments in the D.C. metropolitan region in approaches to developing and implementing racially-equitable policies and systems change that enable communities of color to thrive. Prior to joining if, Temi was Legislative Counsel for D.C.’s Ward 5 Councilmember, Kenyan R. McDuffie, and Ward 4 Councilmember, Brandon T. Todd, where she focused on business and economic development, racial equity, and economic justice issues. Temi co-chairs Resourcing Radical Justice, a funders collective that centers Black liberation as the path to a thriving greater Washington region.
Terrence Keleher (pronoun: Ter) is the Senior Director of Strategic Innovation at Race Forward. Terrence has several decades of experience working on racial justice and social change as a consultant, strategic coach, trainer, writer, researcher, curriculum designer, and community organizer. Terrence has provided consulting and training to leading non-profit organizations, workers associations, philanthropic institutions, government agencies, arts and culture organizations, worker associations, academic institutions, and community groups around the country. Terrence has authored many reports, toolkits, and resources such as the Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit; Racial Equity Core Teams; Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide; and Leadership & Race.
Tobita Chow is the director of Justice Is Global, a special project of People’s Action to create a more just and sustainable global economy and defeat right-wing nationalism. He is a leading progressive strategist regarding the growing tensions between the United States and China, and works with AAPI organizations on the intersection of anti-China nationalism and anti-Asian racism.
Toni-Michelle Williams, Executive Director [full-time] Toni-Michelle (she/her) is an Atlanta-Based artist, embodied leadership/somatics coach. She is a celebrated community organizer in prison abolition/criminal (IN)justice reform issues and leadership development for Black transgender, LGBQ people, sex workers, people living with HIV (PLHIV), and Black youth. She has co- led city wide campaigns that have incubated the Atlanta Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative, cannabis reform, sex worker protections, closing down the Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC), and police accountability for the families of Alexia Christian, Scout Schultz, DeAundre Phillips, Tee Tee Dangerfield and Rayshard Brooks.
Wallace Hudson (he/they) has been leading LGBTQ+ trainings throughout the valley for over 5 years. For the last 5 years he has worked for one-n-ten in many capacities providing trainings and youth programming. Today, he is the training and digital program manager, where he continues to provide LGBTQ+ trainings for many different organizations and programming to youth across Arizona.
Yordanos Teferi is a graduate of Georgetown University, the London School of Economics and Benjamin N. Cardozo, School of Law. She is an eDiscovery Attorney with over 17 years of experience in combined law firm and Fortune 100 companies. Upon returning to Seattle, Yordanos began serving as the Board Chair of the Eritrean Community Center which introduced her to the great work of the Multicultural Community Coalition for which she currently serves as the Executive Director. Yordanos also serves on the Communities of Opportunity (COO) Governance Board, City of Seattle’s Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) Board, City of Seattle's Department of Transportation (SDOT) Equity Workgroup (Co-chair); SDOT’s Policy and Operations Advisory Group; the Race and Social Equity Taskforce; King County Public Health’s Pandemic and Racism Community Advisory Group (Steering Committee member); and the Community Health Board Coalition'(Co-chair).
Zain Dixon is a 17-year-old senior at Albuquerque High School. He joined Generation Justice in July of 2018 as a Youth Media Producer. In the summer of 2021, Zain Dixon became a Generation Justice intern. During his time with GJ Zain has interviewed several people on topics like Historical Trauma, prison to school pipeline, the importance of voting, and more. Zain Dixon worked on the “Policing in Schools” project. Researching the history, policies, and narratives behind the issue so that he could write an OpEd ACLU.
