The Black Voices for Black Justice Fund

Natasha S. Alford is an award-winning host, journalist, writer and producer driven by the power of storytelling to inspire and change people’s lives. As Senior Correspondent and VP of Digital Content for TheGrio, Alford covers criminal justice reform, education, politics and culture. In the midst of Puerto Rico's political crisis, Alford led a project to document the impact of the hurricanes and political unrest on Afro-Latino communities through the lenses of policing, education, and economic displacement. She interviewed Puerto Rican and Afro-LatinX residents, scholars and activists to report on their experiences with racism, police abuse, gentrification, and substandard schools. She also explored how a resurgence of Black pride and identification in Puerto Rico is fueling a revolution of political consciousness for a new generation of Afro-Puerto Ricans.

Maia Blankenship is a changemaker and equity advocate who works in public education to ensure that educators are valued, supported, and empowered to create vibrant learning environments for their students. As a Regional Site Entrepreneur, she partners with Montessori teachers and the broader education community to build a hub of liberatory authentic microschools in the DC Metro Area. As a mom of an adventurous and independent toddler, she is inspired daily to create liberatory and identity-affirming spaces for students to thrive.

Aly Conyers was 13 when she attended her first Black Lives Matter protest. Now 17, the Washington DC native, track runner, and student activist has been at the forefront of recent demonstrations in her hometown. After witnessing the video of George Floyd’s murder, Conyers, and her brother Ace, felt compelled to act. Wanting to make their voices heard, the siblings drove to their hometown, Washington DC, and worked with friends to stage a protest against institutional racism. After Ace lost his voice, Aly grabbed a megaphone and emphasized how this - and so many other incidents - violate basic human rights. The siblings also urged action beyond this protest, encouraging people to take their frustrations to the ballot box. They plan to set up an initiative with other schools in South Carolina to work with local government leaders, in the hopes of creating real change together.

Physical therapist turned criminal-justice-reform activist Tiffany Crutcher’s life mission is police reform. After her brother Terence was killed by police in September of 2016, Crutcher became the founder and president of the Terence Crutcher Foundation, which engages the community, law enforcement, and policymakers in preventing, identifying and addressing issues of inequity pertaining to minority communities in Tulsa and across the country. She hopes to change the narrative about Black men and support others who’ve been affected by police violence. In May 2018, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Terence Crutcher Foundation, and community leaders issued a letter to the mayor of Tulsa about needed police reforms, including the establishment of an independent agency to investigate lethal encounters with police, including immediately inspect a crime scene where an officer fired a weapon, reexamine evidence and witnesses, and recommend discipline for police misconduct. After leading a march in protest of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the mayor agreed to meet with Crutcher and other activists where Crutcher won a major victory on measures to improve transparency and accountability within the Tulsa Police Department, including an announcement that the city’s controversial A&E “Live PD” television show contract will not be renewed. This was the first step in what she and other advocates hope will be a series of changes in how the city and police function equitably for all Tulsans.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham is an educator, organizer, and writer. Cited by President Obama as a leader whose "voice is going to be making a difference for years to come," Brittany was an appointed member of the Ferguson Commission and President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. She is a co-founder of Campaign Zero, a police reform campaign, and was previously the executive director of Teach for America in St. Louis. Brittany has worked to impart lessons of movement-building, social impact, leadership, and empowerment for women and girls-especially girls of color. Today, she continues to advocate for urgent systemic change at critical decision making tables and through national and international media.

Ryan is a nationally respected civil rights lawyer. As the president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Ryan leads a majority-women of color team of racial justice advocates whose work—powered by grassroots organizing, research, writing, policy, and litigation—seeks to build reparative systems that create wealth, justice and power for Black and other people of color. The Institute’s powerful advocacy in New Jersey recently created a $15 minimum wage and an independent prosecutor in cases involving police misconduct; ended prison-based gerrymandering; restored the right to vote to 83,000 people with convictions; and created online voter registration, which more than 200,000 people in New Jersey have used to register in the last month. Prior to leading the Institute, Ryan served as the deputy director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc. (LDF), where he worked for more than a decade. At LDF, Haygood litigated some of the most important civil rights cases of our time. In two of those cases, he defended a core provision of the Voting Rights Act, widely regarded as one of the nation’s greatest pieces of civil rights legislation, before the United States Supreme Court. Ryan also led a successful challenge to Texas’s racially discriminatory photo ID law, under which a voter could present a concealed-handgun license as a form of identification to vote at the polls but not a student ID. In the first ruling of its kind, a federal district court found that Texas’s photo ID law was intentionally racially discriminatory, violated the Voting Rights Act, and was an unconstitutional poll tax. A passionate advocate, Ryan speaks and writes regularly on issues concerning race, law, social justice, democracy, and power. Ryan received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and B.A. in American History and Political Science cum laude from Colorado College, where he was nominated for the Rhodes scholarship and earned academic and athletic All-American and hall of fame honors as a football player. He lives in Newark with his wife, a district school principal, and family. Ryan and his wife mentor young people through Newark’s C.H.O.S.E.N., a group that seeks to prepare young people for purpose-driven living by developing and supporting spiritual growth, character, educational excellence, leadership, advocacy, and community service.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and Brooklyn native. She is founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for coastal cities, and is co-creator and co-host of the Spotify/Gimlet podcast How to Save a Planet. With Dr. Katharine Wilkinson, she co-edited the anthology All We Can Save, and co-founded The All We Can Save Project. Recently, she co-authored the Blue New Deal, a roadmap for including the ocean in climate policy. Previously, she was executive director of the Waitt Institute, developed policy at the EPA and NOAA, served as a leader of the March for Science, and taught as an adjunct professor at New York University. Dr. Johnson earned a BA from Harvard University in environmental science and public policy, and a Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in marine biology. She publishes widely, including in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Time, and she blogs on Scientific American. She was named one of Elle’s 27 Women Leading on Climate. Outside Magazine called her “the most influential marine biologist of our time.” Her mission is to build community around solutions to our climate crisis.

