ALOK (they/them) is an internationally acclaimed author, poet, comedian, and public speaker. As a mixed-media artist, their work explores themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017), Beyond the Gender Binary (2020), and Your Wound/My Garden (2021). They are the creator of #DeGenderFashion: a movement to degender fashion and beauty industries, and have been honored as one of HuffPo’s Culture Shifters, NBC’s Pride 50, and Business Insider’s Doers. Over the past decade, they have toured in more than 40 countries, recently headlining the Vancouver Just for Laughs Comedy Festival and selling out their runs at the Soho Theatre in London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They are currently on a world tour of their new show which has been described as “provocative and powerful” (Chortle), a ”Potent combination of comedy and poetry”; (The Scotsman), and a “Jaw-dropping celestial event” (To Do List London). On-screen, they will make their feature film debut in Netflix’s Absolute Dominion. On television, they have appeared on Netflix’s Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, HBO’s Random Acts of Flyness and The Trans List.

“CHOKE” is a self-taught artist from The Washington DC area. CHOKE is an acronym that stands for Creating Her Own Kinetic Energy. CHOKE’s art pays homage to her Taíno (Puerto Rican) and Mayan (Mexican) heritage, integrating indigenous patterns, imagery, and shapes. Her work is profoundly inspired by world travel, indigenous spirituality, and her perception of sound as she colorfully translates her experience into form and pattern.

CHOKE acknowledges her strong connection to The Creator, which guides every aspect of her life.

David Perdue is an Atlanta comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central,FuseTV, EPIX. David is also an actor appearing in "Love Is..." on OWN and "Bobcat Goldthwait"s Misfits and Monsters" on truTV. David co-hosts the hilarious sports/comedy podcast called "Forth and Ten" hosted on ForthDistrict.com, as well as the political/comedy podcast “The Confused Caucus”. In 2022 David was selected as an Arts & Social Justice Fellow at Emory University in addition to a 2022 Climate Comedy Cohort created & directed by Generation180 & the Center for Media & Social Impact’s Good Laugh Initiative. As you can see David is many things but most importantly, he is NOT a former US Senator.

Kardea Brown is a contemporary Southern cook born in Charleston, South Carolina, and host of Food Network’s Delicious Miss Brown. She is of Gullah/Geechee descent, a term used to describe a distinct group of African Americans living in the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia who have managed to preserve much of their West African language, culture and cuisine. Kardea created the pop-up New Gullah Supper Club, where the menu pays homage to the dishes her grandmother and mother passed down to her. She has appeared on Beat Bobby Flay, Chopped Junior, Cooks vs. Cons, Family Food Showdown and Farmhouse Rules.

Monica Raye Simpson is a Black, southern, lesbian, artist/organizer and serves as the executive director of SisterSong, the southern-based national women of color reproductive justice collective. Simpson has organized extensively against human rights violations, the prison industrial complex, and structural racism through a feminist and interdisciplinary approach to Black liberation.

Simpson is a nationally sought-after facilitator, speaker, and organizer. She is the only woman among the four founders of Charlotte’s Black gay pride celebration, the first in the Bible belt. The celebration received awards from the National Black Justice Coalition and the Human Rights Coalition for its incredible launch with 7,000 participants. Simpson is also a full circle doula certified through the International Center for Traditional Childbirth. She serves on the boards of the Fund for Southern Communities and the Highlander Research and Education Center, which serves the south and Appalachia.

Simpson now focuses her work on fighting for sexual and reproductive freedom and is also committed to birth justice as a certified doula and founding board member of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance. Simpson’s masterful integration of activism and artistry “artivism,” created a path for her work as a Revolutionary Soul Singer and cultural curator who is committed to living into Nina Simone's charge to artists to "reflect the times". Simpson was named as a New Civil Rights Leader by Essence Magazine and was awarded the Woman of Vision Award from the Ms. Foundation for Women.

Shanelle Matthews collaborates with social justice activists, organizations, and campaigns to inspire action and build narrative power for social justice and liberation. She is the communications director for the Movement for Black Lives, founder of Radical Communicators Network (RadComms), and faculty of Resistance Narratives at The New School. She is co-editor of a forthcoming anthology that details world-building narrative campaigns and strategies led by social movement communications workers in the 21st century.

Tram Nguyen is an award-winning activist and community leader who helped found New Virginia Majority in 2007, where she currently serves as Co-Executive Director. She leads multi-racial, multi-issue campaigns using large-scale civic engagement, community organizing, advocacy, leadership development, and strategic communications. Her work on democracy, criminal justice, immigrants’ rights, climate change, and economic opportunity explore the intersections of social, racial, and economic justice.

Under her leadership, New Virginia Majority has expanded the electorate in Virginia to be more reflective of Virginia’s rich diversity by registering over 300,000 new voters and knocking on over 4 million doors to get people of color and young people to the polls. As a result, Black and brown voters have turned out in record numbers, contributing to a new Virginia that gives voice to the most underrepresented communities. Working with key partners, she anchors several progressive initiatives throughout the state that has had significant victories for Virginia’s more vulnerable populations.

Tram is a partner at Democracy Partners. She currently serves as the Board Chair for the Meyer Foundation and on the National Advisory Council for the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. She is a certified faculty member at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Tram is an alumna of Barnard College and a former Lead the Way Fellow of the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Tamika D. Mallory is a bestselling author, award winning social justice leader, movement strategist as well as a loving, nurturing mother and grandmother. Tamika is one of the most influential activists and organizers of our time; whether it is demanding humane conditions for incarcerated people, attacking voter suppression or advocating for justice in cases such as the more notable, Breonna Taylor No Knock Warrant case; Tamika is both powerful and aspirational.

Tamika has been holding policymakers and our larger society accountable since her time serving as the youngest ever Executive Director of the National Action Network. She was instrumental in the creation of New York City’s Crisis Management System, an official gun violence prevention program that awards nearly $100 million to violence prevention organizations annually. Tamika made history, alongside the other national co-chairs, when she helped shepherd the largest single day demonstration in American history, the 2017 Women’s March on Washington.

Today, Tamika sits as co-founder of Until Freedom, an intersectional social justice organization that serves as a clearing house for organizers, activists, attorneys, artists, celebrities, formerly incarcerated individuals and others who share a passion for liberty. Tamika furthers her work to keep communities educated, informed and empowered as co-host and executive producer of “Street Politicians” podcast on iHeart Radio’s Black Effect Network.

Tamika has been honored as one of Time 100’s Most Influential People, was featured on Fortune’s list of the World’s Greatest Leaders and has been the recipient of the Phoenix Award from the Congressional Black Caucus for her significant contributions to society.

Tamika authored her acclaimed novel in 2021, titled: STATE OF EMERGENCY: How We Win In The Country We Built, echoing the urgent declaration she made in the opening of her speech during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis. Her bold, diligent commitment to equity and justice has deeply moved and motivated a new generation of spirited, engaged activists. Standing firm on the frontlines, streetwise and motivated by her selfless convictions to advance freedom and equality; Tamika is relentless in preserving and promoting the voices of the disenfranchised, marginalized communities she aims to serve.

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. His relentless and passionate research puts into question the notion of a post-racial society and opens readers’ and audiences’ eyes to the reality of racism in America today. Dr. Kendi’s lectures are sharp, informative, and hopeful, serving as a strong platform for any institution’s discussions on racism and being antiracist.

Dr. Kendi is also 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.

Dr. Kendi, alongside the award-winning historian Dr. Keisha N. Blain, also edited Four Hundred Souls, a choral history of African Americans covering four hundred years in the voices of ninety writers. 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 forthcoming book, How to Raise an Antiracist (June 2022), combines vital scholarship with a compelling personal narrative of his own journey as a parent to create a work whose advice is grounded in research and relatable real-world experience.

Dr. Kendi has published numerous essays in periodicals, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, The Huffington Post, and The Root. The Black Campus Movement, his book on Black student protests and the racial reconstitution of higher education, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, won the W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize.

