An author, speaker, veteran, and former President of Democracy in Color, Aimee Allison is recognized as one of the leaders for uplifting women of color in politics. Founder and President of She the People, a social and educational network for women of color, Ms. Allison has brought together the most promising women of color political candidates, strategists, and movement leaders that have contributed to the increasing numbers of women in politics. She has also led forums and initiatives on both race and gender at the Democratic National Convention and Politicon, among others. Ms. Allison works to make social justice the law of the land not only by creating a network for women of color in politics but also by educating the public through lectures, her podcast “Democracy in Color,” and contributions to news outlets such as the New York Times, The Hill, and ESSENCE Magazine.

María Teresa Kumar is a political and voting rights activist from Colombia who is dedicated to creating a more inclusive political participation environment in the US. As a co-founder of Voto Latino, a technology-based non-profit organization working to increase voter turnout in younger Latinx generations, she has helped to successfully register over a quarter million voters so far. She also co-founded the National Voter Registration Day, which is the largest one-day effort to register voters in the United States and has partnered with a multitude of influencers to lead campaigns on education and voter registration in multiple languages. Kumar’s groundbreaking work as a recognized media commentator, writer, and speaker has earned her countless awards from receiving an Emmy nomination for Outstanding News Discussion and Analysis to Elle Magazine’s 10 Most Influential Women in Washington D.C.

An American environmentalist, economist, and writer, Winona LaDuke is well-known for her commitment to preserving the environment and fighting for social justice. She is the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, a Native environmental agency organization that plays a large role in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and tribal land claim disputes. Twice, she has run for Vice President as the nominee from the Green Party and in 2016 became the first person ever to win an electoral vote in the Green Party. LaDuke has also co-founded the Indigenous Women’s Network, co-founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project which has bought back 1,200 acres of taken land and reforested it, and has worked closely with Women of All Red Nations to publicize American forced sterilization of Native American women. Additionally, LaDuke has written multiple books on Native American life and conflict and has three children.

The principal and founder of ASO Communications, Anat Shenker-Onsorio has devoted herself to studying and advising others on the ways in which language and rhetoric can be used to encourage the implementation of effective laws and policies. She is the host of the podcast Brave New Words in which she, along with her guests, analyze progressive successes in politics to reveal the strategies which guided such campaigns to victory. She is also the author of Don’t Buy It: The Trouble with Talking Nonsense About the Economy, in which she navigates the dialect of misinformation to lay a foundation which guides the left to success within the turbulent economic debate.

Cliff Albright is a co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund. In 2018, Cliff and the BVM team traveled throughout seven southern states in “The Blackest Bus in America” energizing voters and exposing voter suppression. He also hosts a weekly radio show in Atlanta and has served as an instructor of African-American Studies at several universities. Cliff previously lived in historic Selma, Alabama, where he focused on bringing financial resources to Alabama’s blackbelt region. Cliff attended Cornell University, where he obtained his B.S. in Applied Economics and an M.P.S. in Africana Studies. He also has an M.B.A. from the University of Alabama. Cliff has contributed articles to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and several other outlets.

Dana R. Fisher is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on studying democracy, civic participation, activism and environmental policymaking. Recent studies focus on the youth climate movement, the movement against systemic racism, and the American Resistance. She has authored over sixty peer-reviewed research papers and book chapters, and has written six books, including Activism, Inc (Stanford University Press 2006) and American Resistance (Columbia University Press 2019).

Professor Fisher has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS Newshour, and various programs on BBC, CBC, and National Public Radio. She has written about her work for the Washington Post, TIME, Politico, Business Insider, the American Prospect, and other outlets. She has presented her work to federal agencies, foundations, and other organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Fisher is currently serving as a Contributing Author for Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Review (IPCC AR6) writing about activism and citizen engagement.

