Chair: Robby Rodriguez, SouthWest Organizing Project, NM
Robby is originally from Southern California by way of Tucson, Arizona. As a Cornell undergraduate student, he interned with SWOP during the summer of 1996. After becoming a full-time organizer with SWOP in 1997, he has helped to organize New Mexico communities around issues of youth criminalization, environmental, economic and social justice. Robby has also participated in the movement for social justice at the regional, national and international level by representing SWOP and the EJ movement at various conferences and meetings and by participating in and conducting trainings throughout the United States and internationally. Currently Robby is a board member of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center and a team member of the Building Movement Project.
Vice Chair: Sondra Youdelman, Community Voices Heard, NY
Sondra has been at CVH since 2000 and was named the organization’s new Executive Director in March 2007; she was previously CVH’s Director of Public Policy and Research. Sondra has worked both in the United States and abroad to achieve social and economic justice through organizing. She has over 10 years experience as an organizer and activist with grassroots groups including farm workers, Native Americans, public housing residents, and low-income workers in the United States, and abroad for various populations throughout Latin America and in several African countries. She obtained a Master’s Degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School in order to gain policy analysis tools to bring back to the grassroots. She also has a BA in American Studies focusing on Oppression and Revolution from Wesleyan University.
Secretary: Rudy Gonzalves, California Alliance, CA
Rudy Gonzalves serves as the Statewide Coordinator for the California Alliance and is responsible for organizational and program development. Rudy has previously worked with the Farm Workers Movement as the Central Coast Regional Political Director with the United Farm Workers, where he managed the union’s political program in Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. He later served as California State Director of La Union Del Pueblo Entero, managing offices in Salinas and Fresno, focusing on public advocacy, community organizing and civic participation in farm worker communities. Rudy also worked with the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council in San Jose and was the Executive Director for SIREN, a community agency focusing on immigrant rights in Santa Clara County. He is a former attorney, a member of the California State Bar and a graduate of U.C. Hastings College of the Law.
Treasurer: Leroy Johnson, Southern Echo, MS
Mr. Leroy Johnson, of Treadwell Grove in Holmes County, MS, was one of the co-founders of Southern Echo in 1989. Mr. Johnson oversees the implementation of Southern Echo’s program of work, serves as its chief financial officer and has primary responsibility for resource development. He is also directly involved in providing training and technical assistance to grassroots communities, educators and public officials. Mr. Johnson is a 1996 recipient of the prestigious Charles Bannerman Fellowship. He worked for the Rural Organizing & Cultural Center (ROCC) in Holmes County, MS, for eight years, and as Executive Director for the last two of those years. From 1992 through the Spring of 1993, he was Special Assistant to the President of Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE), where he had primary responsibility for the development of their Youth Initiative and Environmental Organizing Programs. He was active in the successful redistricting efforts in 1990-92 and again in 2000-2002. Mr. Johnson is a founder of the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network and the Southern Partners Fund, of which he is a past President and a current member of the Board of Directors. Mr. Johnson also served on the New World Foundation Board of Directors and on the boards of directors of a number of community-based non-profit organizations. Mr. Johnson has conducted a wide variety of training programs in Mississippi, across the United States, and in international forums on youth leadership and community organizing.
Hill Carmichael, Greater Birmingham Ministries, AL
Hill Carmichael is the campaign coordinator for Greater Birmingham Ministries’ Constitutional Reform Education Campaign. Founded in 1969, Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM) is an interfaith, multiracial organization committed to serving people, building community and pursuing justice for low-income families in Birmingham and throughout the state of Alabama. Hill came to Greater Birmingham Ministries in 2004, following two years of work with the Learning Tree, Inc. While working with the Learning Tree, Hill managed a Medicaid Entitlement Program while working with a young man with severe autism. His responsibilities with the Learning Tree included direct service, staff management and Medicaid Waiver management. A native of Tuscumbia, Alabama, Hill received is B.S. in Psychology from Birmingham-Southern College in 2002. He is currently working on his Masters in Public Administration and Public Policy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Scott Douglas, Greater Birmingham Ministries, AL
Scott Douglas is Executive Director of Greater Birmingham Ministries (GBM), a metropolitan, multi-faith, and multi-racial direct services and social and economic justice organization. GBM’s current social and economic justice work focuses on revitalized public transportation, affordable housing, and democratically revising Alabama’s Jim Crow era Constitution of 1901. In an era of increasing privatization, GBM works with local, state, regional, and national collaborations to better equip our communities to successfully engage in public decision-making on public issues. He is a graduate of Pearl High School in Nashville, TN and attended the University of Tennessee – Knoxville. Before joining the staff of GBM, Scott served as the first Environmental Justice Organizer for the Sierra Club, Executive Director of the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice and Southern Field Representative for the Partnership for Democracy Foundation. Scott serves on the boards of AlabamaWatch, Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform, Democracy South, the Alabama Poverty Project, the Progressive Technology Project, the Birmingham Center for Affordable Housing and the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama. He also serves on the Gulf Coast Ecological and Community Health Fund’s Advisory Committee and the Steering Committees for the Push Back Network and the Alabama Organizing Project. Scott has published articles on human rights, community organizing and social change in Social Policy Magazine, Southern Exposure Magazine, and the Howard Law School Journal.
