Member Bios

Aqua Moon

Aqua Moon is the writing, performance, and artistic team of Camil Williams and Veronica Precious Bohanan, an entity of SpokenExistence, Inc. The duo bridges the gap between the streets, hip-hop feminism, performance activism, and academia. AquaMoon is a voice for disenfranchised womyn and youth, until they are empowered and able to assert themselves and use their own voice. This dedicated and talented team generates new discourse on womyn and gender issues by upholding their motto, ‘Dismantling the Culture of Silence,’ and by writing/directing their socially-conscious choreopoems, "Aqua Beats and Moon Verses: Volume I" and "Volume II – Brotha…Wassup Sun?." Their work follows in the tradition of Ntosake Shange’s groundbreaking ‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,” and Eve Ensler’s, “Vagina Monologues". Since tbe debut of "Volume I and II," the playwrights have adapted their productions for audiences of various ages, added live instrumentation to the full-cast performances, implemented an educational component, developed workshops, and have performed their two-womon show nationwide. In October 2006, they transcended the stage with the print publication of their first production, Aqua Beats and Moon Verses: Volume I. AquaMoon works with educational and community-based organizations to effect social change that will result in greater equality, freedom, and fuller lives for womyn and youth.

To contact AquaMoon visit www.spokenexistence.com/aqua_moon or email the duo at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Martha Biondi

Martha Biondi is a professor of History and African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is author of a book, To Stand and Fight, on Black politics in New York after World War II. She has been active in the Reparations Movement and other progressive causes and issues.

Cathy Cohen

Cathy Cohen is a political science professor at the University of Chicago and former director of The Center on Race, Politics and Culture there. She is author of Boundaries of Blackness, a landmark book on the Black community response to the AIDS crisis, a book on women and politics, and numerous articles and essays. She is a longtime activist in a range of Black community, feminist and LGBT organizations. She lectures widely and supports numerous progressive organizations.

Dara Cooper

Dara Cooper, for about half of her life, Dara has been active in feminist, international, local, campus, union, economic justice and public health human rights struggles (although born into human rights struggles and comes from a long ancestral lineage of freedom fighters). In August of 2006, Dara began working full-time for the Hands Off Assata (HOA) Campaign, launching a national tour celebrating Assata’s 60th birthday while calling for an end to political repression against Assata, our local communities, and Cuba. The campaign operates within a larger social justice analysis of ending oppression, drawing attention to issues inherently connected to Assata’s case including women and the prison industrial complex, political prisoners, political repression, imperialism, liberation and healing.

Indian Summer Day

Indian Summer Day is a University of Illinois at Chicago student and activist who has worked with the Black Student Union and organized many events and programs. She is also a photographer

Bernardine Dohrn

Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic and child advocate, is Director of the Children and Family Justice Center and Clinical Associate Professor of the Northwestern University School Law, Bluhm Legal Clinic. Dohrn was a leader of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and the Weather Underground. She is an author and co-editor of two books: “A Century of Juvenile Justice” (2002) and “Resisting Zero Tolerance: A Handbook for parents, Teachers and Students” (2001) and the author of Somethin’s Happening Here: Children and Human Rights Jurisprudence in Two International Courts. Dohrn teaches children’s rights and international human rights law at Northwestern and is an annual visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Leiden University faculty of law in the Netherlands. She writes and lectures on international human rights law, war and peace, race and juvenile justice, children in conflict with the law, torture, family violence and school law. She has traveled on human rights delegations to Colombia, Rwanda and South Africa

Carlos Drazen

Carlos Drazen is an African American disability rights activist. She is on the board of Access Living and has worked with INCITE and other organizations. Previously a staffperson at DePaul University, she is currently a PhD student at University of Illinois at Chicago interested in the intersection of race and disability. She is an outspoken advocate for children with disabilities in Chicago Public Schools.

Maria Flanagan

Maria Flanagan is a recent college graduate who is interested in health services and advocacy for low income people of color and their access to health services.

