The Fred D. Gray Institute Fellows
2025 Cohort
Appointment of the 2025 Cohort of Gray Institute Fellows
Fred D. Gray Institute Fellows
2025 Cohort
At its inaugural symposium in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 14-15, 2025, the Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights appointed to its second cohort of Gray Institute Fellows the following six distinguished individuals:
- Bryan Adamson, the David L. & Ann Brennan Professor of Law, and Associate Dean for Enrichment and Engagement, School of Law,
- Jeffrey R. Baker, Clinical Professor of Law and the Associate Dean of Clinical Education at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law,
- Bryan Fair, the Thomas E. Skinner Professor of Law, University of Alabama,
- Ayesha Bell Hardaway, Director, Social Justice Institute, Case Western Reserve University and Professor of Law, CWRU School of Law
- Reverend Derrick Jackson, Pastor of First Baptist Church, Gallatin, TN and co-founder of “Together Sumner”
- Reverend Trent Oglive, co-founder of Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative, Maury County, Tennessee and CEO of the Columbia Housing and Redevelopment Corporation
The Gray Institute Fellows are a national group of outstanding individuals with distinguished backgrounds and great competencies, appointed to two-year terms. They will be project-based, providing leadership and work as well as substantial external relationships to benefit the Institute’s initiatives.
The 2025 Cohort Institute Fellows will steward generative possibilities for thought and action arising from the 2025 Symposium – especially those that grow out of Attorney
Gray’s work in medical racism, voting rights, gerrymandering, human and civil rights law, and equal access to quality education for all.
The 2025 Cohort of Institute Fellows will also help cultivate the 2026 Symposium through planning, participation, and overall wisdom, and will nurture Institute relationships and bring expertise, ideas, and substantial work to the entire enterprise.
Professor
Bryan Adamson
Case Western Reserve University,
School of Law
Bryan Adamson
Case Western Reserve University,
School of Law
Professor Adamson is the David L. & Ann Brennan Professor of Law, and Associate Dean for Enrichment and Engagement. His areas of expertise are mass media and First Amendment law, and he has practiced extensively in re-entry advocacy, housing, mortgage lending and consumer protection. Professor Adamson has authored scores of articles in publications ranging from Yale Law and Policy Review and Harvard Journal of Racial and Ethnic Justice. Previously, Professor Adamson taught at Seattle University School of Law, practiced in the Litigation Department of Squire Patton Boggs (then Squire Sanders and Dempsey), and as an Assistant Prosecutor for Cuyahoga County. He has held visiting appointments at Washington University (St. Louis) and the University of Michigan Law School.
Professor Ayesha Bell Hardaway
Case Western Reserve University,
School of Law
Ayesha Bell Hardaway
Case Western Reserve University, School of Law
Ayesha Bell Hardaway is the Director and Research Coordinator of the Social Justice Institute and Professor with the School of Law. Her research focuses on criminal law, policing, and the intersection of race and the law. Her most recent work examines legal effort to remedy police misconduct and abuses through federal intervention and community oversight. Previously, Professor Hardaway served as trial and National Coordinating Counsel in the Litigation Department at Tucker Ellis LLP and as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office. She is a graduate of the College of Wooster and Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Professor
Bryan Fair
University of Alabama Law
Bryan Fair
University of Alabama Law
Professor Fair joined the Alabama law faculty in 1991 and was named the Thomas E. Skinner Professor of Law in 2000. He is the author of Notes of a Racial Caste Baby: Colorblindness and the End of Affirmative Action (NYU Press 1997), and numerous articles on inequality in the United States. Professor Fair’s research agenda remains focused on equality theory under the Fourteenth Amendment, with the central theme that equal protection jurisprudence has lost its anti-caste moorings, rendering it largely obsolete to address significant forms of American caste.
Professor
Jeffrey R. Baker
Pepperdine University, Caruso
School of Law
Jeffrey R. Baker
Pepperdine University, Caruso School of Law
Jeffrey R. Baker is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Associate Dean of Clinical Education & Global Programs at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. He directs the Community Justice Clinic and leads a public interest, clinical law program devoted to access to justice, human rights, social justice, and client empowerment. His scholarship explores issues of human dignity, social justice, legal education, and ethics, at the intersections of law, theology, jurisprudence, and public policy. Baker is an Alabama native, a graduate of Harding University and Vanderbilt Law School, and is a member of the bar in Mississippi, Alabama, and California.