Hannah LeBeau is a member of the Class of 2022 at Boston College. She is majoring in Economics and minoring in Global Public Health and the Common Good. Growing up in Florida and Rhode Island, Hannah began to notice differences in the political systems, opinions, and policies between the two areas, sparking her interest in these areas. Hannah’s interest in politics and public policy, specifically in health policy, grew in college as she learned more both in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. Hannah has been involved in various organizations on campus, including service organizations like 4Boston and Appalachia Volunteers, College Democrats of Boston College, and the Public Health Club where she co-leads an internship for the Boston Public Health Commission. Currently, she is an intern at the Boston Public Health Commission where she works with the Community Initiative Bureau. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a JD/MPH dual degree before continuing on to work in public health and healthcare policy.

U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley was born in the timber town of Myrtle Creek, Oregon. The son of a millwright, Jeff grew up in a working class neighborhood in Portland. To Jeff, America has always been about giving everyone a chance, no matter what they look like or where they come from. He has lived the American dream and has focused his whole career – both in elected office and running non-profits – on making sure that all Americans have the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. From his first election, beating two former state representatives by jogging door to door with home-printed flyers , Jeff has always known that grassroots movements are the key to changing how government works and whom it works for. Our democracy is at its best when ordinary people have a seat at the table, and Jeff Merkley fights every day to make our government more accessible to the people it serves. 

Julianna Carbone is a recent graduate of Boston College where she studied Islamic Civilization and Societies and minored in Management and Leadership. While at Boston College, Julianna was involved in a wide-range of extracurriculars, attending Forte Leadership and Business conferences, swimming for Boston College’s Division I program, and teaching swim lessons to children and adults in the surrounding community. Her studies culminated in her year long senior thesis which applied business decision making models to U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East, specifically the 1953 Coup of Iran. Julianna is currently working in her hometown of Boca Raton, FL and hopes to continue her studies of global and Middle Eastern policy in the coming years.

Katherine is a Boston-based communications strategist who advises advocacy organizations, nonprofits, and forward-looking companies on both strategic positioning and narrative campaigns to shape the public conversation. One of her primary practice areas is sustainability — promoting climate change mitigation and resilience, green open spaces, transit-oriented housing, and equitable public transportation.

Prior to consulting, Katherine served as Communications Director for Massachusetts State Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz. She built communications strategies for bold initiatives to help close the student achievement gap, advance equitable economic development, and improve transparency and accountability in government. She supported the Senator during legislative debates on immigration, health care, transportation investment, and criminal justice reform, as well as during multiple state budget cycles. Katherine was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona.

Lydia Camarillo was named President of SVREP after the untimely passing of Antonio Gonzalez on December 13, 2018.

Camarillo has been a part of SVREP since 1994, when she joined SVREP as Executive Director under Gonzalez leadership. She left in 1999, and returned to SVREP in 2003 as Vice President.

Under Lydia’s tenure, the mobilization of Latinos has grown from 5.4 to 15.5 million. SVREP projects that 17.5 million Latinos will be registered to vote by the 2020 General Presidential Election.

She was named one of the 100 Sisters in Suffrage by the National Organization of Women to celebrate the passage of 19th Amendment to US Constitution, giving women the right to vote. The 19th Amendment celebration takes place on August 26, 2020.

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 40 years. Described as “one of America’s most committed — and most effective — fighters for human rights” by New York Newsday, and “one of the high profile leaders of the peace movement” by the Los Angeles Times, she was one of 1,000 exemplary women from 140 countries nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the millions of women who do the essential work of peace worldwide. 

She is the author of ten books, including Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control and Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection. Her most recent book, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is part of a campaign to prevent a war with Iran and instead promote normal trade and diplomatic relations. 

Her articles appear regularly in outlets such as The Guardian, The Huffington Post, CommonDreams, Alternet, and The Hill.

