Matt Feldman serves as a member of the Board of Trustees and Treasurer of the Evanston Community Foundation and leads a working group in support of local reparations at Beth Emet Synagogue in Evanston, Illinois as well as participating in other initiatives in support of local reparations around the United States. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Beth Emet Foundation.
Mr. Feldman serves as Chair of the Board of Managers of Common Securitization Solutions, LLC., a technology development and operations company based in Bethesda, MD. Mr. Feldman also serves on the Board of Directors of Recology, Inc., an ESOP-owned, waste management and resource recovery company based in San Francisco, CA, where he is Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee.
Mr. Feldman served as President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from April 2008 until December of 2020.
Mr. Feldman holds degrees from Case Western Reserve University and the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University where he is a life-member of the Kellogg Global Advisory Board and a member of the Dean’s Working Group on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Casey Lewis Varela is the Vice President of the Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation. She is the former Manager of Strategic Partnerships at Youth & Opportunity United (2015-2020) and a former Associate Director at Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights (2000-2005).
Casey was educated at Kenyon College, graduating in 1996, and she received her Master of Arts from the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice of the University of Chicago in 2000.
Casey is the chairperson of the ETHS Educational Foundation Board of Directors and serves on the Advisory Board of Open Studio Project. Casey previously served as a member of the Caring Outreach to Parents in Evanston Advisory Board, McGaw YMCA Board of Directors, Evanston Community Foundation Communityworks Advisory Committee, Kingsley Elementary School PTA Board of Directors and School Advisory Committee, Warren W. Cherry Preschool Board of Directors, Inter-American Magnet School Local School Council, and Lakeview Action Coalition Board of Directors.
Casey is married to George Varela, a Senior Environmental Remediation Project Manager at ComEd. They have two high school aged daughters.
Courtney Q. Jones is co-principle of Chicago Homes Realty Group (ReCHRGE) where they specialize in residential and commercial real estate sales, leasing and property management. In his active role as business development officer, he focuses on business acquisition opportunities.
Courtney has a true love for people which is what led him to begin a career in real estate. He has a passion to serve and create opportunities for underserved communities.
Courtney has 19 years experience in personal and commercial banking, mortgages, investments, and sales training. His exceptional ability to lead and influence others, along with his congenial personality has propelled him to the heights of Vice President at JP Morgan Chase.
Courtney started his career in 1999 in New York, NY where he was a part of a wealth management program designed to increase clients’ assets. Courtney managed over $400 million in assets and consistently exceeded sales revenue goals. Courtney received recognition for his excellent performance. He was tasked with developing, coaching, and training hundreds of home equity loan officers across three states. Courtney developed a world-class team that consistently ranked in the top 10% of the company and received National Leadership Awards for his performance. Courtney studied Finance at St. John’s University. In addition to his real estate license in IL, Courtney also holds series 7 & 63 FINRA Investment licenses.
Courtney is a servant leader. He has served in various capacities in the Real Estate Industry. He currently serves as the President of the Dearborn Realtist Board, an African American Trade Association, the local Chapter of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers. During his tenure as President, Courtney piloted the City’s most successful Community Receivership program to date where approximately 300 graduates received a designation as Receivership Specialists.
This training is currently in its third year.
Courtney currently serves as a court-appointed receiver for the Historical Pittsfield Building in Chicago, IL, which consists of over 40 stories and 590,000 sq ft. He manages the commercial tenants and is responsible for overseeing the ongoing improvements for this historical landmark, along with other responsibilities assigned by the court.
Courtney serves as the Executive Director and Founder for the Black Coalition for Housing, whose focus is to rehabilitate blighted properties in low income communities to increase home ownership, generational wealth and financial literacy for underserved urban communities. BCFH’s activities include advocacy, and education providing financial literacy, housing/credit counseling, job training, and for the benefit of home ownership.
Courtney was appointed by Rahm Emmanuel, Immediate Past Mayor of the City of Chicago, to the steering committee for the City of Chicago’s Dept. of Planning and Development’s Five-year housing plan and the Advisory Committee. Courtney was recently appointed by Current Mayor Lori Lightfoot to serve on the housing transition committee.
When Courtney is not working or serving the community, he is an avid golfer, a self-proclaimed chef, he enjoys sports and competition of all kinds and spending quality time with his wife, four
children, family and friends.
