2024 Edna & Laurence Williams National Community Organizing Fellowship
This national cohort of 13 fellows will receive intensive training in a theory of social change and the art and science of community organizing through hands-on application in place-based action campaigns.
For more than 30 years, Community Coalition (CoCo) has organized Black and Latinx youth and adult residents to influence, change and create public policy that can improve the quality of life in South LA. This year, the fellowship was named in honor and in recognition of the community leaders of the first major campaign Community Coalition launched and won–Edna and Laurence Williams were front and center. From rebuilding South LA without Liquor Stores after the 1992 South LA uprising to the A-G campaign to ensure South LA youth had access to college transferable courses, Edna and Laurence Williams exemplified community leadership by tirelessly working to assert the voices and collective wisdom of their community for decades.
Meet the 2024 National Fellows:
– Dakari Cleveland, Power CA
– Ethan Viets-Vanlease, Worker’s Center for Racial Justice
– Kierra Stanford, New Georgia Project
– Krystal Peters, Worker’s Center for Racial Justice
– Nimaria Dias Ramos, Colectiva Feminista En Construcción
– Randall Santiago, CHIRLA
– Reiquan Richard, More Justice
– Richard Benjumea, Spaces in Action
– Sheyla Diaz, LAANE
– Syeed Moore, New Georgia Project
– Tamika Jackson, Mothering Justice
– Tariq Abdul Tawwab, People’s Advocacy Institute
– Britanya Brown, Community Change