Jennifer Rowe is the Executive Director of Educational Equity for Indian Prairie School District in Aurora, Illinois. She has a strong passion for equity work and believes that through building relationships and providing opportunity, real change can occur. Rowe is the co-founder of the Valley Runway, a program that provides prom dresses and tuxedos to students, has partnered with FermiLab to create a summer STEM camp for Black and Latinx students, and has collaborated with 360 Youth Services to provide school-based mental health services in her district’s middle and high schools.
Regarded as one of the most important speeches in American history, it was delivered by Booker T. Washington as a plea for racial cooperation in the South during a time of deep racial prejudice.
Ela Bhatt was a pioneer in women’s empowerment and grassroots development. In addition to establishing the Self-Employed Women’s Association in India, Bhatt also founded India’s first women’s bank, Cooperative Bank of SEWA, and served as a member of the Parliament of India from 1986 to1989.
“Mary Robinson, lawyer, human rights activist and feminist, redefined the scope of two important positions. Robinson was elected the first woman president of Ireland in 1990, serving until 1997. She took up the post of United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.”
Davey Shlasko is the founder and director of Think Again Training & Consulting, a consulting group that supports purpose-driven organizations to address inequities through collaborative strategies for meaningful change. Davey’s work has supported schools, universities, health care and human service providers, advocacy organizations, and businesses to integrate principles and practices of social justice into their planning and everyday action. Davey has an M.Ed. in social justice education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and teaches as an adjunct associate professor in social
In West Virginia, many teachers are frustrated with the state legislature's attitude toward public education. By taking collective action with a statewide strike, these teachers model for students how to stand up and speak out for their rights.