What Is Receivership?
Receivership is a mechanism used by courts to take control of business, property or assets for management, distribution or stabilization. Municipalities use receivership to address distressed properties that have non-existent or non-compliant owners. Municipalities through a legal administrative process or the judiciary move to the courts to appoint individuals or entities to act as receivers to step in and perform minor or major work to a property to bring it into full or partial compliance with local codes, or simply stabilize and abate dangerous and hazardous conditions. Municipalities use receivership as a public safety tool.
Receivers can be public or private receivers. Public receivers are funded through government funding and support. Private receivers alternatively use their own funds. In exchange, Receivers who spend their own funds, depending on the jurisdiction, are issued secured priority liens that places them ahead of all other lien holders. In some cases ahead of real estate taxes. Private Receivers can then use the liens to foreclose or petition for deed.
Receivership is a method of acquiring and getting access to distressed real estate inexpensively, yet requires patience and skill. The super priority status of the liens streamlines access to abandoned vacant properties encumbered or overleveraged and as a result are inaccessible and not marketable. Exercising secured priority liens eliminates all other liens to get to a clean unencumbered deed, and now the property is accessible and marketable ready for rehab.
Courtney Jones is in the fifth year of a City of Chicago funded Receivership Training program along with members of the Judiciary, to train and teach local community stakeholders about receivership and how to successfully become and succeed as a receiver. Jones and his team held three successful training programs with active participation from City of Chicago Commissioners, Corporation Counsels and Judges all participated in teaching and training over 400 receivers on the mechanics, legalities and the business profitability around receivership. Since starting there have been several receivership appointments, and for the first time in the City of Chicago’s history the Court appointed a Black owned company to be a Court appointed Receiver to stabilize and abate a downtown Chicago high rise building in the middle of downtown Chicago.
Kamm Howard is a Chicago businessman and real estate investor. Kamm has owned and managed over 100 residential units in the Englewood, Auburn Gresham, Washington Park and Roseland
communities. In additional to residential units, he currently owns retail and office spaces that houses the businesses of 17 Black entrepreneurs in the Roseland community.
Kamm is internationally respected for his reparations work. In 2014, he was invited to speak on the “new paradigm of reparations activism,” at the 8th Pan African Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Also, that year, he also presented in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the same subject.
In 2016, he was a key organizer for the United States visit of the United Nations Working Group of Experts for People of African Descent. He particularly was the co-leader to their Chicago visit, were the Working Group proclaimed it was the most organized visit in all their work globally. As a result of Kamm’s leadership and insistence that reparations be the center issue of the UN visit, the United Nations report that resulted began Its recommendations with for the United States to amend its centuries of gross human rights violations against people of African Descent, she must engage this community with reparations.
Nationally, Kamm has been a 16-year member of the National Coalition of Blacks for
Reparations in America, N’COBRA., the longest running active organization championing the cause of reparations in US. N’COBRA was founded in 1987 and Kamm has been the chair of the Legislative Commission for 12 years working closely with U. S Congressman John Conyers. Congressman Conyers first introduced a federal reparations bill, now known as HR 40, in 1989, and continued until his departure from Congress in 2018.
In 2017 as a member of the National African American Reparations Commission, a commission of 18 reparations scholars. Attorneys, clergy, and grassroots leaders, Kamm was chosen to lead the team to re-vise HR 40, the federal reparations bill. Acting also as the lead writer of the new bill, the emphasis was changed from a study bill to a remedy bill. Codified in the new bill are the international reparations norm of full reparations: cessation, restitution, compensation, satisfaction, and rehabilitation.
In 2017, Kamm was elected to lead N’COBRA as its National Male Co-Chair. He was re-elected in 2019, for a 2nd term at their historic 31st annual Convention under the theme “400 Years of Terror: A Dept Still Owed.”
Currently Kamm is working with United States Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee as she strategizes to move HR 40 through Congress for an expected fall 2020 vote in the full House of Representative. In addition he Is working with Ald. Robin Rue Simmons of Evanston, Il., as she works to be the first city to deliver reparations resources to a Black community in America, having passed the United States first local ordinance to establish a reparations commission.
