Collective & Advisors

COLLECTIVE

Annie

grew up on lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ homelands in so-called Canada, and got involved in organizing in her teens, with groups like Food Not Bombs, No One Is Illegal, a local free school, and local Indigenous nations-led land defense campaigns. Her perspective has been shaped by Environmental Justice, Anti-Racism and Indigenous Solidarity, as taught by Indigenous, Black and Brown women, non-binary and trans people and Two-Spirit people. She also organized queer dance parties, was part of a bicycle burlesque troupe, worked with youth in a youth detention facility, was a human rights advocate, lived up north at Unist’ot’en Village, and worked against sexualized and gender-based violence. In 2013, Annie attended the Anne Braden Program where she also danced at the Lusty Lady, worked with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and Californians United for a Responsible Budget. She participated on the Leadership team of the Braden Program again in 2015 and was a co-coordinator with the Bay Area Solidarity Action Team (BASAT), and was one of the J20 Resisters. She then joined the coordinating committee of the Anti Police-Terror Project, Save the West Berkeley Shellmound, the Wet’suwet’en Solidarity Front Bay Area and the Indigenous People’s Day 5 Solidarity Coalition and is a grassroots fundraiser for several frontlines. She is part of the core team of East Bay Families for Ceasefire, organizing families for a Free Palestine. Annie lives in Oakland (Huichin) on the homelands of the Ohlone people, with her partner and their two small children. No Justice, No Peace!

Donna

has been in Catalyst Project since 2015. She is a Midwesterner whose political roots are in the militant, anti-imperialist organizations of the 1960s. Participating in the first Venceremos Brigade to Cuba in 1969 was a transformative experience that made her an internationalist and gave her a glimpse of what it’s like to live in a society based on revolutionary values. She’s spent her adult life working for a world in which Black, Indigenous and other colonized peoples are able to determine their own destinies, a world without war, where we live in right relationship to the earth, where white supremacy, patriarchy, transphobia are things of the past. She worked for many years in prison abolition and in defense of people targeted for political repression. Being part of a multi-racial, intergenerational, visionary movement for collective liberation gives her hope. She lives with her family on unceded Ohlone land, loves novels, dogs and the tranquility of the redwoods.

Elisabeth

is an alum of the 2016 Philadelphia Anne Braden Program and joined Catalyst Project in 2019. She grew up in Kansas and Missouri on Kaw, Shawnee, Osage and Kickapoo territories. Politicized by her experiences as a rape survivor struggling for justice and healing, Elisabeth was pulled into feminist anti-violence organizing. Her politics were developed by Women of Color feminisms that articulated a vision for the world she wanted to live in and the strategy to get there – a world where accountability, care, and pleasure thrive, free from sexual and gender violence and therefore free from prisons, policing, and all forms of domination. She spent the decade prior to joining Catalyst in anti-racist movements for prison abolition, anti-carceral feminism, LGBTQ anti-violence, and health justice with groups such as the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, the Trauma Center Coalition, the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration and the No215Jail Coalition. Elisabeth earned her MA in Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, where she studied the emotions and embodiment of solidarity activism. She values the opportunity to use her trauma-informed practice, harm reductionist approach, and transformative justice orientation to support the resilience of movements for collective liberation. She lives on unceded Ohlone land with her partner and elder furbabies, and loves WNBA fangirling, giving personalized book recommendations, and napping in the backyard.

Ellen

Ellen joined Catalyst Project in 2019 after serving on the Anne Braden Program Leadership Team for two years. Has lived on unceded Ohlone land in the SF Bay Area her entire life. She learned 3 important lessons from her Jewish, radical family: capitalism is bad, Never Again means Never Again for Anyone, and don’t talk to the FBI. In her teens in the 70’s, she helped organize a high school student union, visited Cuba, participated in demonstrations against the Viet-Nam war and in favor of ethnic studies - all of which shaped her commitment to organizing, anti-racism and international solidarity. In her 20’s, she experienced how racism, patriarchy and sectarianism worked against building mass movements, strong organizations and relationships and left active political organizing to raise kids and organize in public schools and as a soccer/softball mom! Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza brought Ellen back into political organizing with Jewish Voice for Peace where she remains active today. She met Catalyst during the Bay Area campaign to Stop Urban Shield and was thrilled to re-enter a progressive movement that had radically changed and which had so much to teach about the centrality of white supremacy and racial capitalism, about gender oppression in all its forms and about settler colonialism in the US and Israel. Ellen loves cats, watching sports, enjoys reading novels and hiking, and loves spending time with her two grandchildren.

Lee

joined Catalyst Project after serving on the Anne Braden Program Leadership Team in spring of 2018. Much of Lee’s political work has been focused in the struggle for justice for Palestinians. As an organizer with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network based in Chicago and the Bay Area, Lee contributed to campaigns working to expose the settler-colonial nature of Zionism and its ties with US imperialism, as well as its cooptation of Jewish histories of oppression and resistance. He came to the struggle against Zionism after growing up in a radical, secular, Ashkenazi, Yiddishkite community that taught him to draw on those Jewish legacies that stand against oppression and with collective liberation.
Lee was an adult educator working with high school equivalency and English language students for 12 years, helping them to realize their educational goals and recognize their own capabilities.
Lee is a pizzabagel from Brooklyn who has strong opinions about both pizza and bagels. His politics were shaped by his parents who were politically active with People Against White Supremacy (PAWS) in the 1980s, and his mom was a part of Womansong, a feminist chorus. Lee is an avid soccer player and member/player of Left Wing FC.

Molly

Molly (also known as MJ) has been organizing and building social justice organizations for over 20 years. First politicized through queer, trans and anti-capitalist actions in the Pacific Northwest in the 90s, Molly spent the early 2000s teaching sex ed in Philadelphia high schools before before moving home to Ohlone land (SF Bay Area) to be closer to family and to co-found the Anne Braden Anti-Racist Training Program. MJ spent 14 transformative years on staff at Causa Justa :: Just Cause, an organization building the power of Black and Latino immigrant communities to fight gentrification and criminalization. MJ has been shaped by the mentorship of feminists of color, Southern organizers, and political prisoners. MJ is passionate about building multiracial movements that can win material change and be spaces of connection and joy, loves parenting their two kids, deeply appreciates dad jokes, and is happiest in the redwoods.

Rahula

grew up poor in rural Northern Vermont. They moved to California and were involved in direct action, anarchist based organizing on the west coast throughout the 90’s. Following the global justice movement’s shut down of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, November 1999, Rahula sought to increase their knowledge and skills around anti-racist organizing. They participated in the Challenging White Supremacy workshops, and then, following the attacks of September 11, joined the Heads Up Collective, an organization of white anti-racists focused on solidarity with organizations of people of color and on supporting anti-racist development among white activists and organizers. As a member of Heads Up, Rahula focused on Palestine Solidarity work and developing Heads Up’s vision and strategy with an emphasis on developing and supporting white working class leadership. Rahula has worked closely with the Catalyst Project for years, in sibling organizations such as the Heads Up Collective and through supporting the Anne Braden program as a mentor to participants and as a member of the Braden Leadership Team, and joined the collective in 2015. Rahula enjoys talking about power and anti-racism in unexpected places, enjoys group process, and is committed to working collectively to engage and resolve conflict. They enjoy parenting, reading liberatory speculative fiction, smashing the patriarchy, growing plants, and long walks on the beach.

Rochelle

is a mother and community organizer. She previously worked as National Organizer for Friends of Sabeel North America, mobilizing Christians to act in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian liberation and as Project Director for the Rachel Corrie Foundation. Rochelle is passionate about food justice, decolonization, internationalism and indigenous solidarity. She has been shaped by her experience participating in indigenous led direct action to stop Line 3, in shutting down the WTO Ministerial in Seattle in 1999 as well as an attempt to achieve similar goals during the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in 2007. Rochelle spent 7 months in Oaxaca Mexico in awe of and learning from the 2006 People’s Uprising and has volunteered for the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center as a human rights observer in a Las Abejas community and in the Zapatista Caracol of Morelia. She co-founded the Olympia Rafah Sister City Project after her friend, Rachel Corrie, was killed by the Israeli military in 2003 while protecting a Palestinian home from being demolished has served as a protective witness in the Westbank and Gaza. She co-founded Olympia BDS, which led to Olympia Food Co-op becoming the first US Grocery store to boycott Israeli goods. She loves to garden, make pottery, beekeep and wander aimlessly in wild places.

