Carla Madeleine Kupe, Esq. (She/her)
Carla Madeleine Kupe (She/her), Founder & Chief Executive Officer, The Impact Alliance LLC
Carla Madeleine Kupe is the CEO of The Impact Alliance LLC, a diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism consulting enterprise. Carla also serves as the Gender and Racial Equity Program Director for the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. Additionally, Carla is the Director of the Professional Identity Formation program at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. In 2018, Carla created Speak Truth Summit, a platform giving voice and visibility to the particular and unique experiences of women of color.
Carla served as the first Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Compliance Director at the City of Chicago Office of Inspector General. Before that, Carla was an Associate General Counsel and the Title IX Coordinator for Chicago State University. Prior to that, Carla was an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of Chicago Law Department in its Federal Civil Rights Litigation Division. She also held the position of Victim Witness Advocate for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Boston, Massachusetts. Additionally, Carla was the former Director of Community Relations for the Chicago Metropolitan Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE).
Carla is a member of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law’s Diversity Mentoring Program and the law school's Dean’s Diversity Council. Additionally, Carla is a member and contributing author of the editorial board for the Illinois Diversity Council. Carla serves as a mentor at the University of Chicago Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Carla speaks eight languages and has roots in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Germany, and Luxembourg. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in Psychology from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and her Juris Doctor from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Chicago, Illinois.
Angie Liou (She/her)
Angie Liou Executive Director, Asian Community Development Corporation Angie has worked in the community development and affordable housing field since 2004. Under her leadership, Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) has expanded its programs in areas of housing, resident and youth, community planning and placekeeping. Before assuming the position of Executive Director of ACDC in Boston, she served as ACDC's Director of Real Estate, overseeing the asset management of ACDC’s portfolio of 300+ units, shepherding projects in development, and was responsible for developing a pipeline of new projects. She previously worked as a consultant and project manager in Seattle and Philadelphia assisting nonprofits in creating affordable housing and community spaces. She has served as the project lead on over $150 million worth of projects. Angie current serves on the boards of Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, and National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development. Angie received a Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in Community Development. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Andrea Leverentz (She/her)
Associate Professor of Sociology
I do research on the impact of incarceration on individuals and communities and on how communities perceive crime and incarceration. Most of my research is based on interviewing people who have been incarcerated or on spending time in different neighborhoods and interviewing residents there. My goal is to understand not only what their perspectives are, and how they are shaped by their own life experiences, but also why they have the perspectives that they do. Doing this kind of research, and hearing from the many people I have talked to over the years, has strongly shaped my sense of justice and what I believe we should be working towards.
One key question to ask is justice for whom? It is often easier for us to imagine justice from our position or perspective, and more challenging to imagine it from someone else’s. Much of my research has focused on the experiences of people who have been incarcerated. This is a group that is easy to vilify – after all, we want to think, they are in prison or jail so they must deserve to be there. And yet the reality is often much more complicated, and by not recognizing that complexity, we often do not do justice for anyone involved, including the victims of crimes. This sort of “good or evil” thinking is one of our greatest obstacles to achieving justice. Ideally, we are meeting everyone’s needs, seeing and treating everyone as full people, and addressing harms when they occur.
Morgan Dominique (She/her)
Dominique Morgan (She/Her) is an award-winning artist, activist, and TEDx speaker. As the Executive Director of Black and Pink, the largest prison abolitionist organization in the United States, she works daily to dismantle the systems that perpetuate violence on LGBTQ+/GNC people and individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Partnering her lived experience of being impacted by mass incarceration (including 18 months in solitary confinement), with a decade of change-making artistry, advocacy, and background in public health, she continues to work in spaces of sex education, radical self-care, and transformative youth development with intentions of dismantling the prison industrial complex and its impact on our communities. Ms. Morgan is a 2020 Ten Outstanding Young Americans Award recipient, NAACP Freedom Fighter Award recipient, and 2020 JM Kaplan Innovation Prize recipient. In addition to completing her capstone project for studies in the Georgetown University - System Involved LGBTQ Youth Scholar Program, Ms. Morgan is a member of the inaugural class of the Black Futures Lab Policy Institute, 2020 Martin Luther King “Living The Dream” Award Recipient, and 2020 Urban League of Nebraska YP of the Year. Dominique’s first book “An Introduction to Sexuality Education: A Handbook for Youth System Facing Professionals” will be released in 2021. Find out more about Dominique at www.dominiquemorgan.com. Check out her TEDxTalk on Resilience.