Elected in November 2018, Nikki Fortunato Bas is the elected council member for District 2 for the Oakland City Council and also sits as executive Director of the Partnership for Working Families. Coming from an immigrant family, Fortunato Bas emphasizes the importance of integrity, honesty, and fairness in her social work as she advocates heavily for fair housing, equitable services in all neighborhoods, and responsible allocation of Oakland’s financial resources. Her most notable contributions to the community have been raising the minimum wage, improving sick leave for workers, helping to create jobs in Oakland, and decreasing fuel emissions in neighborhoods by partnering with a Clean Trucks Program. Fortunato Bas won the Mario Savio Young Activist Award for her anti-sweatshop movement in 1999, was recognized as a social justice Changemaker by the San Francisco Chronicle in 2012, and received the Townie of the Year Award in 2018.

Currently the Director of Communications for Healthcare-NOW!, Stephanie Nakajima has been fighting for human rights around the world for decades. Prior to Healthcare-NOW!, Nakajima has volunteered to support a single-payer healthcare system with Mass-Care. Outside of healthcare, Nakajima has worked for the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Danish Refugee Council in Copenhagen as a communications consultant and journalist. She has also been a writer and journalist in Tokyo covering the Fukushima nuclear crisis and organized crime and has been an editor for NextWave Advocacy group. Nakajima currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts and is earning a masters in Strategic Communications. 

Annie Leonard is the Executive Director of Greenpeace USA an independent environmental organization which uses research, creative communication, non violent direct action and people-power to drive environmental change. Greenpeace takes no corporate or government donations and is people powered, both financially and through its campaigns. Prior to this role, she worked internationally on environmental health and justice issues for 2 decades and created The Story of Stuff, a 20-minute film and book that take viewers on an eye-opening tour of the often hidden environmental and social costs of our consumer driven culture. The Story of Stuff film has generated over 40 million views in over 200 countries and territories since its launch, making it one of the most watched online environmental films to date and sparking a much needed conversation about patterns of production and consumption today. 

Bill  McKibben was named “America’s most important environmentalist” by the Boston Globe. In 1989,  he published the book The End of Nature which is regarded by many to be the first book about climate change intended for a general audience. He has gone on to author over a dozen more books. He is one of the founders of 350.org, a planet wide, grass roots climate change movement. Through founding 350.org, Bill McKibben accomplished his goal of building a global climate movement. 350 has organized over twenty thousand rallies worldwide. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. He was honored in 2013 with the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize. McKibben was also the winner of the 2014 Right Livelihood Prize. He was named as one of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers by Foreign Policy. 

Conner Coles is a native of Oklahoma City and 2020 graduate of Boston College with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Sociology. Pursuing his passion for public service, he has held internship positions within various government offices. These include as an intern at both the Newton, MA office of Congressman Joe Kennedy III and the office of Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt. A lover of politics, Conner worked in Iowa as a fellow within the Biden for President campaign, and as an intern at the Oklahoma headquarters of the Edmondson for Governor campaign in 2019 and 2018 respectively. While on campus, he served on the executive board for the Undergraduate Political Science Journal: Colloquium, as BC liaison for the Biden Campaign, and as a baritone in the University Chorale. Currently, he works as a research assistant for a Washington, D.C.-based business development and government relations firm.

Deborah Klebansky is an American student and activist who studied at McGill University in Montreal. Following the 2016 election, she became involved with Democrats Abroad, the branch of the Democratic Party responsible for connecting with United States citizens living overseas, and was a college fellow for Swing Left. As an Honours undergraduate student at McGill, Deborah studied political science and Russian language in McGill’s Faculty of Arts.

Seated in 2016, Philadelphia City Council member Helen Gym spent more than two decades as one of the city’s leading organizers in the areas of public education and immigrant rights. As chair of Council’s Children and Youth Committee, she leads a public schools agenda that helped end a 17-year state takeover of the Philadelphia public schools, expanded pre-K, and drove new investments in student supports. She won historic passage of a law guaranteeing a right to counsel for renters and won millions of dollars for the city’s first tenant legal defense fund, shallow rent subsidies, and youth homelessness. She has also focused her legislative efforts on economic justice issues by expanding the city’s living wage laws, passing a Fair Workweek law to give advance notice of schedules for over 130,000 hourly workers in the city, and establishing a permanent Department of Labor to enforce the city’s worker protection laws. She is Vice Chair of Local Progress, a network of progressive municipal leaders, where she has helped lead national efforts around Sanctuary Cities and progressive public education policies.

