Colette Pichon Battle is co-founder and Vision & Initiatives Partner for Taproot Earth, a global organization which emerged from the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy that she founded and led in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. She and her colleagues are influencing manifold aspects of our ecological present, including equitable disaster recovery and global migration, community economic development and energy democracy.

LaTosha Brown is an award-winning organizer, political strategist, and jazz singer with over 20 years of experience with political empowerment, social justice, leadership development, wealth creation, and civil rights. She is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund, a power building Southern based civic engagement organization that played an instrumental role in the 2017 Alabama U.S. Senate race. LaTosha is principal owner of TruthSpeaks Consulting, Inc., a philanthropy advisory consulting firm in Atlanta.

KD is a visionary mother, organizer, and strategist grounded in ancestral knowledge and a deep connection to the land. As Executive Director of the Climate Justice Alliance, KD engages in national community organizing and land rematriation while leading bold, collaborative strategies that center frontline communities, Indigenous futures, and sovereignty, to advance a Just Transition to a livable and healthy world.

August Creppel, Chief of the United Houma Nation – Louisiana, has been involved in his tribal community for almost 30 years. The United Houma Nation spans Terrebonne, Lafourche, and four other parishes in Louisiana. Known as “Cocoa” among his people, he was born and raised on the bayous of Lafitte, LA. Chief Creppel gained his title on June 16, 2018, and served until June 18, 2022, after falling to current Principal Chief Lora Ann Chaisson in this year’s Principal Chief’s election. Prior to becoming Principal Chief, he served the Nation as a councilman for ten years. Out of those ten years served on council, he served one as Vice Principal Chief. Still, with a decade of experience under his belt, his term as Principal Chief would prove to be a challenge unlike any he’d seen before.

Michelle Erenberg has worked as a policy advocate, community organizer, and coalition coordinator for more than a decade. Her past work experience includes community organizing for Planned Parenthood in New Orleans and coordinating a diverse coalition of environmental, community and faith-based organizations across the Gulf Coast in response to the 2010 BP oil spill. She has served as a board member with the National Council of Jewish Women Greater New Orleans Section and 10,000 Women Louisiana. Michelle is a recipient of the 2022 Jane Bagley Lehman Award for her work fighting for reproductive justice. 

Aria Florant is Co-Founder and CEO of Liberation Ventures (LV), which is building the power to win federal, comprehensive reparations for Black Americans. Prior to LV, Aria has been a researcher, management consultant, organizer, teacher, and nonprofit practitioner. All of her work drives toward a singular mission: building a world where all people’s whole selves belong. She is rooted in a Black feminist ethos, loves a good Cabernet, and calls Colorado and East Palo Alto home.

FreeQuency is an anti-disciplinary storyteller and community organizer whose work interrogates and occupies the in between. Their multigenre offering, (On |Un-) Becoming: POEMS is available for purchase at FreeQuencySpeaks.com.

Hannah Fried is a Co-Founder and CEO of All Voting is Local and AVL Action. Previously, Hannah served as the National Director and Deputy General Counsel for Voter Protection on Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. She is a frequent commentator on voting rights and democracy issues, and has been featured in outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Axios, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, MSNBC, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Muthoni Wambu Kraal is an impact connector, veteran political strategist, team builder, organizer, trainer, and advisor to political parties and leaders in the U.S. and internationally. She is a former senior staffer at the Democratic National Committee and EMILY’s List, where she helped shape opportunities for women leaders at every level of the ballot. She is African American and a first-generation Kenyan American.

Mandie Landry is a longtime litigator who was elected to the Louisiana State Representative in 2019, serving House District 91 in New Orleans.. She serves on the Civil Law, Judiciary, and Natural Resources Committees. During her first year, she introduced legislation on voting by mail, criminal justice reform, worker misclassification, and eviction protections. During the 2020 regular Legislative Session, Governor John Bel Edwards signed HB 344, which was filed and passed by Rep. Landry. This was Mandie’s first bill signed into law, and it prohibits solitary confinement for people who are pregnant or have just given birth. This was the first change to Louisiana’s solitary confinement law in more than a century.

Nikishka is a social entrepreneur, community organizer, writer, and podcast host with over a decade of experience building economic democracy. As founder and CEO of The Guild, she has helped create a cooperative ecosystem in Atlanta that enables communities to control their economic futures and build deep democracy through collective ownership models. The Guild is a worker-owned cooperative, building community-owned models of land, housing and real estate as a means to close the racial wealth gap and create self-determination for marginalized communities. Nikishka is also the founder and Managing Director of Groundcover, a $30M impact investing fund focused on shared equity models. 