In 2010, Nicole Lynn Lewis founded Generation Hope, a nonprofit that surrounds motivated teen parents and their children with the mentors, emotional support, and financial resources that they need to thrive as they pursue their education. Generation Hope is now launching national work to advocate for the nearly 4 million parenting college students across the country who are disproportionately students of color facing various systemic barriers to their success. In 2003, Lewis graduated from the College of William and Mary as a teen mother who had overcome homelessness and a drug-infested environment to achieve the impossible. She was named a CNN Hero in 2014 and the 2018 recipient of the Roslyn S. Jaffe Award. Lewis is also a nationally known author and speaker with her next, highly-anticipated book, Pregnant Girl, to be released in the spring of 2021 by Beacon Press.

As Founder and Executive Director of Operation Restoration, Syrita Steib creates opportunities for formerly incarcerated women, eradicating the roadblocks she faced when returning to society after incarceration. After serving nearly 10 years in prison, she was released into a community vastly different than the one she left. Despite her academic accomplishments while incarcerated, Syrita was denied admission at the University of New Orleans due to the criminal history question. She reapplied, unchecked the box, was granted admission, and went on to earn her B.S. from Louisiana State University. Steib wrote and advocated for Louisiana Act 276, which prohibits public post-secondary institutions from asking questions relating to criminal history for purposes of admissions. Syrita has continued to work with advocates on the ground in five states to pass legislation to ban the box in college admissions. Syrita has also helped draft and pass legislation in five states to support currently and formerly incarcerated women, including Louisiana. As a policy consultant for Cut50’s Dignity for Incarcerated Women campaign, she has worked tirelessly on the passage of the First Step Act. Syrita regularly speaks at conferences across the nation about the experiences of incarcerated women. She has served as co-chair of the healthy families committee for New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s transition team; was appointed to the Executive Board for Dillard University's new Center for Racial Justice; was appointed by the governor to the Louisiana Justice Reinvestment oversight council; and is the vice chair of the Louisiana Task Force on Women’s Incarceration. She also helped create and was featured in the Newcomb Art Museum’s Per (Sister) exhibit, which shared the stories of currently and formerly incarcerated women. And, she was selected to participate in the 2019-2020 Unlocked Futures cohort and is a 2020 recipient of the Rubinger Fellowship.

Mary Moran is a national leader on issues organizing and Black and Brown coalition-building. She is the co-founder of, and currently leads, Our Voice Nuestra Voz, an advocacy organization that builds power within Black and Brown communities in New Orleans. In 2016, she founded the #BlackandBrownGetDown, a movement to build coalitions, create a Black and Brown agenda, and win on shared issues. Moran is recognized by 100 Black Men, The Links Incorporated, the NFL, Alliance of Diversity and Excellence, the Committee for a Better New Orleans, and others for her commitment and excellence in leadership, strategy, and communications. As a political strategist and organizer, she has led campaigns that won the first-ever living wage campaign in the state of Louisiana and the entire South. In 2018, she help win statewide legislation that keeps school districts transparent and accountable, and she fought for numerous policies that protect undocumented students, such as eliminating a discriminatory statewide policy that prevented undocumented students from playing high school sports. In addition to developing Our Voice, she also provides strategic and tactical development on issues and local political campaigns in Louisiana and hosts the #BlackAndBrownGetDown Podcast.

