Hy Thurman originally from Tennessee and now resides in Alabama. A southern migrant who settled in Chicago’s Uptown community, a predominately a southern white community, in the 1960’s, at the age of 17. He became a community organizer and cofounded the Young Patriots, a group of displaced anti-racist Southern white youth and created services in health care, breakfast for children programs, and fought urban renewal plans to destroy their homes, as well as fighting police brutality. He was also a cofounded of an inter racial coalition called the Rainbow Coalition made up of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican gang turned political and the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party to fight for self-determination in their communities. He is presently working with the Second Rainbow Coalition and he is the co-director of the North American School for Organizers (formerly “North Alabama”). Hy is the author of Revolutionary Hillbilly.

Fallon Leyba is a writer, published poet, and cartoonist from the Sonoran Desert. With four years experience in grant writing and nonprofit development, coupled with over a decade of activist experience, Fallon is an accomplished fundraiser with a profound dedication to social justice and equity. Fallon has earned BAs in Creative Writing and Moral Politics/Law from Arizona State University, and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute. She has participated in social justice fellowships for nonprofit program development with Northwestern’s Racial Equity and Community Partnership (2021) and with Truth Healing and Racial Transformation (2022).

In her free-time, Fallon enjoys playing video games, rock climbing, and going on hikes with her dog Salem.

Sonia Coleman is an educator in Hillsborough County, Tampa, FL where she has devoted 25 years teaching in both the public and private educational sector; she has taught in the primary, secondary and adult educational arenas. In 2017 Sonia founded the 501(c) 3 nonprofit, Cultural Exchange Lye-Stile Network which provides tutoring, mentoring, educational leadership and wraparound services for Tampa Bay communities. Sonia is a bilingual educator and cultural activist providing cultural awareness and language and literacy education to bridge the opportunity gap for all socioeconomic communities. Her degrees are: BA. Spanish, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA 1997; MA. Educational Leadership, University of South Florida, 2012; and Ed.D. Curriculum and Teaching, National Louis University.

Sabrina Buer (B.S. Physics; M.S. Engineering Science; Ph.D. Environmental Science) currently works as a program coordinator, water research coordinator, and graduate faculty member at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. She is a member of both the United Campus Workers and Tennessee Coalition for Truth in Education, is on the Executive Council of the American Indian Movement Indian Territory (AIM IT), the Co-Director of the Tennessee Chapter of AIM Indian Territory, and a member of the Thunderbolt Warriors Society.

glenda drew is an artist and designer whose work is based at the intersections of visual culture and social change, with particular emphases on the working class. She was an active member of Paper Tiger Television in San Francisco for several years, a defining experience that continues to anchor and shape her work, from the DIY aesthetic and approach aimed at unpacking media technologies, to creating accessible work that asks critical questions. She is currently a Professor of Design specializing in digital media at UC Davis.

Jesse Drew’s research and practice center on alternative and community media and their impact on on the global working class. An active audio-visual artist, his interactive, video, photography and installation work has been featured at festivals and in galleries internationally. His writings have appeared in numerous publications, journals and anthologies. His book, A Social History of Contemporary Democratic Media is published by Routledge. He is currently professor of Cinema and Digital Media at UC Davis, where he teaches media archaeology, radio production, documentary studies, electronics for artists, and community media.

Maev Dunning is a recent UC Davis graduate with a degree in Design and Museum Studies. She is passionate about using design to solve problems and tell stories, and is particularly interested in the role of design in making museums more accessible as public spaces. She believes that by sharing and understanding our history through design, we can work towards a better and more equitable future.

David is a lawyer living in Fairhope, Alabama. He is a past president of the National Lawyers Guild and long-time member of the advisory board of the National Police Accountability Project. He worked for the Guild’s Military Law Office in Japan in 1973 and 1974 and, on his return, was a founding member of the Guild’s Military Law Task Force. He has been on the editorial board of the NLG Review (formerly Guild Practitioner) for many years and was the editor in chief for several. For two years, he was chair of the Alabama chapter of CAIR.

Skylar LaRoche is a UI/UX and graphic designer from Northern California. He was recently awarded a BA in Design from UC Davis, where he spent most of his education focusing on nonprofit and community work. His work blends avant-garde aesthetic tastes with a dedication to accessible, usable interfaces. Apart from his involvement with NASO, he is a design specialist for Vivalon, a nonprofit focused on needs-based care for older adults.

Yvonne Yen Liu (she/her) is the President of the Center for Sehnsucht Studies, a public benefit corporation dedicated to the exploration of our collective longing for a new world. She is the Co-Founder and outgoing Executive Director of Solidarity Research Center, a worker self-directed nonprofit organization that builds solidarity economy ecosystems using data science, story-based strategy, and action research. Yvonneis a Research Fellow at the Transnational Institute. She is a practitioner of research justice with over 20 years of being a nerd for social movements. Yvonne serves on the boards of the Institute for Social Ecology, New Economy Coalition, North American School for Organizers (formerly “North Alabama”), and Policy Advocates for Sustainable Economies. She has taught in the gender studies and sociology departments at California State University, Los Angeles and City University of New York. Yvonne has a BA in cultural anthropology from Columbia University and a MA in sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center, where she pursued a PhD. She is based in Los Angeles, California, where the sun smiles on her every day. Although a native of New York City, she and the city have broken up and went their separate ways.

Cedar Monroe is a chaplain, organizer, and author from the Pacific Northwest. He organized in Grays Harbor County, WA for a decade, with people experiencing homelessness and incarceration. They authored Trash: A Poor White Journey, chronicling that experience. He has an MDiv from Episcopal Divinity School and is currently a PhD student at University College Cork in Ireland.

Troy Smith is a ahistory professor at Tennessee Tech University, specializing in indigenous studies, Appalachia, and environmental history, and is an award-winning novelist. He is past Tennessee state president of AAUP (American Association of University Professors), and is curently on the policy and planning commitee of United Campus Workers, the Tennessee board of AIM (American Indian Movement)- Indian Teritory, and the executive commitee of the Tennessee Democratic Party.

Carlos Antonio Torre earned three graduate degrees at Harvard University in Human Development and in Administration, Planning and Social Policy: an Ed.M.; a Certificate of Advance Studies (CAS); and a Doctor of Education. He is Professor of Education (Curriculum & Learning) at Southern Connecticut State University; Past-President of the New Haven, Connecticut Board of Education; Past-President of the City-Wide School-Building and Stewardship Committee; and a Fellow at Yale University, where he served seven years as Assistant Dean of the Undergraduate College and a member of the Psychology faculty. Before that, he was professor of Social Work at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.

James Tracy is Bay Area-based author and organizer. He brings 30 years of experience in the politics of housing, economic justice and social movements to the classroom. He has organized with the Eviction Defense Network, Coalition on Homelessness, Community Housing Partnership, Jobs With Justice SF, and his unions. Tracy was the co-Chair of the “Free City” Campaign which made City College of San Francisco tuition free for most students. He is a co-founder of the San Francisco Community Land Trust. Tracy is the co-author of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing, No Fascist USA! The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements. He is the author of Dispatches Against Displacement. Books in print: Hillbilly Nationalists, No Fascist USA!, Dispatches Against Displacement

Chair, Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Department of History, Indiana University; Author of From the Bullet to the Ballot: The Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Racial Coalition Politics in Chicago