Aditi Juneja is the Executive Director of Democracy 2076, an organization founded in 2023 working long-term to change our Constitution, political culture, and political parties. She was previously Chief of Staff at the Movement Voter Project and during the first Trump administration worked at Protect Democracy where she led the work of the National Task Force on Election Crises during the 2020 election. Her writing has been featured in Vox, NPR, and Non-Profit Quarterly. She received her J.D. from NYU Law School and a B.A. from Connecticut College.

A dedicated and accomplished coalition builder and legal professional, Rukia Lumumba is director of the Policy & Electoral Justice Project of the Movement of Black Lives (M4BL) and co-founder of the People’s Advocacy Institute (PAI). Rukia works at the intersections of criminal and electoral justice, engaging communities in community-led governance, community-driven public safety initiatives and an intentional grassroots process for cultivating ideas and developing solutions to violence, punitive legal systems, and social injustice facing far too many communities.

Brionté believes in a healthier, more vibrant future for all people and the planet. She is dedicated to teaching people how to self-organize and build strategic partnerships to protect the environment, advance racial equity, and grow civic engagement. She currently serves as the Executive Director of Georgia Conservation Voters, where she works to advance a healthier, cleaner, and more affordable future by advancing climate and environmental justice policies, electing pro-environment candidates, and holding elected officials accountable for their actions and votes.

Peyton Rose Michelle (she/her) is a 28-year-old trans woman based in Lafayette, Louisiana. She serves as the first Executive Director of Louisiana Trans Advocates, where she leads LTA’s legislative initiatives and helps lead LocALL (Legislative Organizing Coalition for All LGBTQ+ Louisianans), which LTA co-founded. She also became the first openly transgender person to be elected in the state of Louisiana in July 2020. All in all, Peyton combines her talents in advocacy, marketing, and organizing to effect change.

Jasmine Rashid is a "Zillennial" writer, impact investing and philanthropy strategist, and author of "The Financial Activist Playbook: 8 Strategies for Everyday People to Reclaim Wealth & Collective Well-Being." In 2018, she joined the impact investing firm Candide Group and helped investors flow their money to women- and BIPOC-led social justice-focused organizations building the next economy. As Director of Impact, she designed and launched a portfolio-wide impact data collection and analysis methodology that centers mutuality between investors and investees. She is a proud Congressman John Lewis fellow, Just Economy Institute alum, Trauma of Money Method certified practitioner, and a nationally recognized speaker and media contributor.

Silky Shah has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11. In 2009, she joined the staff of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigrant detention in the United States, and now serves as its executive director. Her writing on immigration policy and organizing has been published in Truthout, Teen Vogue, Inquest, and The Forge and in the edited volumes, The Jail is Everywhere (Verso, 2024), Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence (Haymarket Books, 2024), and Transformative Planning (Black Rose Books, 2020). She has also appeared in numerous national and local media outlets including The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC.

Ashley K. Shelton is the Founder, President, and CEO of the Power Coalition, a statewide 501c3 table in Louisiana. The Power Coalition uses a broad-based strategy that combines community organizing, issue advocacy, and civic action all while increasing the capacity of community organizations throughout the state to sustain and hold the work. She also was the former Vice President of Programs at the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF), now the Foundation for Louisiana.

As Senior Director of Advocacy and Civic Engagement of Equality Federation, Vivian works with state-based LGBTQ+ organizations to craft smart, effective legislative and electoral campaigns that build political power and allow supporters to take action in their communities. Most recently Vivian was the Field Director for the historic, winning Yes on 3 campaign in Massachusetts. She previously led electoral and legislative advocacy programs in Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Texas, and Illinois. Her work in Massachusetts was a groundbreaking success, building the leadership of transgender people, having more than 100,000 conversations with voters, and ultimately winning the first statewide referendum on transgender rights in the nation.

Dr. Victoria Williams, DHA, LMSW, CBS, and Doula, is a maternal-child health leader and advocate with over a decade of experience advancing reproductive justice and equitable care. She serves as Advocacy Director and Member-Owner of Birthmark, where she leads community-driven programs and policy efforts supporting families across the New Orleans area, particularly in maternal healthcare deserts. Dr. Williams is deeply committed to trauma-informed care, maternal health education, and improving outcomes for Black birthing people.

Tania is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community, a first-generation college graduate, and a daughter of hardworking immigrants from Colombia and Ecuador. She is a strong bilingual advocate for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and immigrant communities, with a background in human rights, anti-racism, public health education, and environmental sustainability projects. She demonstrates a successful history of championing immigrant rights and coordinating impactful programs, and is also proficient in developing advocacy campaigns, providing client-focused, trauma-informed services, resource generation, community mobilization, and handling diverse legal cases with a multi-strategy approach.