Kimble Forrister, Arise Citizens’ Policy Project, AL
Kimble Forrister is State Coordinator for Alabama Arise, a coalition of 155 religious and community groups working for fairer state policies toward low-income Alabamians. As State Coordinator, Forrister was the first full-time staffer for Alabama Arise. Now Arise has a staff of twelve working to analyze poverty issues, monitor Alabama government actions, and inform Arise members of what’s going on. Forrister came to Alabama Arise in July, 1991, after nine years as Southeast Regional Organizer for Bread for the World in Washington, D.C. He covered a six-state region that included Alabama, organizing small groups of people committed to anti-poverty advocacy. A native of Nashville, Forrister received his B.A. from David Lipscomb College and his M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary. For seven years in the 1970s he worked in urban ministry projects in the Northeast. He also has Alabama roots: His father, Vardaman Forrister, a Church of Christ minister and sociology professor, was a native of Franklin County. Forrister reports that Alabama has been good to him: after he led an education reform workshop, one participant, Calli Patterson, asked him out the next day. They married in 1994, making him an instant parent of Ned and Sarah Alice. In June 1996 he became the proud father of Clare Patterson Forrister, Ned and Sarah Alice are in college and Clare is in the 6th grade.
Darnell Johnson, Kentucky Jobs with Justice, KY
Darnell Johnson is the community organizer for the Fairness Campaign. The Fairness Campaign is a broad-based community effort dedicated to equal rights. Its primary goal is comprehensive civil rights legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The Fairness Campaign accomplishes its goals through public education and advocacy, political activity, community building and reciprocal alliances with others in the social justice community.
Burt Lauderdale, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, KY
Burt Lauderdale is the Executive Director of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. He is a graduate of Auburn University and has been with KFTC since 1983. His responsibilities include leadership identification and development, campaign development, organizer training, strategy development and fundraising.
Mike Sayer, Southern Echo, MS
Mr. Michael Sayer, Senior Organizer and Training Coordinator, of Jackson, MS, was one of the co-founders of Southern Echo in 1989. Mr. Sayer has responsibility for development of Echo’s training programs on public education, environmental racism, effective participation in the political process, redistricting and organizational development. He has responsibility for the creation of educational and resource development materials. Mr. Sayer provides training, technical and legal assistance to grassroots communities, educators and public officials. As a college student, Mr. Sayer became involved in the anti-war and nuclear disarmament student movement in 1960 and the civil rights movement in Georgia in 1961. After a stint as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and United Press International in 1962, he worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1963 to 1965 in Georgia and Mississippi. Mr. Sayer also worked as a field organizer with the United Farm Workers in the original grape strike in 1965-1966 in Delano, CA and El Paso, TX. Mr. Sayer served as Coordinator of Field Services and Special Projects for Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE) in Greenville, MS from 1990 to 1993. At MACE he headed the Training and Technical Assistance Program for Black Elected and Appointed Officials, and other empowerment and environmental organizing work. He served as an organizer and attorney in the successful redistricting efforts in 1990-92 and again in 2000-2002. He served on the Board of Directors of the Progressive Technology Project.
Anthony Thigpenn, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, CA
For over thirty years, Anthony Thigpenn has been involved in neighborhood organizing, public policy advocacy, and community organizing training. Thigpenn founded in 1992 and is the current president of Strategic Concepts in Organizing & Policy Education (SCOPE), which is a multi-faceted social justice organization based in South Los Angeles. Thigpenn attributes the success of his organization to the devoted grassroots leaders and community collaboration. A component of SCOPE is Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives (AGENDA), a grassroots membership organization that trains African-American and Latino community members to understand and participate in public policy formulation and decision-marking.