Because of Ald. Simmons work, which has inspired state and local legislators around the country, Kamm recently authored a manual, “Laying the Foundation for Local Reparations: A Guide for Providing National Symmetry for Local Reparations Efforts.” This document is used to inform the local reparations movement across the United States. Finally, in June of 2020, Kamm successfully led the work to pass the City of Chicago Subcommittee on Reparations, making Chicago the second city in America to establish a local governmental body to redress past harms against its Black citizens.
Kamm is a Delta Mu Delta Honor Society member and holds a Bachelors Degree in Community Renewal and Political Science (Roosevelt University) and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration where he graduated in the inaugural graduating class of Roosevelt University’s Chicago School of Real Estate.
Akinyele Umoja (born 1954) is an American educator and author who specializes in African-American studies. As an activist, he is a founding member of the New Afrikan People’s Organization and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.[1] In April 2013, New York University Press published Umoja’s book We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement. Currently, he is a Professor and Department Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Georgia State University (GSU).[2]
Akinyele Omowale Umoja was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1954, and spent much of his childhood in Compton, California.[3] He graduated from high school in 1972.[4] Umoja received his BA in Afro- American studies from California State University, Los Angeles, in June 1986.[1] He earned his M.A. in
August 1990 at the Institute of Liberal Arts at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. While a Ph.D. candidate at Emory under Robin Kelley, his dissertation topic was “Eye for an Eye: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement”.
Early activism in California
Umoja has worked with the New Afrikan Independence
Movement.[4] After beginning to attend UCLA in 1972, as a freshman, he began to write for the student newspaper NOMMO and also joined the Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford) Defense Committee (MADC).[4]
When Ahmad was held on conspiracy charges, Umoja organized petitions and fundraisers to secure Ahmad’s release. He dropped out of UCLA, also joining the African People’s
Party and the House of Umoja. Two years later,[4] he was a
founding member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the New Afrikan People’s Organization.[5] Umoja has since represented both organizations nationally and in international forums in the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.[5]
From 1972 until 1982, Umoja was on the staff of Soulbook: The Revolutionary Journal of the Black World, founded by
Mamadou Lumumba.[4] He was also very active in activism in Los Angeles during this time, where he organized security and assistance for several of Malcolm X’s associates. He was also active with the Coalition Against Police Abuse (CAPA) in Los Angeles.[4]
In 1979, Umoja was in a committee of the National Black Human Rights Coalition, which produced a document “detailing the Black liberation movement’s demand for self-determination, reparations and a call to release political prisoners.” It was presented to the Secretary General of the United Nations at that time, who was Salim Salim of Tanzania.[4]
Umoja has varied experiences as an educator. He has taught in secondary schools, alternative schools, and colleges and universities, as well as developed Afrikan-centered curriculum for public schools and community-education programs. In the late 1980s, he taught social studies in Atlanta’s public schools, where he also taught African-American history from 1986 until 1991 at the Atlanta Metropolitan College.[1] In the early 1990s, he began teaching in the history department of Clark Atlanta University, where he lectured until 1996.[1] He then became a professor at the Department of African American Studies at Georgia State University (GSU),[1] and is also department chair.[3]
Umoja’s writing has been featured in scholarly publications as The Journal of Black Studies, New Political Science, The International Journal of Africana Studies, Black Scholar, Radical History Review and Socialism and Democracy. Umoja was one of the contributors to Blackwell Companion on African American History, The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party, and Malcolm X: A Historical Reader.
In April 2013, New York University Press published Umoja’s first single-authored book, which was titled We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement.[6] A review in The Clarion-Ledger in 2015 described the book as following “confrontations in communities across the state through the end of the 1970s, demonstrating how black Mississippians were ultimately able to overcome intimidation by mainstream society, defeat legal segregation, and claim a measure of political control of their state.”[7] He was honored for the book in 2014 in Oakland.[8]
Umoja has been a contributor to commercial and popular documentaries on black history. Umoja was a featured commentator on the American Gangster episode “Dr. Mutulu Shakur”, which aired on November 8, 2008. He appeared in Bastards of the Party (2006) and Freedom Archives’ Cointelpro 101 (2010).