Reverend
Derrick Jackson
Together Sumner
Reverend
Derrick Jackson
Together Sumner
Rev. Derrick Jackson is a prominent Tennessee religious leader who was born in Itta Bena, Mississippi. A man of flexible gifts and talents, Jackson is an entrepreneur, college instructor, author, executive of a religious publishing house, and pastor for the First Baptist Church in Gallatin, Tennessee. A galvanizing force for good, he co-founded “Together Sumner,” a community volunteer organization that seeks to facilitate racial healing, togetherness, and reconciliation in Gallatin, Tennessee and surrounding areas. “Together Sumner” engages the community in meaningful conversations and actions that bridge racial divides and strengthen bonds among neighbors. He is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University (B.B.A.), Vanderbilt University (M.T.S), and Lipscomb University (D.Min).
Reverend
Trent Oglive
Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative
Reverend
Trent Oglive
Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative
Reverend Trent Ogilvie is a visionary leader and compassionate community servant. As a founding member of the Stand Together Fellowship, created after the 2015 events at Mother Emanuel Church, he has united local leaders and citizens to address racial issues and foster positive change.
Inspired by Attorney Fred Gray’s question posed during a 2019 Pilgrimage, “What are you going to do?” Ogilvie, with Ministers Russ Adcox, and Demetrius Nelson, established the Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative (CPJI).
CPJI exists to explore the legacy of African-American history in their community and promote restorative justice today. Their work is guided by four essential pillars: exploring history, promoting justice, expanding understanding, and inspiring conversation.
Ogilvie also serves as the Executive Director and CEO of the Columbia Housing and Redevelopment Corporation.
2024 Cohort
Dr.
Catherine Meeks
Independent
Scholar
Dr. Catherine Meeks
Independent Scholar
Dr. Catherine Meeks blends scholarly excellence with heartfelt activism, shaping her as a distinguished voice in socio-cultural studies and a beacon for community transformation. She spent 25 impactful years at Mercer University chairing the African American Studies Program and 9 years at Wesleyan College as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies.
Professor
Jonathan Entin
Case Western Reserve
University School of Law
Professor Jonathan Entin
Case Western Reserve
University School of Law
Jonathan Entin, David L. Brennan Professor Emeritus of Law at Case Western Reserve University, has known Fred Gray for 40 years. Their first encounter dates back to around 1985, though neither recalls the exact circumstances of their meeting. Professor Entin specializes in Constitutional Law and Civil Rights, with Mr. Gray standing out as one of the most significant graduates of the CWRU School of Law.
Dr.
Derryn Moten
(in memorium)
Alabama State
University
Dr. Derryn Moten
Attorney Fred Gray and everyone in the Gray Institute family express their grief and sorrow at the recent passing of Dr. Derryn Moten.
Dr. Moten, considered the “quintessential scholar-activist,” was a tenured and full Professor at Alabama State University where he served as Chair of the Department of History and Political Science.
In addition to being an outstanding academic, Dr. Moten was co-president of the ASU chapter of the American Federation of Teachers’ Faculty-Staff Alliance and served as vice chair of the AFT Higher Education Policy and Planning Council. Dr. Moten also held leadership positions in the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Recently, Dr. Moten spearheaded a campaign that resulted in Alabama’s interim education superintendent, Edward R. Richardson, expunging the records of nine former Alabama State College students. In 1960, Alabama governor John Patterson and members of the state education board ordered the expulsion of the students for helping to organize and participating in the first student sit-in demonstration against Jim Crow in the lower South. Richardson also expunged the records of ASC faculty members and student advocates, Mary F. Burks, Jo Ann G. Robinson, Lawrence Reddick, and Robert E. Williams.
Dr. Moten’s successful activism in this effort was an appropriate conclusion to the case Dixon v. Alabama, the landmark 1961 Federal Court decision that spelled the end of the doctrine that colleges and universities could act in loco parentis to discipline or expel their students. It has been called “the leading case on due process for students in public higher education.” Attorney Fred Gray and Thurgood Marshall were among the counsel for the appellants.
In 2022, Dr. Moten, along with Professor Jonathan Entin at the Case Western University School of Law, encouraged US President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Attorney Fred Gray. Dr. Moten was a guest at the bestowal ceremony in Washington, DC.
Given his prodigious work for justice Attorney Gray asked Dr. Moten to be part of the ad hoc “Futures’ Committee” that created the proposal for the Fred Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights. Upon successful completion of that task, Dr. Moten enthusiastically accepted the role and honor of serving as an Inaugural Fred Gray Institute Fellow.
