Speakers

Valencia Gunder or “Vee”, is a self-motivated and driven community leader who has been branded as the “Modern Day Fannie Lou Hamer”. A Miami native, Valencia is the Founder/Co-Director of the Smile Trust Inc., Co-Founder of The Black Collective and National Organizing lead of the RBG New Deal at M4BL Valencia assists many community-based organizations with a variety of strategies around Florida to ensure that the community feels the impact in a positive way. Valencia has led many conversations around climate awareness on topics of sea-level rise, emergency preparedness, climate gentrification, food safety, and housing. She is a part of […]

Loan Tran is a migrant originally from Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam currently organizing and writing in Durham, North Carolina. For more than a decade they have been involved in liberation struggles for migrants, LGBTQ people, communities of color, and all working class people. As a writer, their work has been included in publications such as The Solidarity Struggle: How People of Color Succeed and Fail At Showing Up For Each Other In the Fight For Freedom (2016) and Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives (7th Edition, 2019). They are known for their piece, Calling In: A Less Disposable Way of […]

Coach. Loving Disruptor. Resource Liberator. Kelli King-Jackson is coach and strategic advisor committed to freedom for Black folx. As a coach, Kelli prioritizes working with Black women and other women of color leading in white spaces. In her consulting work, Kelli works to make the nonprofit, philanthropic, government, and corporate sectors safer for Black women. Kelli is a deep listener and consistent champion for her clients. Kelli believes we must all do the work of freedom at the personal, interpersonal, or organizational levels. As such, Kelli’s work centers on liberating material, spiritual and other resources needed for leaders of color […]

Bré Rivera is a Black trans femme who has dedicated over 20 years of movement building for Black trans communities. She is a multi-published researcher working with both Wayne State University and University of Michigan schools of Public Health, and a writer and co-creator of The Femme Queen Chronicle, a series about the lives of Black trans women living in Detroit, Michigan. In 2020, Bré launched the Black Trans Fund, incubated by Groundswell Fund, the first fund centering joy and liberatory practices in Black transgender and gender-expansive communities. Black trans leaders drive the mission and vision of the fund, create […]