Linda Hillman

For 35 years, Linda Hillman taught all levels of English-as-a-second- language to international students in Ethiopia as a Peace Corps volunteer and in Chicago at DePaul University where she founded the English Language Academy. She also did teacher training in ESL in Haiti, El Salvador, Sri Lanka and Kenya, and student recruitment for her program at DePaul all over the world but especially in the Persian Gulf, Turkey and Jordan. Now as a writer and potter she is immersed in the ceramics world and serves as board chair for The Studio Potter Magazine. She is grateful for having two very wonderful sons.

Yvette Hyter

Yvette Hyter is a professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo working on the relationship between language policy and literacy; language assessments of children with language and behavior concerns resulting from maltreatment. She has traveled to Africa and the Caribbean making connections with other progressive scholars of education and communication.

Lynette Jackson

Lynette Jackson is an associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and African American Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a longtime activist working on international human rights, refugee rights, advocacy for Africa, and feminist issues. She is author or a book on Zimbabwe and has recently traveled to East Africa and Cuba to do research on African women refugees. She is on the Board of Human Rights Watch and other progressive organizations. She is originally from Cleveland, Ohio and has lived in Zimbabwe, Denmark and New York City.

Christi Ketchum

Christi Ketchum is an Atlanta-based organizer with Project South. Project South engages in popular education and leadership-building. They were the key organizers of the United States Social Forum held in Atlanta this past summer. She works closely with youth projects in Atlanta around economic and social justice issues.

Alice Kim

Alice Kim, Director of The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Women's Studies from Northwestern University and her Master of Arts in English from DePaul University. She is a Chicago activist and has worked on a wide range of social-justice issues. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) and was a recipient of the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World Award for her work to end capital punishment in Illinois. She also previously worked at the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) and served as the coordinator for the WIHS National Community Advisory Board.

Jeanne Kracher

Jeanne Kracher, Executive Director, has a wealth of experience in community organizing and nonprofit management. She was a founding member of ACT-UP/Chicago, executive director of Women in the Director’s Chair, and a member of the Women’s Health Education Project. She has produced films and videos addressing a variety of subjects from healthcare in prisons to a history of the women’s global justice movement

Lisa Yun Lee

Lisa Yun Lee is an author, activist, and director of Jane Adams Hull House Museum. She serves on the boards of numerous organizations and institutions, including the Chicago Humanities festival, Bryn Mawr College, and Young Chicago Authors. She is founder and former director of the Public Square and author of a book on Theodor Adorno. She supports numerous political and art organizations locally and nation-wide. She has become a ubiquitous presence in progressive arts circles in Chicago since she moved here over eight years ago.

Ainsley LeSure

Ainsley LeSure is a doctoral student in Political Science atthe University of Chicago. She received her B.A. in PoliticalScience from Carleton College in 2005 and was awarded her M.A.in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2007. She works with the Black Youth Project. Her researchinterests are critical race theory, African-American politicalthought, subaltern studies, as well as, post-colonial anddemocratic theories.

Tracye Matthews

Tracye Matthews is the associate director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago. Her involvement in documentary film and video projects includes work at the award-winning ROJA Productions, where she was the senior researcher for the PBS series Matters of Race, associate producer and co-writer of a ten-part video installation for the National Civil Rights Museum, and producer for project development for the American Experience’s Citizen King. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies and journals including Race and Class, Sisters in Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights–Black Power Movement, and The Black Panther Party Reconsidered. She is currently writing a book on the gender and sexual politics of the Black Panther Party. She was a student activist at University of Michigan where she received her Ph.D. in American history. She works with the Hands Off Assata Campaign.

Trisha McWilliams

Trisha McWilliams recently joined the YWCA Chicago’s new Center for Racial Justice and Activism. In her role as Racial Justice Scholar, she co-facilitates the YWCA Challenging Racism Workshop Series and conducts outreach to communities and organizations looking to define and oppose systemic racism.