Dr. Moten is survived by his wife, Inga, and their four children.
We send them our condolences and mourn the loss of this man of integrity, intelligence, honesty, and faith.
Dr.
Phil Thompson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Phil Thompson
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Phil Thompson is currently Professor of Political Science and Urban Planning at MIT. His work has focused on local participation and empowerment, including the engagement of labor unions to strengthen community relationships and increase employment, safety, and political representation for low-income neighborhoods. As Professor at MIT he writes, “Almost all of my work attempts to use knowledge and technology at [this institution] to improve the lives of poor and marginalized people.
The Fred D. Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights Inaugural Dinner and Symposium
March 2025 Speakers
Bryan Stevenson
Equal Justice Initiative
Bryan Stevenson
Equal Justice Initiative
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults. Mr. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Mr. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 140 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. He has initiated major new anti-poverty and anti-discrimination efforts that challenge inequality in America. He led the creation of EJI’s highly acclaimed Legacy Sites, including the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. These new national landmark institutions chronicle the legacy of slavery, lynching, and racial segregation, and the connection to mass incarceration and contemporary issues of racial bias. He is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Just Mercy, which was named by Time Magazine as one of the 10 Best Books of Nonfiction for 2014 and has been awarded several honors, including the American Library Association’s Carnegie Medal for best nonfiction book of 2015 and a 2015 NAACP Image Award. Just Mercy was adapted as a major motion picture and the film won the American Bar Association’s 2020 Silver Gavel Award as well as four NAACP Image Awards. Mr. Stevenson is also the subject of the Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary True Justice. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government.
Fred Gray
Distinguished Civil Rights Lawyer
Fred Gray
Distinguished Civil Rights Lawyer
Fred D. Gray is the Senior Partner of the law firm of Gray, Langford, Sapp, McGowan, Gray, Gray & Nathanson, P.C., with offices in both Montgomery and Tuskegee. He is a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement, a native of Montgomery, Alabama and resides in Tuskegee with his wife Carol. At the age of 94 he continues to practice law, specializing in civil rights litigation.
He has been a cooperating attorney with the NAACP and Legal Defense Fund Inc. since 1956. He represented many civil rights icons and organizations including the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, Congressman John Lewis, the Freedom Riders and Walkers, Selma to Montgomery Marchers, NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and others.
Attorney Gray is the recipient of many honorary degrees and awards. On July 7, 2022, President Joseph Biden awarded Mr. Gray the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award a civilian can receive. In 2023, he received the American Bar Association’s Medal, its highest award given and was also awarded the Legal Defense Fund’s Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as president of the National Bar Association and Alabama Bar Association.
He is president of the Tuskegee Human & Civil Rights Multicultural Center a 501(c)(3) corporation, which is a memorial to the participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and educates the public on the contributions made in the fields of human and civil rights by various ethnic groups. Its founding was announced by Herman Shaw, a participant, at the White House Apology on May 16, 1997 made by President Clinton to the participants. Visit the Center’s website at www.tuskegeecenter.org.
During his 70-year legal career Attorney Gray filed suits to end discrimination in public transportation, voting rights, rights of members in non-profit organizations, right to public education without discrimination from kindergarten to graduate schools, right of students to obtain an education and not be expelled without a hearing, equal access to farm subsidies, health care, the right to serve on civil juries and many others.
In 2024 Attorney Gray launched the Fred Gray Institute for Human and Civil Rights with a national agenda, that builds on the foundation of his legal work to positively impact generations to come.
Attorney Gray’s life mission has been to destroy racial segregation wherever he finds it, and that is what he continues to do.
Shaun Casey
Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs
Shaun Casey
Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs
Shaun Casey was Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs at the US Department of State and Director of the Office of Religion and Global Affairs from 2013 to 2017. He has taught at Harvard Divinity School, Wesley Theological Seminary, and the Walsh School of Foreign Service and directed the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. His most recent book, Chasing the Devil at Foggy Bottom, makes a compelling case that understanding the role of religion in global politics is crucial for effective diplomacy.
Patrick T. Smith
Duke University, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & the History of Medicine
Patrick T. Smith
Duke University, Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, & the History of Medicine
Patrick T. Smith is Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics as well as Senior Fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics in the Divinity School, director of the Bioethics Program for the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities, and History of Medicine and Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences in the Medical School at Duke University. He has also been a Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard University. He received his B.S. in Business Administration from Auburn University, M. Div. from Trinity International University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Wayne State University.
