Facing Race: A National Conference in St. Louis, MO — November 20-22, 2024

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson

Pronouns: she/her
Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is an Affrilachian (Black Appalachian) woman from the working class, born and raised in Southeast Tennessee. She is the first Black woman to serve as Co-Executive Director of Highlander Research & Education Center. As a member of leadership teams in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), Ash-Lee has contributed to the Vision for Black Lives and BREATHE Act. She has served on the governance council of the Southern Movement Assembly, the advisory committee of National Bailout Collective. She is a long-time activist who has worked in movements fighting for workers, for reproductive justice, LGBTQUIA+, environmental justice etc.
 

Presentations from Facing Race 2024

United Against Supremacy: Resisting Hindu and White Supremacist Politics and Their Harm to Our Communities

This session will be a dialogue between Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Co-Executive Director of Highlander Research & Education Center, and Prachi Patankar, Writer and Organizer with Savera.

Savera's campaign is founded on a simple belief: that building a true multiracial democracy requires multiracial, interfaith coalitions that stand united against supremacist politics of all kinds. Within Indian-American communities, for example, the Hindu supremacist movement has grown in size over the past couple of decades and has since increasingly converged on an alliance with the white nationalist far-right, developing a politics that advances and supports the rise of fascism in India but also harms all of us here in the U.S. Hindu supremacist groups not only oppose the struggle for protections against caste discrimination and Islamophobia, but they have also offered non-white support to campaigns against affirmative action, spread anti-Muslim rhetoric and a pervasive anti-Blackness, and fractured coalitions among communities of color.

This is a moderated conversation between Ash-Lee and Prachi about the steps needed to build a true multiracial democracy in the U.S. Placing these issues within the global rise of authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, and racial and ethnic nationalism, this session offers possibilities for interconnected strategies that place our struggles in transnational and local contexts. They will share their analysis from their work in building intra- and inter-community unity against supremacist movements and how to evolve new strategies to take on the far-right in a multiracial society.

Speakers: Prachi Patankar, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Ram Vishwanathan

Presentations from Facing Race 2018

Is America Possible? Building a Multiracial Democracy in an Era of Division

As the U.S. approaches 2043 and a demographic tipping point, right-wing demagogues of division are advancing their vision of white minority rule. How do we think about the struggle for a democratic future? What kinds of lessons can we draw from the global crisis of neoliberalism, beset by extreme economic and social inequality coupled with the rise of religious fundamentalism, misogyny, and racial and ethnic nationalism? How do we stop the march toward authoritarianism? In this plenary, leading thinkers and organizers discuss how we can advance the promise and possibility of a true multiracial democracy.

Speakers: john powell, Tarso Luís Ramos, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Anat Shenker-Osorio, Julie Nelson