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Stephanie Morales, Esq.

On February 10, 2015, Stephanie Morales was the first woman to be elected Commonwealth’s Attorney in Portsmouth, VA. She is a mother of four, a wife, an author and a fighter who has committed her office to seeking restorative justice daily and correcting the wrongs to members of the community by the system. In 2015, Stephanie Morales established  the “Ctrl+Alt+Del Program” to foster successful re-entry for the formerly incarcerated community. Additionally, she has mentored over 200 students under her program called the “Future Leaders Initiative,” also established in 2015 and spent time with countless youth through consistent engagement with the public school system. 

CA Morales advocates daily for those who can’t fight for themselves and to end and disrupt racism and inequity in the legal system. She fights for legislative reform centered around providing restorative justice to our community members. Beyond being Commonwealth’s Attorney, Stephanie Morales is an author,  with a new children’s book called “The Day I Became A Lawyer.” She is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Links, Inc., Regional Director for the Young Elected Officials Network, a Board Member of the Legal Aid Society of South Eastern Virginia, and is a national board member of the Local Progress Organization. @AttyStepMorales


M. Adams, Co-Executive Director, Freedom Inc.

M. Adams is a community organizer and co-executive director of Freedom Inc. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Adams has been in Madison since 2003. Adams’s dad has been incarcerated most of her life and she comes from a community that has been the extreme targets of police violence—and in March 2016 Adams’s mother transitioned
after fighting cancer and many forms of violence. Adams is also a Dad and sees her family as a primary motivator for her work. As a queer Black person, Adams has developed and advocated for a strong intersectional approach in numerous important venues.

M. Adams is a leading figure in the Movement 4 Black Lives and Take Back the Land Movement. She has presented before the United Nations for the Convention on Eliminating Racial Discrimination and is a co-author of Forward from Ferguson, and a paper on Black community control over the police. She authored the intersectionality theory in Why Killing Unarmed Black folks is a Queer issue.

Adams can be regularly be seen in person, on TV or in the newspapers giving presentations, testifying at city council meetings, and energizing crowds at protests. @MA_LAND


Neal A. Lester, Ph.D.

Neal A. Lester, Ph.D. is Foundation Professor of English and Founding Director of Project Humanities at Arizona State University. He has been a Professor of English at Arizona State University since 1997, having taught previously at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa)—the first African American faculty member tenured in the Department of English–and at the University of Montevallo (AL). Dr. Lester earned his B.A. in English and was Valedictorian at the State University of West Georgia (Carrollton). He took his M.A. and Ph.D. in English at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN) and is the first African American to receive the doctorate degree in English at Vanderbilt. His areas of specialization are African American literature and cultural studies.

Neal A. Lester, Ph.D. is Foundation Proff English at Arizona State Univ

Neal A. Lester, Ph.D. is Foundation Professor of English and Founding Director of Project Humanities at Arizona State University. He has been a Professor of English at Arizona State University since 1997, having taught previously at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa)—the first African American faculty member tenured in the


Sevonna Brown, Co-Executive Director, Black Women’s Blueprint

Sevonna is a feminist activist and thought leader. She is a birth worker through  Ancient Song Doula Services and the Doula Project. She dedicates her work to the survival strategies that Black women build from rituals, sacred truths, and the ways they honor the intergenerational narratives of their reproductive herstories. Her organizational affiliations include Spirit of a Woman Leadership Development Institute and

Standing in Our Power: A Women of Color Transformative Leadership Institute. Most recently Sevonna received the ELLA Fellowship through the Sadie Nash Leadership Program where she brings reproductive justice to young women of color through grassroots organizing. As a survivor, she seeks to bridge the connections between reproductive justice and anti-sexual violence advocacy through her cultural work, human rights lens, and womanist frameworks. She believes in every community’s right to holistic healing, as well as radically freeing and unconditionally loving themselves. @whereisvonna


Triana Arnold James, Co-Facilitator

Georgia NOW State President and National NOW Board member, @Triana4Georgia