He has received research fellowships, grants, and visiting appointments from a variety of universities, foundations, professional associations, and libraries, including the American Historical Association, Library of Congress, National Academy of Education, Lyndon B. Johnson Library & Museum, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Brown University, Princeton University, Duke University, University of Chicago, and UCLA.

Recently, Dr. Kendi was elected to the prestigious Society of American Historians and named a 2021 Young Global Leader, the World Economic Forum’s annual class of the most promising leaders around the globe under the age of 40.

Ryan Lee Wong is the author of Which Side Are You On, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, lived for two years at Ancestral Heart Zen Temple, and currently lives in Brooklyn, where he is the Administrative Director of Brooklyn Zen Center. Previously, he served as Program Director for the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and Managing Director of Kundiman. Ryan organized the exhibitions “Serve the People” at Interference Archive and “Roots” at Chinese American Museum, both focused on the Asian American movements of the 1970s. He has written on the intersections of arts, race, and social movements. He holds an MFA in Fiction from Rutgers-Newark and served on the Board of the Jerome Foundation.

Kent Wong is the director of the UCLA Labor Center where he teaches Labor Studies and Ethnic Studies. Before joining the UCLA Labor Center, he served as staff attorney for the Service Employees International Union in Los Angeles. He was also the first staff attorney for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Los Angeles, the largest Asian American civil rights organization in the country.

Kent served as the founding President of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO. He is currently a vice-president of the California Federation of Teachers.

Kent has published more than a dozen books on the labor movement, immigrant rights, popular education, and the Asian American community. His most recent book, Revolutionary Nonviolence, features the teachings of Rev. James Lawson Jr., who he has taught with at UCLA for the past twenty years.

Kent also taught the first class in the country on the issue of undocumented immigrant students. He worked with his students to publish three breakthrough books capturing the evolution of the immigrant youth movement.

Kent is married to Jai Lee Wong, a community and women’s rights activist, and they have two sons, Ryan Lee Wong and Robin Philip Wong.

Jai is the lead consultant at the California Women’s Foundation for “California Women Rising,” a statewide network of womxn and girl leaders from low income communities engaged in social change.

She is a founder of “Women’s Leadership Circles,’ an organization dedicated to supporting women leaders through leadership development, financial literacy, and healing circles.

Jai previously worked at The California Endowment as a director of Southern California Region. Her grant portfolio included multicultural health, environmental health, and the “focused funders” initiative to increase funding to women and communities of color.

Jai is a founding board member of the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation, and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, and also served on the board of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy.

Jai’s work has been recognized by the Liberty Hill Foundation, Women in Philanthropy, and the National Women’s Political Caucus. She has been a fellow of the WK Kellogg Foundation and the Coro Foundation.

She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and they have two adult sons, Ryan and Robin Wong

Steve Phillips is a national political leader, bestselling author, and columnist. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority and the newly released national bestselling book How We Win the Civil War: Securing a Multiracial Democracy and Ending White Supremacy for Good.

He is a columnist for The Guardian and The Nation, and an opinion contributor to The New York Times. He is also the host of “Democracy in Color with Steve Phillips,” a color-conscious podcast on politics. He is the founder of Democracy in Color, a political media organization dedicated to race, politics and the multicultural progressive New American Majority.

Phillips is a graduate of Stanford University and University of California College of the Law, San Francisco and practiced civil rights and employment law for many years. Phillips has appeared on multiple national radio and television networks including NBC, CNN, MSNBC and C-SPAN.

Michelle Tremillo, Co-Executive Director and one of TOPEF’s co-founders, is a 4th generation Tejana, born and raised in a low-income neighborhood in San Antonio. She has two decades of community organizing experience, and is responsible for raising a multi-million dollar budget, co-developing TOPEF’s overall strategy to create and win on our economic and racial justice policy agenda in Texas’ 3 largest metro areas, as well as leading TOP’s voter engagement program--the largest independent grassroots program in Texas--which has mobilized more than 3.2 million Black and Latino voters to the ballot box across the state. Michelle has been recognized numerous times locally and nationally for her leadership in the progressive movement, including: in Mother Jones as one of 8 women leading the resistance in Texas (2017), in Texas Monthly’s 2018 Power Issue, along with Brianna Brown, as one of 31 Texans taking charge, and as one of She The People’s 20 Women of Color in Politics to Watch in 2020, which was also featured in Elle Magazine.