Judy H. Robinson (She/her)
Executive Director of Coming Clean
I work for environmental health and justice for a living. I’ve worked at Coming Clean, in strategic partnership with the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, for 20 years. After all that time, I’m more motivated today than ever to stay strong in this struggle. Our collective efforts to change the conversation from jobs vs. to the environment to jobs AND the environment are working. Our efforts to expand awareness of impacts of pollution and climate change on wildlife and wild spaces to the places where disproportionately impacted Black, Brown, Native/Indigenous, and low-income people live, work, play, pray and go to school are working. From state houses, to board rooms, to kitchen tables, and the White House - environmental justice is IN the discussion. But how much of this talk will lead to anti-racist policies that address the need for systemic change is really up to all of us. We must keep up the drumbeat for change. We must see ourselves as assets who can demand and then support and build the toxic chemical and fossil fuel -free future we want to live in. As a white woman and mother of a beautiful daughter with development disabilities, I can surely see how the fight for anti-racist policies will advance the disabilities and women's movements, too. Standing behind the leadership of people of color who have been historically treated unjustly will lift up everyone who has a love and hunger for justice. These are the most promising times of my lifetime, with a wide expanse ahead and room for everyone to help realize the changes we seek.
Julie J. Bernard (She/her)
Judge Julie Johnstone Bernard (she/her)
I am an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts District Court. I was appointed to the bench in 2002. I welcome the opportunity to speak with you about my work on the frontlines of the Massachusetts Justice System. For most of my judicial career, I worked in Plymouth County sitting in Brockton, Massachusetts. Brockton is one of the busiest Courthouses in the state and is a large and diverse community. The District Court handles many different types of matters criminal, civil, mental health, domestic violence, housing, debt collection. The decisions I make everyday impact people and communities. I am very much aware of that.
I am also aware of my role as a black female judge in a system that does not have many people that look like me. I have made it my mission to work to recruit others to apply to the bench because justice can only feel truly just when it feels familiar and you see people that look like you have access to positions of power. I know I cannot Judge in isolation of the world around me. My job has changed dramatically in the age of Covid. Well before this National reckoning on race and racism, I knew we could not ignore race because it impacts all that we do in the justice system. For many years, I was the only female judge of color working in Brockton. I am also a black mother. I became involved in training new judges throughout the District Court. I thought it was important for them to hear my perspective. Several years ago, I became involved in conversations about race throughout the Massachusetts Trial Court System. I fully acknowledge the Justice system is not perfect. We have much work to do. Talking about them is a start. I welcome the opportunity to have a conversation.
David Meshoulam (He/him)
David Meshoulam, PhD (he/him) Co-Founder and Executive Director of Speak for the Trees, Boston
In my past work as an educator (I taught high school science) and now as Executive Director at Speak for the Trees, I think a lot about how we develop and nurture trust in each other and in our communities. As we enter a new world of fragmented media and deep distrust in expertise, I worry that each of us has become increasingly isolated, no longer able to come together for a shared future. More than anything, the election of 2016 precipitated my shift from being a classroom teacher to working in the field of environmental justice. I witnessed an election marred more by an inability to listen and empathize than by substantive differences in opinions. This, coupled to the severity of the climate crisis and the perceived inability for us to make changes, led me to seek ways to create spaces and experiences where communities could come together and share stories that grounded them in their space and also connected them to wider global issues. For us at Speak for the Trees, the tree embodies the idea of mutual care for each other and for our future. The simple act of planting or caring for a tree allows us to build stronger connections among our neighbors and our planet. Trees care for us, and by caring for them, we care for each other and are working to build a healthier and more just life for all.