In recent years, he supported movements in Guyana and Haiti, and, in August 2010, he led a Black August delegation of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement to Haiti to investigate conditions after a recent earthquake.[4] In 2013, he lectured in Mississippi on the 1965 boycott by black citizens.[9] In 2014, he offered tribute to his late friend, Chokwe Lumumba, at the mayor’s funeral in Jackson, Mississippi.[10][11][12]
Julianne Marie Malveaux (born September 22, 1953) is an American economist, author, social and political commentator, and businesswoman. After five years as the 15th president of Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, she resigned on May 6, 2012.[3]
Raised Catholic, Malveaux entered Boston College after the 11th grade, and earned a BA and MA degrees in economics there in three years.[4] During her stay, she was initiated in the Iota chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. She earned a PhD in economics from MIT, and holds honorary degrees from Benedict College, Sojourner-Douglass College and the University of the District of Columbia. As a writer and syndicated columnist, her work has appeared regularly in USA Today, Black Issues in Higher Education, Ms. magazine, Essence magazine, and The Progressive. Her weekly columns appear in numerous newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, the Charlotte Observer, the New Orleans Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the San Francisco Examiner and the San Francisco Sun Reporter.
Malveaux appeared regularly on CNN, BET, as well as on Howard University’s television show, Evening Exchange. She has appeared on PBS’s To The Contrary, KQED’s Forum, ABC’s Politically Incorrect, Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor, TV One’s News One Now, with Roland Martin and stations such as C-SPAN, MSNBC and CNBC.
She hosted talk radio programs in Washington, San Francisco, and New York, as well as a nationally broadcast, daily talk show that aired on the Pacifica Radio network from 1995 to 1996. She appeared on Black in America: Reclaiming the Dream hosted by Soledad O’Brien as a panelist on CNN in 2008.
Currently, Malveaux serves on the boards of the Economic Policy Institute as well as The Black Doctoral Network and she is President of PUSH Excel, the educational branch of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. She is also the President and founder, of Economic Education a non-profit located in Washington, DC. Described by Cornel West as “the most iconoclastic public intellectual in the country”, Malveaux contributes to the public dialogue on issues such as race, culture, gender, and their economic impacts.
In 1990, Malveaux, along with 15 other African American women and men, formed the African- American Women for
Reproductive Freedom.[5]
She taught at San Francisco State University (1981–1985) and was a visiting professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, (1985–1992).[1] She has been visiting faculty at the New School for Social Research, College of Notre Dame
(San Mateo, California), Michigan State University, and Howard University. In 2014, she was special guest lecturer at both Meharry Medical College, (Nashville, Tennessee) and in 2017 she delivered a three-part lecture as part of Hutchins Center for African and African
American Research, Harvard University’s W.E.B. Dubois lecture series.
On June 1, 2007, Malveaux became the 15th President of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina. In February 2012, Malveaux announced that she would be stepping down from this position in May 2012, saying in a statement: “While I remain committed to [historically black colleges and universities] and the compelling cause of access in higher education, I will actualize that commitment, now, in other arenas. I will miss Bennett College and will remain one of its most passionate advocates.”[6]
Malveaux was appointed dean of the new college of Ethnic Studies at California State University, Los Angeles.
(2002).
Tonika Johnson is a photographer, social justice artist and life-long resident of Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Englewood. She is also co-founder of the Englewood Arts Collective and Resident Association of Greater Englewood, which seek to reframe the narrative of South Side communities, and mobilize people and resources for positive change. Tonika’s art often explores urban segregation, documenting the nuance and richness of the black community to counter media depictions of Chicago’s violence. As a trained photojournalist and former teaching artist, Tonika’s artistic legacy has gained citywide recognition in the last Ove years. In 2017, she was recognized by Chicago Magazine as a Chicagoan of the Year for her photography of Englewood’s everyday beauty. Her Englewood- based photography projects “From the INside,” and “Everyday Rituals,” were exhibited at Rootwork Gallery in Pilsen, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Harold Washington Library Center and at Loyola University’s Museum of Art (LUMA). LUMA also exhibited her Folded Map project in 2018, which visually investigates disparities among “map twins”—Chicago residents who live on opposite ends of the same streets across the city’s racial and economic divides—and brings them together to have a conversation. An excerpt of the project was also displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art within The Long Dream exhibition. Since 2018, Tonika has transformed Folded Map into an advocacy and policy-inauencing tool that invites audiences to open a dialogue about how we are all socially impacted by racial and institutional conditions that segregate Chicago. In 2020, she formalized Folded Map into a nonproOt organization, where she serves as Creative Executive Obcer. In 2019, she was named one of Field Foundation’s Leaders for a New Chicago andm is not serving her second year as appointed member of the Cultural Advisory Council of the Department of Cultural Adairs and Special Events by the Chicago City Council. Most recently, Tonika was selected as the National Public Housing Museum’s 2021 Artist as Instigator. In that role, she’ll work on her newest project: Inequity for Sale, which highlights the living history of Greater Englewood homes sold on Land Sale Contracts in the 50s and 60s.