William (Sonny) Weahkee, Director, Sage Council, NM
Sonny is Diné, Cochiti and Zuni Pueblo. Sonny is a founding member of the SAGE Council and has played a key role as an organizer in the Native American Community as well as an Operations Director for SAGE. He was an organizer with the Tonantzin Land Institute, a land and water rights organization, based in Albuquerque. Sonny served as a Field Director for the victorious 2003 Stop Tax Waste Campaign a campaign to defeat a street bond in Albuquerque NM. He is currently serving on the board for the Center for Civic Policy. In addition, he is also serves on the organizing committee for the Native American Healthcare Council of New Mexico as well as the steering committee for the New Mexico Environmental and Economic Justice a project of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice.
PBN Steering Committee Alternates are as follows:
Lisa Abbott, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, KY
Lisa Abbott is KFTC’s Organizing and Leadership Development Director. She supervises a staff of seven full-time organizers who work in five field offices across the state. She is responsible for coordinating KFTC’s voter empowerment program, issue campaigns, and leadership development program. She lives and works in Madison County, Kentucky, where she also serves as an organizer for KFTC’s third largest chapter. Lisa came to KFTC in 1992 and worked for seven years as an organizer in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky before taking her current position. As a student, Lisa was a leader in the formation of the Student Environmental Action Coalition at the University of North Carolina. She has a Masters Degree in public policy from the University of Maryland and serves on the board of the Progressive Technology Project, based in Minneapolis. Lisa’s two young boys remind her each day why we do this work. Her husband Justin Maxson is the director of the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development.
Bineshi Albert, SouthWest Organizing Project, SAGE, NM
Bineshi Albert is a field organizer for the Center for Community Change.
Presdelane Harris, Arise Citizens’ Policy Project, AL
Presdelane works for Alabama Arise/Arise Citizens’ Policy Project as the Lead Organizer of a team of four. She has worked for Arise for 13 years. Arise is an organization that advocates for fairer state policies toward low-income people in Alabama. Pres helps educate the Arise membership and general public about poverty issues through public speaking, presentations and workshop facilitation. Her work at Arise is fulfilling part of her call to service. Pres has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Justice and Public Safety from Auburn University at Montgomery, a Master of Science Degree in Management from Troy University, and has participated in various leadership development and training programs. She has lived in Montgomery, Alabama her entire life and enjoys spending time with family and friends, working in her church, fun movies, and good gospel/ inspirational music.
Attica Scott, Kentucky Jobs with Justice, KY
Attica is a native of Louisville and is currently the Coordinator of Kentucky Jobs With Justice. For three years, Attica was Executive Director of The National Conference for Community and Justice in Knoxville, TN, and wrote a monthly column called “Color Conscious” for Metro Pulse exploring racial justice issues through the lens of a young woman of color. Attica provides leadership to a number of non-profit Board of Directors including the Hispanic-Latino Coalition and the Center for Labor Education and Research Advisory Board at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. She served on the boards of the Democracy Resource Center, Knoxville Branch NAACP, Community Shares of Tennessee, and Knoxville Project Change. She holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science from historically Black Knoxville College and a graduate degree in Communications from the University of Tennessee. Attica is a certified anti-racism trainer through Crossroads Ministry and the Commission on Religion in Appalachia.
Henry Serrano, New York Jobs with Justice, NY
Henry first joined CVH as an Organizer in 2001, and was named Senior Organizer at CVH in Spring 2003. In addition to his own organizing work, supervises and guides the work of our other organizers. He is also responsible for developing and leading our Voter Engagement Project. His early work for Community Voices Heard was as the organizer working on winning implementation of the Transitional Jobs Program and organizing Parks Opportunity Program workers. His previous organizing experience includes 2 years of neighborhood-based grassroots organizing in Brooklyn for ACORN on issues including housing, education, and neighborhood services. Henry has a BA degree from New York University in comparative literature.
Karla Zombro, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, CA
Karla Zombro is the Strategic Initiatives Coordinator for Strategic Concepts for Organizing and Policy Education, where she helps coordinate local, state and national policy work, electoral strategies, and capacity-building programs. SCOPE’s electoral work focuses on a bottom-up approach bringing together local CBO’s, unions, churches and students to educate voters and increase turnout in low-income communities of color. Before coming to SCOPE in 1999, Karla was a union organizer for the Service Employees International Union Local 1877 with the Justice for Janitors campaign and was the Lead organizer for the Respect at LAX campaign which organized airport security workers.