Ysh

joined movement work through the fossil fuel divestment movement, starting a divestment chapter at their college. Over the past decade they have been primarily organizing in support of the Palestinian liberation movement as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace in the Bay Area, focusing on basebuilding, leadership development, and ritual creation. Ysh also deeply loves holding down logistical care work in movement spaces, such as food, security, and structure development. As a participant in the 2019 Anne Braden program and member of the Braden Leadership Team in 2021, Ysh deepened their understanding of white Jews’ stake in dismantling white supremacy, as well as the importance of internationalism in every aspect of our movement work. They love cooking and sharing food, building community, their strange cat Uni, and making pottery.

ADVISORS

Patricia Berne

is a Co-Founder, Executive and Artistic Director of Sins Invalid (www.sinsinvalid), a disability justice based performance project centralizing disabled artists of color and queer and gender non-conforming artists with disabilities. Berne’s training in clinical psychology focused on trauma and healing for survivors of interpersonal and state violence. Her background includes offering mental health support to survivors of violence; advocacy for immigrants who seek asylum due to war and torture; community organizing within the Haitian diaspora; international support work for the Guatemalan democratic movement; work with incarcerated youth toward alternatives to the criminal legal system; and advocating for LGBTQI and disability perspectives within the field of reproductive genetic technologies. In addition to her work with Sins Invalid, Berne currently directs the Department of Disability and Deaf Services at San Francisco Women Against Rape, is the 2009 recipient of the Empress I Jose Sarria Award for Uncommon Leadership in the field of LGBTQI and disability rights by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and in 2018, she was named one of the “100 people shifting culture and creating change” by the Yerba Center for the Arts. She is widely recognized for her work to establish the framework and practice of disability justice. Berne’s experiences as a Japanese-Haitian queer disabled woman provides grounding for her work creating “liberated zones” to center marginalized voices.

Gopal Dayaneni

has been involved in working for social, economic, environmental and racial justice through organizing & campaigning, teaching, writing, speaking and direct action since the late 1980’s. He is a co-founder of Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project, which inspires and engages in transformative action towards the liberation and restoration of land, labor, and culture. MG is rooted in vibrant social movements led by low-income communities and Black, Indigenous & communities of color committed to a Just Transition away from profit and pollution and towards healthy, resilient and life-affirming local economies. Gopal has served on the staff-collective and is now a member of the Planning Committee and Board and continues to work closely with MG on diverse projects.

Currently, Gopal teaches at San Francisco State University in the Race and Resistance Studies and Asian American Studies Departments. At SF State, Gopal is also on the steering committee for Climate Justice Leadership Initiatives and the Certificate in Climate Change Causes, Impacts and Solutions.

Gopal also supports movement building through his work with organizations including The Climate Justice Alliance, ETCgroup, NDN Collective, the Center for Story-based Strategy, People’s Solar Energy Fund, Grassroots International and The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa among others. He was a Fellow with the Center for Economic Democracy from 2019-2022.

Most importantly, Gopal is the parent of two amazing rabble-rouser. He lives in Huichin/Oakland in an intentional, multi-generational social justice community.

Linda Evans

is a lifelong organizer for human rights and liberation. In 1985, she was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for militant actions to protest and change U.S. government policies. Released from prison in 2001, Linda co-founded All of Us or None, organizing formerly-incarcerated people and their families nationally to fight for an end to all forms of discrimination based on past convictions. She is currently working with CCWP (California Coalition for Women Prisoners) and California’s statewide DROP LWOP Coalition, fighting to eliminate Life without Parole sentences in California. She is also active in the Immigrant Defense Taskforce of North Bay Organizing Project in Santa Rosa, and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Center for Political Education, Critical Resistance, and the Catalyst Project.

Woods Ervin

is a black non-binary trans-femme organizer that has been working for over a decade in movements both for trans self-determination as well as prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition. Woods has most recently worked with TGI Justice Project in the Bay Area. They engaged in research on the PIC at Interrupting Criminalization, a recently launched abolitionist research project. They are currently staff at Critical Resistance, an organization dedicated to prison industrial complex abolition.

Kung Feng

holds a Masters in Public Policy at UC Berkeley. He was previously the executive director of Jobs with Justice San Francisco, a labor community alliance organizing around worker power, housing rights and climate justice. At JWJSF, he was part of ground-breaking victories, including the Retail Worker Bill of Rights which launched fair scheduling laws around the country and Free City College, a model for free higher education. His recent efforts led to a major study of app workers in San Francisco with UC Santa Cruz that was cited in the official ballot argument against Prop 22 as well as in major news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post. His contributions to the labor movement span over twenty years as a rank and file activist and as a union organizer.

Chanelle Gallant

is the eldest daughter of a poor single mother and comes from a family that has been impacted by criminalization and incarceration. She is an organizer, author, social movement strategist and consultant who has worked around sex work, criminalization and racial justice for over two decades. Her writing has appeared in dozens of publications and her first book Not Your Rescue Project: Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice, (co-authored with Elene Lam) comes out in 2024 with Haymarket Books. Chanelle serves on the board for Showing Up For Racial Justice and the advisory boards of the Catalyst Project and Resource Movement (Toronto). She helped to found the first chapter of SURJ outside of the US and numerous sex worker organizations including the Migrant Sex Worker Project.

Beth Howard

is the Appalachia Peoples’ Union Director for Showing Up for Racial Justice, the largest national organization bringing white people into the fight for racial and economic justice. She lives in Lexington, KY, but grew up in a rural white working class community in Eastern Kentucky. She has organized in the American South for seventeen years, primarily in her beloved state of Kentucky. Beth has been a lead organizer on winning campaigns to raise the minimum wage and restore voting rights. She’s also worked on winning electoral campaigns engaging white working class Southerners, including defeating an abortion ban ballot initiative in the 2022 Kentucky midterms and running a rural field office in the 2020 Georgia runoff election. Beth is the creator of the viral narrative campaign Rednecks for Black Lives and she’s been featured on NBC News, Matter of Fact’s Listening Tour with Soledad O’Brian, NPR’s Here and Now, Now This News, the book Power Concedes Nothing: How Grassroots Organizing Wins Elections, and the New York Times, including publishing an Op-Ed in The Boston Globe. Her in-progress memoir Rednecks for Black Lives will be published by Haymarket Books.

Paul Kivel

is a social justice educator, activist and writer. His work grows out of five decades of community education, engaged parenthood, political writing, and practical activism all focused on one overriding question: “How can we live and work together to nurture each individual and create a multicultural society based on love, caring, justice, and interdependence with all living things?”

Kivel is a leader in the anti-violence movement developing resources to work with men against patriarchy and violence. He is also a leader in the anti-racist movement developing resources for white people organizing against white supremacy and inequality. He is the founder of the Beyond Christian Hegemony network and is the author of “You Call This a Democracy?”, “Uprooting Racism” “Men’s Work” and “Living in the Shadow of the Cross.”

Khury Petersen-Smith

is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow at IPS. He writes about and researches U.S. empire, borders, and migration, and strategizes with activists to stop U.S. violence. Khury graduated from the Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Massachusetts, after completing a dissertation that focused on militarization in the Pacific. He is one of the co-authors and organizers of the Black Voices for Ceasefire statement, which was signed by over 6,000 Black activists, artists, and scholars.

Cindy Stella Wiesner

is a 35-year veteran of the social justice movement in the U.S. and internationally, is the Executive Director of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) and Grassroots Global Justice Action Fund (GGJAF). With GGJ, she is shepherding the Berta Cáceres International Feminist Organizing School and the Divest from Harm and Invest in Care national campaign. She helped co-found the Climate Justice Alliance, It Takes Roots and the Rising Majority. She has been a leader in many movement building initiatives, including World March of Women, Social Movement Assemblies, International Council of the World Social Forum, U.S. Social Forum, the Peoples Climate Movement, Feminist Peace Initiative, United Frontline Table, People’s Bailout, The Frontline, Green New Deal Network, and La Jornada Continental. She considers herself a grassroots feminist, internationalist, and movement strategist. Cindy is a lesbian of Salvadoran, Colombian, and German descent and lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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