Roslyn Satchel
Kennesaw State University
Radow Institute for Social Equity and the New Georgia Project
Roslyn Satchel
Kennesaw State University
Radow Institute for Social Equity and the New Georgia Project
Dr. Roslyn Satchel is a scholar-activist who researches and teaches about communication, ethics, and law. She is a Berkman Klein Fellow at Harvard Law School and serves as a professor and head researcher at Kennesaw State University, the Radow Institute for Social Equity. She is an experienced strategic communication consultant and an Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Church. Most recently she served as CEO at the New Georgia Project where she helped build power with Black, young, and other left out and other underestimated communities.
Robert Solomon
Case Western Reserve University
Robert Solomon
Case Western Reserve University
Robert L. Solomon is Case Western Reserve University’s Co-Chair, President’s Advisory Council on Minorities and Vice President of the Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusive Engagement. Before joining Case Western Reserve University, Solomon served at Ohio State on the office’s executive leadership team and helped execute policies and practices aimed at enhancing the institution’s culture, climate and curriculum with regard to inclusive excellence. He also worked with multiple university offices—among them enrollment services, undergraduate education, human resources and student life—in developing and reaching diversity goals.
Paul Gowder
Northwestern University,
Pritzker School of Law
Paul Gowder
Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law
Paul Gowder joined the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law faculty in 2020. His research focuses include the rule of law, democratic theory, social and racial equality, institutional and organizational governance. In his practice days, he was a civil rights and legal aid lawyer. In those contexts, he represented victims of police misconduct, predatory lending, employment discrimination, unlawful eviction, domestic violence, and numerous other injustices. His most recent book is, The Rule of Law in the United States: An Unfinished Project of Black Liberation
Marisa Giggie
University of Alabama, Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine and Chief Psychiatrist for the Tuscaloosa County Jail
Marisa Giggie
University of Alabama, Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine and Chief Psychiatrist for the Tuscaloosa County Jail
Dr. Marisa Giggie is an associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. She is a child and adolescent, general and forensic psychiatrist, who serves as the clinic director for the Betty Shirley Clinic, chief psychiatrist for the Tuscaloosa County jail, primary psychiatrist at Brewer-Porch Children’s Center, fellowship director for the Behavioral Medicine Fellowship in Primary Care at CCHS, and medical director at a drug program for emerging adults. Dr. Giggie has been recognized as a Distinguished Fellow by the American Psychiatric Association. She has published works on college mental health, violence prevention and access to care issues.
Michael A. Anastasi
Senior Vice President of Local News, Gannett Co. and USA Today and former editor of The Tennessean
Michael A. Anastasi
Senior Vice President of Local News, Gannett Co. and USA Today and former editor of The Tennessean
Michael A. Anastasi is Vice President of Local News for the USA TODAY Network and Gannett, the nation’s largest news organization. In the role, he oversees the company’s more than 220 newsrooms across 46 states. Prior to that appointment in May 2023, he was Gannett’s South Region editor and, from November 2015 to December 2024, vice president and executive editor of The Tennessean in Nashville. In 2021 Anastasi was named co-laureate of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award. Anastasi is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach, where he won a Hearst Award as a student and later taught a class in digital reporting techniques. Anastasi holds a Master of Arts degree in Leadership and Public Service from Lipscomb University and is a two-time Pulitzer juror.
Angela D. Sims
Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, President
Angela D. Sims
Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, President
The Reverend Angela D. Sims, PhD is the first woman President of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (CRCDS). Prior to joining CRCDS July 1, 2019, Dr. Sims served as Vice President of Institutional Advancement and Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor in Church and Society at Saint Paul School of Theology in Leawood, KS. She holds a Ph.D. in Christian Social Ethics from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA. Prior to matriculation at Union, Dr. Sims completed a baccalaureate degree summa cum laude at Trinity College (Trinity Washington University) and a Master of Divinity with honors at Howard University School of Divinity.
Dr. Sims’s research examines connections between faith, race, and violence with specific attention to historical and contemporary ethical implications of lynching and a culture of lynching in the United States. Principal investigator for an oral history project, “Remembering Lynching: Strategies of Resistance and Visions of Justice,” her research has been supported by the Ford Foundation, the Womanist Scholars Program at the Interdenominational Theological Center, the Louisville Institute, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, and the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University. She is the author of Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror and Ethical Complications of Lynching: Ida B. Wells’s Interrogation of American Terror; co-editor of Walking through the Valley: Womanist Explorations in the Spirit of Katie Geneva Cannon and Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader; and lead author of Religio-Political Narratives in the United States: From Martin Luther King, Jr. through Jeremiah Wright.