Carl Spector (He/him)
Commissioner of the Environment, City of Boston
Environmental science and environmental policy both have as a foundation the recognition of the dense interconnectedness of things through time, space, and complex chains of causation. It is a natural extension of this to consider not just the physical, but also the social ramifications of our work. Thus, equity is an important component of the environmental policies and programs of the City of Boston. And as corollaries of the density and complexity: a humility about one's ability to predict the consequences of actions and a need for a broader range of voices in the discussion. This alters process.
Christopher Cook (He/him)
Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space, City of Boston
As Chief of Environment, Energy and Open Space for the City of Boston, Cook is responsible for leading the Cabinet in achieving its mission of enhancing the quality of life in Boston by protecting air, water, climate, and land resources, and preserving and improving the integrity of Boston's architectural and historic resources. He is responsible for the development and implementation of the city's climate adaptation and carbon neutrality plans. His story will focus on environmental justice- particularly equitable access to open space.
Chris Muse (He/him)
Hon. Christopher J. Muse (ret.) (he/him) Massachusetts Superior Court
During my third year teaching at Boston Latin School, I enrolled in the evening division of Suffolk Law School. Four years, and two different Boston Public Schools later, with a diploma and admission to the Massachusetts Bar, I joined my father’s law office, when he handed me my first case: the federal court appeal of the conviction for murder and armed robbery of Bobby Joe Leaster.
His case, and his exoneration has been hugely publicized, and he and I, until his death this past April, have spoken to thousands of students, including those lucky ones who annually participate in the Judicial Youth Corp. His life as a youth worker for thirty years provided inspiration, guidance and support for some of the most at-risk kids in Boston.
Your understanding of that elusive notion, JUSTICE, will expand as you learn more about his struggles and his successes.
See you soon in this brand new virtual world.
Sarah Byrnes (She/her)
Sarah Byrnes, she/her, Director, Public Housing Training Program, Mel King Institute
Sarah Byrnes is an organizer and trainer based at the Mel King Institute in Boston. In her current role, she trains residents of low-income housing across Massachusetts to build collective power in order to accomplish their shared goals. Previously, Sarah did community organizing in Jamaica Plain and worked on national campaigns to reform the banking industry. In her experience, justice is about power: who has it, and who doesn’t. Power dynamics show up in all sectors of society: wages, wealth, housing, health care, education, and more. Justice is accomplished when a previously oppressed group shifts the dynamics enough to win what they want, whether it be something small or something systemic. Justice is different from charity, which is when powerful people give gifts to the less powerful without shifting the underlying dynamics of society. By contrast, organizing gives people the tools to build their own power. As civil rights leader Ella Baker put it, “People have to understand that they cannot look for salvation anywhere but to themselves.”
Diana Goldman (She/her)
Diana Goldman, vegan cook and educator at Beantown Kitchen
I am a mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend. I am also a vegan, in order to minimize the suffering my dietary choices cause to my body, the animals, the planet and all of its inhabitants. This vegan identity permeates much of what I do, how I cook, make purchasing choices, and approach my professional life. I teach cooking classes, blog, and create videos for my YouTube channel, Beantown Kitchen, in order to inform others that vegan cuisine can be healthful, nutritionally adequate, delicious, easy to prepare, satisfying and affordable. I am writing a how-to go vegan and stay vegan book that will have 50 delicious recipes.
The vegan part of my identity and, as a result, how I interact with the world aligns with my core belief that all living beings on this planet are connected and for this reason I aim to interact from a place of love and compassion. It is a total joy for me to be vegan and one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Although there are challenges, in the social arena particularly, there are great triumphs as well and much reason to feel hopeful about the future.