Read more: Trisha McWilliams

Julie Lee Merseth

Julie Lee Merseth is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Chicago. Her primary field of study is American politics, and she is especially interested in racial and ethnic politics, including the politics of immigrants and women of color. She is a researcher with the Black Youth Project and a founding board member of the Chicago chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF).

Kristin Millikan

Kristin Millikan, Café Society & Program Coordinator, has been working on issues concerning violence against women for the past eight years. She has organized and presented at numerous conferences and trainings on racism, domestic violence, and community accountability. She is a co-founder of Incite! Chicago - Women of Color Against Violence. Incite! is a community of radical women of color which recognizes that all forms of oppression are linked and is committed to organizing against them. She also serves on the board of Chicago Legal Advocacy of Incarcerated Mothers (CLAIM).

Darlene Nava Munoz

Darlene Nava Munoz, 21 years old, Latina, queer womyn of color. For 3 years I worked as an unpaid organizer with numerous city and campus organizations, on feminism, heterosexism, racism, anti-militarism and immigrant rights. After learning through countless social justice conferences and causes, four countries and five years of active awareness and political consciousness, I'm ready for movement building. I'm mostly interested in harnessing the amazing power of womyn of color and am so looking forward to meeting everyone. Darlene has spent time in Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil connecting with other activists

Sussan Navabi

Sussan Navabi got involved in activism before the U.S. invasion of Iraq with community group South Sider for Peace. An organizer with Students for Social Justice, a University of Illinois at Chicago organization committed to informed activism, since 2004. One of the University of Illinois at Chicago delegates to the 2007 Students For A Democratic Society Convention in Detroit.

Camille Odeh

Camille Odeh is Executive Director of the South West Youth Collaborative. She started out her organizing and activism in the Palestinian Movement, and was Director of the International Organization Union for Palestinian Women. She’s committed to working with young people of color, and creating sustainable change and solidarity across struggles and communities.

Leena Odeh

Leena Odeh is a student at Carleton College and an organizer around Palestinian issues and other progressive issues. Her family is based in Chicago and she has worked closely with the Southwest Youth Collaborative doing leadership and political education with Black, Latino and Arab youth.

Zorayda Ortiz

Zorayda Ortiz, is a graduate student at University of Illinois at Chicago, first in her family and extended family to graduate higher education. She organizes to stop militarization of Latino and Black youth, as well as against police brutality in the Chicago community.

Corina Pedraza Palominos

Corina Pedraza Palominos is a 32 year old Mexicana who was born and raised in the community of South Chicago, one of Chicago's oldest Mexican communities. She spent numerous years learning from and organizing with Black, Arab, and Latino youth and women to advance racial justice on Chicago's southwest side. She currently works with Pilsen Alliance as the Resource Coordinator at Whittier Community School in Pilsen and is the proud mother of a vibrant and energetic 3 year old boy.

Sherie Randolph

Sherie Randolph received her Ph. D from New York University in American History and is presently the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne. She is the former Associate Director of the Women’s Research & Resource Center at Spelman College. After graduating from Spelman with a B.A. in History and Education, Randolph went on to work as a high school teacher and school administrator in the United States and Ghana. A graduate of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, Randolph’s work focuses primarily on the creation of a feminist pedagogy for political and social change. She’s taught comparative women’s studies and African American History and has served as an advisor to Black Men for the Eradication of Sexism. Currently, she is writing a book on Florynce "Flo" Kennedy and Black Feminist Politics in Postwar America.

Barbara Ransby

Barbara Ransby is an associate professor of History and African American Studies at University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a writer, historian and longtime activist and author of a biography of Ella Baker. She has worked with the Black Radical Congress, Progressive Media Project, Crossroads Fund, Public Square, African American Women in Defense of Ourselves and other activist organizations.

Miryam Rashid

Miryam Rashid is an organizer around Middle East peace and justice issues for the American Friends Service Committee in Chicago.