Experience Creative Executive Obcer at Folded Map, NFP
May 2020 · Chicago, IL
Folded Map, NFP was organized exclusively to develop creative educational tools & interactive projects that help educate and engage the larger public in open dialogue about how we are all socially impacted by historic racial and institutional conditions that segregate the Chicago and our country.
Juror at Platforms Fund
June 1, 2019 – July 21, 2019 · New Orleans, LA
Served as on the jury panel for the third round of Antenna, a multi-arts organization in New Orleans, re-granting program knownasthePlatformsFund.Reviewed75+applicationsfrom New Orleans-based artists as well as interviewed 20 Onalists with the jury panel and selected 10 recipients.
Program Manager at Resident Assc. of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E)
October 2017 – December 2018 · 6620 S Union
The Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E.) is a grassroots organization whose guiding principle is that the key to improving Englewood is activating more residents to be involved with positive change. Today, R.A.G.E. boasts nearly 300 members however, in November 2010, R.A.G.E. was founded by a collective of 13 residents with Asiaha Butler at the helm. R.A.G.E.’s overarching mission is to convene residents, Englewood’s public obcials, business owners, and other organizations to strategize, build their power, promote healing, create community solidarity and tangible solutions while actively serving as a credible source for critical information about Englewood.
Summer 2017 Photographer Fellow at City Bureau June 28, 2017 – September 2017 · Chicago, IL
As a summer photography fellow, Tonika seeks to oder a social
understanding of Chicago’s legacy of segregation by visually demonstrating the stark diderences between North and South side communities. Tonika will take environmental photos of South Side streets juxtaposed with corresponding photos of the same blocks on the North Side (i.e. 5100 S. Damen and 5100 N. Damen). Tonika aims to have her viewers question these neighborhoods’ disparities in retail business, housing and race.
Program Manager at Growing Home, Inc. April 2012 – October 2017 · Chicago, IL
Oversaw the daily operation, curriculum development and program evaluation of Growing Home’s 14-week job training program for people with signiOcant barriers to employment. Other signiOcant duties include preparing and implementing the job readiness curriculum as well as facilitating weekly resume classes to 40+ program participants.
Photography Teaching Artist at Changing Worlds 2011 – 2014 · Chicago, IL
Prepared lesson plans, delivered instruction on technique and process while reinforcing a positive learning climate, attended group meetings with other teaching artists and shares Changing Worlds’ philosophies on teaching and learning.
Co-Founder & Lead Teacher at Media-N-Motion Englewood Journalism Program
January 2011 – September 2011 · Chicago, IL
Created and implemented a free, eight week news writing & reporting curriculum for 15 middle to high-school students in Englewood.
Education MBA at National-Louis University
2003 – 2005 · Chicago, IL
BA in Print Journalism & Photography at Columbia College Chicago 1997 – 2003 · Chicago, IL
Awards 2022 2022 Inauencer, Landmarks Illinois
2021 Public Humanities Award, Illinois Humanities
2021 Artist as Instigator, National Public Housing Museum
2020 Corlis BeneOdeo Award for Imaginative Cartography, The North American Cartographic Information
Elisa is a rising junior at Hampton University, one of the most prestigious historically Black institutions in the United States. After completing her freshman year. She secured an internship at FirstRepair, where her passion for reparations legislation both locally, nationally, and internationally ignited. Motivated by this newfound passion, she is currently pursuing a major in International Studies. She currently holds the position of Special Assistant to the Executive Director, continuing to remotely contribute her talents and make valuable contributions to the organization and its mission.