Oluchi Omeoga is a Black trans organizer committed to dismantling systems of oppression and violence, and pursuing dignity and equity for all. Omeoga is a co-creator and Core Team member of Black Visions Collective, a black-led local organization, committed to a long term vision in which ALL Black lives not only matter, but are able to thrive. Black Visions Collective seeks to expand the power of Black people across the Twin Cities metro area and Minnesota. Black VIsions Collective is at the forefront of the Defund the Police movement, having penned one of the first petitions to defund their city’s police department on May 25, almost immediately after George Floyd was murdered. As calls to defund police departments echoed across the country, they forced elected officials to reckon with a movement that had suddenly broken into mainstream discussion. The breakthrough came after years of seeing activists’ impact diluted through incremental reform measures or wholesale ignoring of their demands. Omeoga was quoted, “It’s different than the 2013, 2012, 2017 iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement. We’re no longer asking for convictions or folks to be indicted. We’re asking for an actual narrative shift, a seismic shift in the systems of police.” Prior to becoming the National Organizer, Oluchi was also co-founder of the Black LGTBTQ+ Migrant Project, and focused on bringing most marginalized folks together to work toward liberation.

A’Dorian Murray-Thomas, at 23, is the youngest person ever elected to the Newark Board of Education. She is the Founder and CEO of SHE Wins, a leadership and social action organization for middle and high school girls in Newark, with a focus on girls affected by violence.
At an early age, A'Dorian, overcame the death of her father after he was fatally shot in Newark. She created SHE Wins to empower young women like herself who have experienced the tragedy of violence by implementing a system of support that encourages community leadership and college and career readiness. Since its founding, the SHE Wins organization has helped more than 200 girls between the ages of 10 and 15 through summer, after-school, workshop, and conference programming. The She Wins curriculum combines social justice, mentorship, and leadership development programming to provide young girls with the skills to advance themselves academically, but also the tools to discover solutions to the issues that affect their communities. She has been recognized as a President Obama White House Champion of Change, Glamour Magazine “College Woman of the Year”, a Young Futurist in “The Root” Magazine, and was featured in ESSENCE Magazine’s “Black Girl Magic” docuseries. Murray-Thomas recently made history when – at 23 years old – she became the youngest woman ever elected to the Board of Education for New Jersey’s largest school district.

Reverend Dr. Howard-John Wesley is the senior pastor of the historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA. Dr. Wesley’s church is part of the first of its kind in the world with an inaugural cohort of 10 exceptional students in the PhD in African American Preaching and Sacred Rhetoric program at the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana. Dr. Wesley led community protest marches against the New York grand jury’s 2014 decision not to indict an NYPD officer whose chokehold led to the death of Eric Gardner. His sermon, “When the Verdict Hurts,” was acknowledged in TIME magazine’s July 29, 2013 cover story, “After Trayvon” as one of the best sermons preached in the United States following the “not guilty” verdict in the State of Florida v. George Zimmerman, who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. “When the Verdict Hurts,” along with two other sermons, “A Rizpah Response” and “Tell Your Own Story,” have been archived in the faith-based collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Dr. Wesley was the keynote speaker at the 2019 Congressional Black Caucus Foundation 2019 Prayer Breakfast.

Cameron Whitten is a co-founder of The Black Resilience Fund, a new emergency fund that is dedicated to healing and resilience by providing immediate resources to Black Portlanders in need. The idea came about arose George Floyd’s murder. Whitten and Co-Founder Salomé Chimuku’s inboxes were flooded with messages from white friends checking in and some wanted to share resources with Black Portlanders to pay for a warm meal, buy groceries, or pay a bill. Whitten responded with this effort in June 2020, hoping to raise $5,000 to help Black Portlanders. Within two weeks, the fund had received over $500,000 in donations, and it has distributed more than $100,000, with some 3,600 people applying for help. In addition to his role with The Black Resilience Fund, Whitten is Executive Director of Brown Hope. Brown Hope is an organization leading community-grounded initiatives to make justice a lived experience for Black, Brown, and Indigenous people in Oregon. Whitten was previously homeless in Portland and ever since he secured a home at age 18, he has spent the past decade giving back to the very same community that helped him get back on his feet.

Social entrepreneur, activist, teacher, lawyer and nonprofit leader, Rafiq Kalam Id-Din II is the the Founder and Managing Partner of a Black-led charter school in Brooklyn with a focus on African and African-American cultural education. Anti-racism and justice for Black students in particular is at the center of the school’s mission. As co-founder and former Executive Board member of the NYC Coalition of Community Charter Schools, founder of the #BlackLedSchoolsMatter initiative and co-founder of the Black-Latinx Asian.
Charters Collective, he currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Echoing Green and President of the NYU Law Alumni of Color Association. He continues to maintain a small private legal practice providing pro bono services to a number of indigent clients from the local community.