Jennifer Epps-Addison, J.D., is the Network President and Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy and the CPD Action’s network of partner organizations in over 30 states. She is also the former Chief Program Officer for the Liberty Hill Foundation, a group that funds grassroots organizations fighting for social change, and a former trial attorney in the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office. Epps-Addison has dedicated over 15 years of her life to community organizing and social change towards racial and economic justice. Her most notable accomplishments include leading the campaign for the Milwaukee Jobs Act, fighting for paid sick days, and advocating for in-state tuition for unauthorized immigrants. She has been recognized as an “Activist to Watch” by Bill Moyers, a “Friend of Education” by the Wisconsin State Superintendent of Public Schools, and has received the 2013 Edna Award from the Berger-Marks Foundation for fueling social change. 

Kara Johansen is a student in the class of 2022 at Boston College, studying Sociology and Economics. Kara’s passion for social justice began in her hometown of Dallas, Texas, where Kara was an advocate and ally within her school. Kara pursued this passion during her time at Boston College through courses exploring political issues, such as social inequality and environmental justice. Kara also volunteered at James Otis Elementary School and the Women’s Lunch Place. This exploration of societal and political conflict led Kara to develop an interest in the role of personal and collective trauma’s impact on society. During the summer of 2020, Kara interned at Riverside Community Care in the Behavioral Health Community Partner division, working to engage members of the Boston area in behavioral health services. Kara hopes to pursue a PhD in counseling psychology, and work with trauma survivors within the criminal justice system. 

Kira Moodliar is a recent graduate of McGill’s School of Environment in Montreal. Following the 2016 election, she became involved in environmental justice work with Leap Montreal while pursuing studies in Public Health. She was affiliated with activist groups on McGill’s campus to create progressive supplements to public health education.

Born in Milwaukee’s poorest neighborhood, Mandela Barnes has proven himself to be a steadfast champion of progressive causes. Lt. Gov. Barnes believes everyone in Wisconsin and across America deserves the opportunity to thrive, regardless of ZIP code.​ Growing up in a middle class union household, Barnes learned the value of hard work and the importance of community. From his days as a community organizer to the halls of the Wisconsin State Capitol, Barnes had dedicated himself to dismantling the policies and practices designed to systematically leave people behind – specifically Black people and our Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian American brothers and sisters. Lt. Gov. Barnes knows that making our government work for everyone requires widespread engagement and participation in our democracy. It’s time for progressives to get back on the winning side of things in order to deliver for everyday people.

Michael Clingman is currently a partner in Catapult Project Management Group, a research and consulting firm whose clients have included the Oklahoma Restaurant Association, Stand for Children, and the College Association for Liability Management (CALM), and the Oklahoma Center for Progress

He served as the Secretary of the State Election Board, Oklahoma’s chief elections officer.  In that capacity Mr. Clingman oversaw Oklahoma’s statewide election system.

Michael Clingman served as the Campaign Manager for Drew Edmondson’s 2018 candidacy for Governor of Oklahoma.

He currently directs the Oklahoma Coalition for Workers’ Rights, a non-profit organization dedicated to advocating for positive changes in Oklahoma’s workers compensation and unemployment systems as well as advocating for an increase in the Oklahoma minimum wage.

Steve Israel, a U.S. Congressman for New York from 2001–2017, directs the nonpartisan Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University. He has published two critically acclaimed satires of Washington: The Global War on Morris (2014) and Big Guns (2018). As a member of Congress, Israel served as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (2011–2015). Israel is a regular political commentator on MSNBC, and his insights appear regularly in the New York Times, The Atlantic magazine, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He was profiled on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and has appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes.