Ronald Chisom is the Executive Director and Co-founder of The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. He has organized tenants, fisherman, cane cutters and poor people throughout the South for over 35 years. He was Co-founder and Associate Director of the Treme Community Improvement Association, which won several significant Louisiana victories in New Orleans in the 1970’s. He also served as the main plaintiff of Ronald Chisom v. Charles E. Roemer, Governor of Louisiana Et. Al. case. This case challenged the La. State Supreme Court to achieve equal representation for the predominately Black city of New Orleans. Ron has served as an organizer, advisor, lecturer and consultant to a wide variety of community, legal and church groups. Some of these organizations include: The fisherman and Concerned Citizens Association of Plaquemines Parish, New Orleans Legal Services, Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice, Southern Partners Foundation and Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity. Ron has led numerous workshops around the country on Undoing RacismTM, community organizing, and leadership and strategy development. His networking and community organizing extends throughout the United States and South Africa. He has received many prestigious awards which include: the Bannerman Fellowship, the Petra Foundation Award, the Pax Christi Bread & Roses, and the Tenant Resource Center Achievement Award. Ron has been married for 40 years to Jerolie Encalade Chisom. He has one daughter, Tiphanie Chisom-Eugene and is the proud grandfather of Jessica and C.J. (Cory Jr.)
David Billings has been an anti-racist trainer and organizer with The People’s Institute since 1983. He is part of The People’s Institute’s national staff and a member of its Community Organizing Strategy Team (C.O.S.T.). In 1986, he co-founded European Dissent, a collective of white anti-racist activists that continues its work today. Billings is a historian with a special interest in the history of race and racism. He expertly weaves history into the strategies of effective community organizing and institutional change work. A resident of New Orleans, LA for many years, he now resides in New York City where he lectures at colleges and universities. He is part of The People’s Institute’s work with NYC’s AntiRacist Alliance. Billings is also an ordained United Methodist minister and is an advisor to Fordham University’s Beck Institute on Religion and Poverty in New York City. Over the years, Billings’ organizing work has been cited for many awards such as the New Orleans Pax Christi “Bread and Roses” aware; the Loyola University of New Orleans “Homeless and Hunger Award”; and the National Alliance against Racist Oppression’s Angela Davis Award for community service. David is a native of McComb, Mississippi. He has a B.A. from the University of Mississippi, a Masters of Divinity degree from New York Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry from the University of Creation Spirituality. He is married to Margery Freeman and has three children, Nathan and Noah Shroyer, and Stella Billings, and one grandson, Johnathan.
Daniel A. Buford, Regional Coordinator of the People’s Institute West and Core Trainer. Daniel is an internationally recognized speaker, writer, playwright, director, artist and community organizer. Over the last 25 years, he has lead over 300 workshops in university and community settings on the subjects of culture, racism, militarism and education. He has worked in a variety of environments and facilitated training sessions in leadership development with African American, Native American, Latino and Asian American communities in the United States. Daniel designed an art curriculum for grades 9-12 for the California Health Foundation and helped to develop the Innovative Adult Education Program housed at the San Francisco San Bruno County Jail #9. His artistic achievements as a sculptor and expertise in applied Africa American culture have been featured at Stanford University, San Francisco State University, University of Cincinnati, Southern University, University of Creation Spirituality and Northern Kentucky University., His recent work in Undoing RacismTM has taken him to various communities in South Africa and he continues his work around the United States. He administers and serves as a faculty member for the Bay Area Youth Freedom School, a summer program structured to foster anti-racist values for youth and is an active community teacher and organizer around the country. He currently serves as a faculty member and resource for the Oakland Unified School District.
Diana Dunn is a care trainer and organizer with The People’s Institute. She has worked with the Institute since its inception in 1980 as one of its founding members. She was married to Co-founder Dr. Jim Dunn and worked with Jim for many years to see his dream of a training institute become a reality. She helped build the infrastructure of The People’s Institute as its first Administrative Director, and grant writer. She now devotes her work to her first love, the organizing, training, working with people nationally and internationally and doing curriculum development. Active in peace movements, the white women’s movement and community organizing since the late 1960’s, Diana taught clinical microbiology and immunology at Wright University School of Medicine where she developed an innovative interdisciplinary program for medical technology students. Diana served as Director of Help Us Make nation, Inc. (HUMAN), one of the founding organizations of The People’ Institute. She is one of the founders of European Dissent, a local group that is seeking ways to break out of “gatekeeper roles” in this country’s institutionalized culture of racism and looking top undo racism in their personal, family, social, work, spiritual and community lives. She is also one of the founding members and board president of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, and for a period, served as its interim Executive Director. Diana was involved with a national program named Culturally Relevant Anti-Bias Leadership Education Team. She sat on several boards including the St. Thomas/Irish Channel Consortium, Summer Stages, a youth theater program and a national Heal Care Roadmap Project. She was involved with Peace Watch Ireland and has worked with organizers from Northern Ireland. Dianna now spends much of her time working with the health care institutions, providers, intern and resident programs, nurses and nursing programs, hospitals, clinic, medical schools and community groups, working to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care. She is helping to bring grassroots innovative community organizing projects together with health care providers to understand and develop strategies to address health and health care disparities in the United States. Diana is the mother of Demian Robinson and Myisha Dunn. She is grandmother of Moniqua and Mason Strum. She lives in New Orleans.
John Morrin, whose given ojibwe name is giniwogichada eagle warrior) comes from the miigizi dodem (eagle clan) of the Anishinabeg nation. He resides on the gichionigaming aki (Grand Portage Territory) of the Anishinabeg Nation. He presently serves as Vice-Chairman and Committeeman on the Grand Portage Reservation Business Committee/Tribal Council. John has worked in the Minneapolis and Duluth Public Schools as a cultural teacher, social worker and student advocate. He has also been active in community organizing for 20 years on issues regarding Native American treaty rights, land claims, tribal government reform and undoing racism. John began doing full-time community to continue anti-racist organizing work. He was elected to the Grand Portage Tribal Council in 1998 and re-elected in 2002 becoming the Vice-Chairman at that time. John also works with the People’s Institute North with offices in Minneapolis, Duluth and Grand Portage. John attended the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, with formal educational background in Criminal Justice Studies and American Indian Studies. He has extensive knowledge of treaty law and the history of Native & European-American relations and contributes much of his knowledge he has learned to elders and the many wise people he has been fortunate to meet. John is an excellent teacher, speaker and community organizer.
Suzanne Plihcik is a community organizer and facilitator for the Partnership Project a collaboration working to strengthen neighborhood and institutional relationships through an increased understanding of systemic racism. She and her partners sponsor anti-racism workshops, teach the skills of anti-racist organizing and organize community members and activists to work for the return of power and authority to their neighborhoods. Additionally, she conducts organizational development workshops and provides meeting facilitation. She is past director of Project Greensboro, a community building organization working with Greensboro neighborhoods and the agencies that serve them.
Before joining Project Greensboro, she was executive director of the National Alliance for Non-Violent Programming, a coalition of national organizations seeking to reduce violence in entertainment through media-literacy. Her community experience includes extensive work organizing for changes in public schools and city government, as well as service on the Commission on the Needs of Children. She is a founding member of the Greensboro Public School Fund rewarding innovation in teaching and Dance on Tour, a professional dance experience for children of color.
While she has given broad local service to the Junior league, she has also served in several national capacities: national council member, public policy chair and first vice-president. From 1990-1992, she was president of the Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. She has served on the national boards of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the National Assembly of Health and Human Service Organizations. Locally she has served as a member of many boards of directors, including the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, the Greensboro Children’s Museum, the Greensboro Community Initiative, the YWCA, the Greensboro Civic Entrepreneur Initiative, and Uplift Inc. She is the recipient of the Kathleen Price Bryan Award for community service, the YWCA Women of Color Committee Community Service Award, and was the Greensboro Woman of the Year in 1994. She is the co-recipient of the Nancy Susan Reynolds Award for race relations.
Maria I. Reinat-Pumarejo is co-director, organizer and trainer of ile: Institute for Latino Empowerment, an organization committed to anti-oppression organizing in Puerto Rico and the US, which she co-founded in 1992. Maria has been organizing against racism and other forms of oppression since the early 1980’s. Her passion, conviction, and vision are matched by her skill and knowledge in areas that include: history, cultural studies, counseling psychology, spirituality, healing arts, transformative education, and organizational development. Maria is also a Core Trainer with The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, based in New Orleans, LA. She works closely with women’s organizations in Puerto Rico, the US, and internationally to support and joining the leadership of other women of color. She is a member of the East Asia-US-Puerto Rico Women’s Network Against Militarism and speaks frequently to denounce the globalization of the “culture of imposition” in local, national and international forums. Maria worked as Youth Program Coordination of the Peace Development Fund, a progressive national foundation, where she supported efforts across the US to teach young people about dismantling racism, sexism, ageism, and militarism, and to promote youth empowerment. She also worked in a number of key roles at Casa Latina, a Latino community organization in Northampton, MA. Her anti-racism work extends to Puerto Rico, her native land, through workshops organizational development interventions with grassroots organizations and anti-racist community organizing efforts throughout the Island. Her commitment to end militarism and colonialism has included civil disobedience actions to oppose the U.S. Navy’s presence in Vieques.
Dr. Kimberley Richards’ home is Mississippi and she was raised in Farrell, Pennsylvania. She is the daughter of Mrs. Martha Alfred Richards and the late Henry W. Richards and she has three sons and on granddaughter. Dr. Richards is an organizer in her community and is the Co-director of Southwest Gardens Economic Development Corporation founded by her mother and other residents of Farrell. The organization operates a home for men in recovery and a facility for women who are seeking permanent housing as well as other housing and community building programs. Dr. Richards is also an organizer and trainer with The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond with its national office in New Orleans, LA and regional offices and organizing committees throughout the country. She holds an undergraduate degree from Clark-Atlanta University (formerly Clark College) in education and theatre. Her masters’ in Education Administration was earned at Westminster College in 1982 and the doctorate in Policy, Planning & Evaluation from the University of Pittsburgh in 1995. Her graduate and post-graduate work has center on internalizing an anti-racist analysis within the fields of community based organizing/organizations and the process of program planning, development and evaluation, She is particularly interested in how and where internalized racial oppression and superiority impacts communities of color and efforts towards social justice and equity. She serves as a consultant internationally as we as national boards including the Development Leadership Network, Crossroads ministries, Southern Grassroots Leadership Development Design Team, and the newly developed Institute of the Black World which will be launched on April 26th in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Michael Washington A Core Trainer since 1983, Dr. Washington is also a Professor of History at Northern Kentucky University where he designed and continues to direct the Afro-American Studies Program. He earned his docgtorate degree from the College of Education at the University of Cincinnati in 1984. In the early 1980’s, he and Rev. Daniel Buford co-founded Youth Against Militarism (YAM), which was the first antoracist youth organizing supported by The People’s Institute. He co-authored, with Ron Chisom, “Undoing Racism: A Philosophy for INternation Social Change” in 1996 and the second edition in 1997. Michael continues to work with youth nationally and locally. He works closely with a student group in NKU’s campus called STAR (Students Together Against Racism) and SOAR (Students Organized ASgainst Racism ) on Tulane University’s campus in New Olreans. He hopes to maintain youthy involvement in the antri-racist community organizing process. Michael is the father of three sons: Michael JR. and Milo, who were both part of YAM and Chi’kah, who promises to be a very astute anti-racist organizer.
Angela Winfrey-Bowman is a lifelong resident of New Orleans, Louisiana where she fulfills her life’s work as a daughter, wife, a mother of Brandon and Malaikia, a friend an organizer, a spiritual mentor, and a resourceful messenger. She is currently on staff at the People’s Institute as an organizer, core trainer and Co-coordinator of the Jim Dunn Center for Community Organizing. Angela has gained and shared experiences in both the grass-root and non-profit arena specifically in the areas of community empowerment and involvement. She worked as a Tenant Relations Manager at the Housing Authority of New Orleans, a Membership and Marketing Executive at the Southeast Girl Scout Council, Community Development Associate with Great Expectations (an infant mortality reduction initiative), a facilitator for the Education Governance Reform Initiative, Program Manager and Coordinator of the St. Thomas-Irish Channel Consortium, and Managing Director of Junebug Productions.
Angela was introduced to The People’s Institute’s analysis in the early 1980’s under and initiative The People’s Institute facilitated called “From Victims to Victors,” which spoke to how systemic racism contributes the oppression of people of color. From that time on, she has approached her work utilizing anti-racism values and principles. Angela is currently revising the “Moving from Victims to Victors” curriculum and facilitating it through organizing circles.