Dr. Uché Blackstock, Founder and CEO at Advancing Health Equity, partners with healthcare organizations to address the critical factors that contribute to health inequity. Dr. Blackstock uses her voice to advance health equity for patients and to address the detrimental effects of bias and structural racism on health outcomes. Most recently, she was featured in the press where she shared her experiences as a physician working on the front lines of the COVID pandemic and expressed her concerns about racial health disparities and inequities exacerbated by the crisis. Dr. Blackstock became a Yahoo! NewsMedical Contributor in June 2020.

Michael “Zaki” Smith was in and out of the criminal justice system for many years before spending a decade working with youth, and eventually losing his job due to the collateral consequences of his incarceration. As a Next100 Policy Entrepreneur, he is now working to dismantle laws and barriers that affect the lives of formerly incarcerated Americans – impairing their ability to access employment, housing, education, occupational licensing, and voting. Smith combines legislative and policy work with using art to empower and educate impacted communities. Smith built his policy and legislative advocacy skills by working with the Clean Slate New York coalition to promote the automatic expungement of criminal records. He has testified in front of the State Assembly, published an op-ed with a NYS senator, drafted legislation, created two community murals, and led community education/empowerment sessions. Smith is still in the early days of his policy change-making career and is committed to continuing his efforts to dismantle the 44,000 laws and barriers that affect the lives of formerly incarcerated Americans.

Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC) works to ensure a high quality of life and access to opportunities for members of the Black community in Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin. BLOC’s agenda includes includes such wide-ranging recommendations as creating background checks for gun reform; expanding access to mental health professionals in Black neighborhoods; strengthening policies that target racial housing discrimination; and training medical professionals for implicit bias. Beyond electoral politics, BLOC is engaged with other campaigns such as LiberateMKE, which seeks to reallocate funds from the Milwaukee Police Department to non-police violence prevention strategies. BLOC is also involved in the St. Joe’s Accountability Coalition, which seeks to hold officials from Ascension St. Joseph Hospital accountable in the community. BLOC continues to unite the public, lift up the Black citizens, leaders, and businesses of Milwaukee.

Founded in 1999, the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC) is a nonprofit organization with a mission of eliminating the overuse of the criminal justice system and advancing community health and safety. CCJRC is comprised of people convicted of crime, survivors of crime, and the families and allies of both. Continuously striving to advocate and organize for public safety strategies that are more holistic, effective and just.

Dream Defenders was founded in April 2012 after a group of activists marched from Daytona to Sanford, Florida to protest the tragic killing of 17-year old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. In July 2013, Dream Defenders occupied the Florida State Capitol building for 31 days after George Zimmerman was acquitted for Martin's murder with the aim of raising awareness of and ending Florida’s Stand Your Ground self-defense law. Today, the Dream Defenders is organizing Black and Brown youth to build power within their communities to advance a new vision they have for the state, FREEDOM PAPERS, which is advancing a vision of safety and security – away from prisons, deportation, and war – and towards healthcare, housing, and jobs for all.

The Live Free Campaign is a faith-based movement committed to addressing the causes of violence and mass incarceration and ending the institutions and policies that contribute to the dehumanization of Black and Brown Americans. Strategies include community organizing and outreach; advocating for reforms to reduce gun violence and mass incarceration; and improving civic engagement. Live Free works alongside clergy, community leaders, law enforcement, public officials and those directly impacted by gun violence in order to get proven strategies implemented. Based on data from a 2018 (State of California) report, Oakland saw a significant reduction in gun violence after implementing Live Free’s Group Violence Intervention, a data-based law enforcement approach that targets the tiny fraction of individuals at risk for being perpetrators or victims of violence. Oakland celebrated its 6th straight year of reductions in shootings and homicides (50% reduction) since introducing this effort in 2012 and Sacramento experienced its first year in 35 with no youth homicides.

Mass Liberation Arizona is building power to end mass incarceration and divest from the carceral system in Arizona. Mass Liberation Arizona began organizing in 2018 when formerly incarcerated people in Arizona collaborated with and received training from the Oakland-based Mass Liberation Project. Since then, they have successfully organized town halls across the state, advanced decarceral legislation, fought (and won) for police accountability, educated the public on the role of prosecutors in mass incarceration and targeted former Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall for their misconduct and harm to their communities.

Michigan Liberation is a nonprofit statewide network of people and organizations organizing to end the criminalization of Black families and communities of color in Michigan, working towards a state without mass incarceration or mass policing. Michigan Liberation promotes changes in all areas of the criminal legal system, including courts, prosecutors, policing, prisons, juvenile systems, re-entry and diversion programs, and parole. Michigan Liberation was successful winning an important campaign to Ban the Box for county employees in Oakland County. This removes the question on job applications that asks if the applicant has a felony record. This simple change often has a big impact, with more people getting a chance to interview before answering questions about their record or background.