Ryan Wilson is the co-founder and CEO of The Gathering Spot, a private membership network that serves as a hub for collaboration, connections and experiences; the Chief Community Officer of Greenwood, a digital banking services platform; and a principal at A3C Conference and Festival. Ryan and his business partner opened The Gathering Spot in Atlanta in 2016, and have since expanded nationally. In 2022, The Gathering Spot was acquired by Greenwood, Inc, creating the largest fintech and community platform for Blacks and minorities with a combined community of over 1 million people. This partnership represents a historic move as one of the few black-on-black M&A transactions at scale and was recognized as one of the most influential Deals of Year in 2022 by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

A native to Atlanta, Ryan is currently an active board member of several Atlanta civic and community organizations. He has been named Small Business Person of the Year by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, one of Goldman Sach’s Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs, one of the country’s most influential African-Americans in The Root 100 and the Ebony Power 100, one of Atlanta’s 500 most powerful by Atlanta Magazine and Georgia Trend, and has received Atlanta’s highest honor, The Phoenix Award. A trusted speaker, Ryan regularly moderates conversations with thought leaders and he has given many keynote presentations to notable corporations, conferences and universities. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, Inc, The New York Times, Revolt, Black Enterprise, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Huffington Post, and USA Today among others. Ryan graduated from Georgetown University and Georgetown University Law Center where he proudly serves on the Board of Regents. He currently resides happily in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and two children.

Tiffany Thompson leads Echoing Green's equity-driven collaborations and narrative thought leadership strategy.

She develops global cross-sector partnerships and collaborates across the organization to embed equity concepts into all aspects of Echoing Green's internal and external work.

Tiffany has over a decade of experience leading social impact program design and implementation and is committed to innovative programs serving Black communities and youth.

She previously led Echoing Green's Black Male Achievement Fellowship program, where she supported the leadership and program implementation of social entrepreneurs dedicated to improving life outcomes of Black men and boys in the U.S. By the time this program sunset, more than $6M was invested in 90 innovators across the U.S.

Before joining Echoing Green, Tiffany worked in the political sector to improve the life outcomes of Black men and boys. She partnered with senior White House administration officials for the My Brother's Keeper (MBK) initiative, supported President Barack Obama's MBK Community Challenge, and, with Deloitte LLP, helped launch the MBK Alliance (now housed within the Obama Foundation). Through her consultancy practice, Tiffany has also worked closely with the philanthropic sector and additional nonprofits, developing culturally-competent impact strategy plans for the Roddenberry Foundation, Tech Talent Project, and Advocates for Youth, among other organizations.

Tiffany holds a bachelor's degree and certificate in leadership development from Temple University, where she previously sat on the Black Alumni board of directors. She earned her master's in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she was a Sheila C. Johnson Fellow with the Center for Public Leadership.

As a longtime advocate and volunteer for young people, Tiffany has been named a top 100 Black youth leader by the Black Youth Project, received a Philadelphia NAACP Humanitarian Award, and now serves as board chair for New York-based nonprofit WeThrive. In 2019, Tiffany's essay “Sunlit Prison of the American Dream” was published in the Harvard Kennedy School Journal of African American Policy.

Melanie Campbell is president/CEO, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, convener, Black Women’s Roundtable. Campbell is recognized as one of the hardest working servant leaders in today’s Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Voting Rights and Social Justice Movement. Campbell has served as an advisor to U. S. presidents & vice presidents, congressional members, corporate, labor, non-profit executives, philanthropists, faith leaders and others---on critical issues and public policy impacting Black America, with a core focus on Black women and families.