An ordained Baptist clergywoman and active member and contributor to several academic guilds and faith-based community organizations, Dr. Sims takes seriously the prophetic imperative “to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”.
Kenneth Williams
Texas Tech University School of Law, Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights
Kenneth Williams
Texas Tech University School of Law, Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights
Professor Kenneth Williams is the Fred Gray Endowed Chair for Civil Rights and Constitutional Law at Texas Tech University School of Law where he teaches Race, Racism and the Law, Civil Rights, Constitutional Law and Capital Punishment.
He is a national expert on Capital Punishment and author of Most Deserving of Death? And has authored numerous law review articles on issues related to Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and the Death Penalty.
Professor Williams has represented several death row inmates during their federal habeas corpus proceedings. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari that Professor Williams prepared on behalf of his death sentenced client. He has also been successful before both the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in obtaining relief for inmates who were sentenced to death in violation of their constitutional rights. He has made numerous media appearances discussing issues related to criminal law and capital punishment, including New York Times, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and local ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox affiliates, and National Public Radio.
Jerome Dees
Faulkner University, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law
Jerome Dees
Faulkner University, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law
Professor Dees joined the faculty at Faulkner University’s law school after practicing law for three years with Huntley, Jordan & Associates. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. Professor Dees teaches Professional Responsibility, Secured Transactions, Sales, Negotiable Instruments and Sports Law. His research includes the intersection of race, sports and the law. He currently serves on the Alabama Task Force on Allied Professions and the Alabama Law Institute – Restrictive Covenants in Contracts Committee. Professor Dees is deeply involved in equipping and supporting long and short term missionaries from the Landmark church of Christ with a particular focus in Africa. Additionally, he serves on the Board of Directors for Compassion 21, the Alabama Appleseed Center, and the Least.
Shay Farley
Southern Poverty
Law Center
Shay Farley
Southern Poverty Law Center
Shay Farley is the regional policy director for the Southern Poverty Law Center and its lobbying arm, the SPLC Action Fund. She manages the policy staff across five Southern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Farley previously served as legal director of the advocacy organization Alabama Appleseed. She has extensive expertise in the development, governance and management of policy initiatives and coordinates with elected and appointed officials, agencies, judges, nonprofit organizations and affected individuals and communities.
Brian Stogner
Michigan School of Psychology, President
Brian Stogner
Michigan School of Psychology, President
Brian Stogner is the president of the Michigan School of Psychology. Dr. Stogner has had a long career in higher education. He has served in the roles of faculty, department chair, academic vice president and provost, and was the president of Rochester Christian University from 2016-2024.
Dr. Stogner is a first-generation college student, earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Michigan and master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology from Wayne State University. He was a practicing psychologist for over 20 years in southeast and central Michigan in private practice, university, and medical settings. He has received national recognition for his research and teaching.
Stephen Sodeke
Tuskegee University
Stephen Sodeke
Tuskegee University
DR. STEPHEN OLUFEMI SODEKE is Resident Bioethicist at the Center for Biomedical Research, and Professor of Bioethics in the College of Arts and Sciences, Tuskegee University. Over the years, he has served as Associate Director and Director of the Tuskegee University Bioethics Center. He chairs the Tuskegee University Institutional Board, serves on the Alabama Rare Disease Council, and on the NIH
All of Us Research Program
. His research interest areas are community bioethics, research ethics, health care ethics, gene-ethics, neuro-ethics, health and human rights; community engagement and empowerment; ethical issues in clinical trials, health disparity, research with vulnerable populations worldwide.
Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative
Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative
Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative (CPJI), located in Columbia, Tennessee, exists to explore the legacy of African-American history in our community and promote restorative justice today.
Trent Ogilvie, President, Russ Adcox, Vice President, and Demetrius Nelson, Board of Directors
Our work is guided and informed by four essential pillars: exploring history, promoting justice, expanding understanding, and inspiring conversation. CPJI’s innovative board spearheaded various community engagement projects, such as the annual Justice Journey, An Evening with Attorney Fred Gray, and donating the Thurgood Marshall statue in downtown Columbia, which brought people together through collaboration and commitment.
CPJI is doing transformative work to rebuild Dr. King’s “beloved community” by Exploring the Past, Redeeming the Present, and Inspiring the Future.