Ann Russo

Ann Russo is an antiracist feminist writer, educator, and activist who is currently the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at DePaul University. Her research, teaching, and activism over the past 25 years has been embedded in the social movements organized to address the pervasive sexual, racial and homophobic harassment, abuse, and violence in women’s lives. She is the author of Taking Back Our Lives: A Call to Action in the Feminist Movement (2001); co-author of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality; and co-editor of Talking Back and Acting Out: Women Negotiating the Media Across Cultures and Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. She has participated in local and national organizing efforts resisting discrimination, abuse, and violence, including work in Chicago with the Women and Girls Collective Action Network, Young Women's Action Team, YWCA’s Chicago-Area Rape Crisis Line, Beyondmedia Education, the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, Rape Victim Advocates, and Queer White Allies Against Racism, among others.

Jane M. Saks

Jane M. Saks is a Chicago native and graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. She sits on several advisory boards including the Chicago Foundation for Women, South Africa's Constitutional Court Architectural Artworks Programme Committee and the City of Chicago Mayor's Design Initiative. As a writer, she has collaborated with visual artists including, Kerry James Marshall, Jim Hodges and Inigo Ovalle-Manglano. Founding Executive Director of Columbia College Chicago's Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Jane is a community activist, arts activist and a poet.

Latoya Stampley

Latoya Stampley's, cultural and political awareness was sparked during the four years spent in the Air Force where she allowed every natural root in her mind and body to harvest. She left there to study criminal justice at University of Illinois at Chicago, where she took a liking to the professors and courses offered in the African American Studies Department. She currently works in IT, however, her passion is scattered around community development and organizing that focuses on eliminating the criminalization of minority women and children and women's rights.

Elizabeth Todd

Elizabeth Todd was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Silver Spring, MD. She moved to Philadelphia where she attended the University of Pennsylvania. She currently lives in Chicago where she is a graduate student in the History PhD program at the University of Chicago studying 20th century U.S./African American history. Elizabeth teaches 9th grade civics/argument & debate courses and has worked on a variety of projects with young people in her community. She also is involved in organizing around housing issues in Chicago in coordination with the Metropolitan Tenants Organization and the Community Congress of Tenants.

Jenine Wehbeh

Jenine Wehbeh is a refugee Palestinian American attending her second year at University of Illinois at Chicago. Her major is criminal justice with the intention of going to law school for international human rights law. She is committed to creating solidarity across the struggles of the Palestinian right to return, immigrant rights, and all women's issues.

Fallon Wilson

Fallon Wilson is a graduate student in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago exploring how gender qualified social scripting of black women's lives affect their political attitudes. In the winter of 2007, Fallon taught a gender and cultural specific class entitled Sista (Sisters Invoking Stories Through Transformative Art Activism). Currently, she a graduate assistant on Dr. Cathy Cohen's Black Youth Project where she is responsible for working with educators on developing a social justice curriculum from the studies' data. Fallon is a graduate of Spelman College. In the spring of 2005, she wrote, directed, and produced her first play entitled, "Spiritual Fire! Reclaiming Our Bodies, Resurrecting Our Stories, and Mothering Our Daughters: African American Women’s Reproductive Health Struggles". The play raised money for the Center for Human Right’s Education in Atlanta, Georgia. Overall, Fallon is passionate about the lives, experiences, creative abilities, and stories of women of color.

Rae Wright

Rae Wright's work involves helping people find their voice through organizing, knowledge of self, holistic living, and creativity. Her educational background (University of Tennessee) in cultural studies, specifically oral culture, propaganda, and consciousness. She is in Chicago to develop both professionally and personally after having a life changing experience at The Midwest Academy Summer Organizing internship. Her life experiences shape her understanding of the world, herself, and the importance of serving in her community. "We are citizen's of the universe. Therefore, we are entitled to all the rights and responsibilities promised to us by our governments, leaders, and peers."