Campbell is a veteran coalition builder and is highly successful in leading multi-million dollar civic engagement, women’s economic empowerment and youth civic leadership development campaigns. She leads the BWR Black Women and Allies Call to Action Coalition that is comprised of over 60 other national and state-based organizations that launched in July 2021—to advocate for federal voting rights reform, reproductive & LGTBTQ+ rights, gender & economic justice policies; and supported the successful nomination of the first Black woman to serve on the U. S. Supreme Court., Chief Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Campbell has established the NCBCP Thomas W. Dortch, Jr. Institute for Leadership, Civic Engagement, Economic & Social Justice and Southern Regional Office anchored at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, GA that will officially launch in May 2023.

She serves on the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women Initiative’s Advisory Council, Sephora Racial Equity Advisory Council, Lyft Safety Advisory Council, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority’s National Social Action Commission, Chairwoman of the Board of Sisters Lead, Sisters Vote and serves on the board of Family Values @ Work Action.

Campbell releases an annual Black Women’s Roundtable Report on the status of Black women and hosts an Annual BWR Women of Power National Summit during Women’s History Month.

Campbell was featured in the Washingtonian as one of Washington DC’s Most Influential People and featured several times in Times Square by Sephora for Black History Month in 2021 and 2022. She is a native of Mims, Florida, holds a B.A. in Business Administration & Finance from Clark Atlanta University, a certificate in non-profit executive management, Georgetown University. She is a member of the Inaugural Class of Progressive Women’s Voices, Women’s Media Center and resident fellow alumni, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Institute of Politics at Harvard University.

Frank Fernandez joined the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta in August 2020, where he leads one of America’s top 20 largest community foundations*. The united power of his prior experience and the anchor institution’s 70 plus years of regional leadership combine as a force for good, championing equity and shared prosperity for all who call the Atlanta region home.

Frank builds upon the Foundation’s exceptional resources, leveraging a full range of assets – human, reputational and financial – to pursue equity of opportunity through servant leadership, sustainable change making in both systems and place-based work as well as through inspired giving that ultimately fulfills the Foundation’s mission to lead our region toward equity and shared prosperity for all. To that end, during the pandemic and in partnership with the United Way of Greater Atlanta, he lead programming to raise and deploy $30M in grants to the nonprofit front lines.

Prior to joining the Foundation, he served for six years as the Senior Vice President for The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation where he led transformational revitalization of Atlanta’s Westside while simultaneously directing Blank’s community development, global giving, health access and social justice initiatives.

Jamaa Bickley-King, has worked in progressive political data and technology for over 2 decades and currently works at TargetSmart as the Chief Solutions Officer. He got his start working for Mark Warner’s 2001 gubernatorial campaign and then was appointed to his Administration. His clients after leaving the Warner Administration include the NAACP, the DNC, and the Prime Minister of Trinidad Tobago. In 2012 for the NAACP, he was chief technology architect for their 2012 voter registration program that yielded 800,000 registration cards submitted, with 600,000 completed. He developed a gap closing political data and technology training in 2017 targeted towards people of color. The training had an internal goal of having 50% or more of those trained be women, and we ended up with over 70% of the attendees being women with all involved employed. He is also the Co-Founder, President, and Chairman of the Board of New Virginia Majority, and thanks to its talented staff and leaders it is one of the premier progressive organizations in the country.

Jamaa holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. He is a huge science fiction, fantasy, and comic books fan, and in his spare time, he bakes pies.

Tanya is currently Chief Revenue Officer at TargetSmart where she manages client success and sales. Tanya has a proven record of building and improving organizational systems and strategies. Tanya developed her expertise working at AARP, Catalist, Democratic National Committee, Service Employees International Union, as CEO of WinPoint, an advocacy analytics software startup and most recently as Chief of Staff at America Votes. Tanya has a BA in Political Science and Public Administration from Elon University in North Carolina and a Master of Applied Politics from the University of Akron in Ohio. When Tanya’s not following politics, this proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority loves music, watching football and basketball, the beach, and a good comedy. Tanya’s Howard Bison daughter and elementary-age son keeps her on her toes.

Alejandra Gomez, co-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.”