Prior to enrolling at Hampton U, She attended Evanston Township High School (ETHS) in Evanston, Illinois. Where her interest in youth advocacy and empowerment blossomed as she learned to advocate for herself as a freshman. While at ETHS, she demonstrated her deep passion for Youth Advocacy. Her involvement in various youth-focused initiatives and organizations including The Black Student Summit, The Girls Youth Leadership Program, and a mentor for Girls Play Sports NFP (Evanston, IL), Helped her to grow in my passion for youth advocacy. She is still actively working towards creating a positive impact in the lives of the younger generation. She believes in empowering and uplifting the voices of young people, advocating for their rights, and creating opportunities for their growth and development.
Chief Operating Officer
Victoria has over 25 years of experience mobilizing public, private and philanthropic investments to advance community, neighborhood, and organizational development in service to addressing the root causes of inequity. She has held senior leadership roles with strategic oversight of fundraising, program design, finance, human resources, operations, change management, policy and communications in nonprofit organizations in the systems of youth development, child care, education, talent and workforce, homelessness and housing, and community development. Victoria holds a bachelor’s degree from Wittenberg University in Philosophy and a Master of Public Administration from New York University. She was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois and lives there now with her family.
Operations and Engagement Manager
Vanessa A. Johnson-McCoy (VAJM) was born and raised right here in Evanston, IL. She is a natural born servant-leader, who actively participated in Student Council beginning in third grade and throughout middle and high school, serving as Treasurer in 5th grade at Timber Ridge Elementary School (now Bessie Rhodes) in Skokie and as Vice President of Student Council at Chute Middle School in Evanston. Not only is she a servant-leader, but at Evanston Township High School, she was a cheerleader for three years, because she enjoys encouraging others to push forward and WIN! Vanessa was raised as a “church girl” and having to say Easter and Christmas speeches in front of hundreds of people since age five, has given her the confidence and courage to speak publicly without being afraid.
Vanessa attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Organizational Behavior. After college, she relocated to Southern California and successfully held various corporate positions in Human Resources in California, in Atlanta, Georgia and here in Illinois until she transitioned to become a full-time, licensed real estate broker in 2017 and started her own business, VAJM Consulting LLC, in 2018.
Vanessa is a sales agent with Coldwell Banker in Evanston and is a member of the Coldwell Banker Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council and the NSBAR (North Shore-Barrington Association of REALTORS) Diversity & Inclusion Committee. She served as the first Black president of the Women’s Council of REALTORS North Shore in 2022 & 2023 and she is the founding president of the NAREB (National Association of Real Estate Brokers) North Shore REALTIST Association. She is a member of the NAACP Evanston chapter, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated and is active in the City of Evanston’s Reparations Housing & Community Unity Working Groups, the Joining Forces Zoning Committee and her church and community. She is an advocate for liberty and justice FOR ALL, especially African-Americans and works diligently to educate, encourage and push Black homeownership.
Vanessa lives in Evanston with her husband and has two sons, a daughter-in-law and her first granddaughter is on-the-way. 😊 She is known to be positive, honest, resourceful, and detailed and she strives to daily reflect her motto to have a Victorious And Joyously Marvelous attitude and encourages others to do the same. 😊
Senior Advisor
Jumoke Ifetayo Baba Jumoke is an activist, event planner, thought leader, entrepreneur, father, educator, dancer, healer and visionary. Currently Jumoke is the producer and host of Reparations NOW podcast, a dynamic audiovisual podcast streaming across multiple platforms. Jumoke serves as Reparations subject matter expert consultant for a collective of economic justice and equity nonprofits in Atlanta GA. Jumoke serves as FirstRepair’s Senior Advisor and the South Region Coordinator for its National Reparations strategy meetings.
AV and Infrastructure Coordinator
Seth Watson born Seth Othniel Samuel Watson, was raised in a loving but strict and religious household.
He attributes his mother with helping to nurture his interest in music. He would beat on the surface of everything he found around his childhood home, so his mother bought him a drum set. He honed his skills as a drummer learning from church musicians and eventually became the lead drummer for Faith Temple C.O.G.I.C. while still in high school. Ultimately, Goldenchild was determined to be more than a
drummer. He wanted to expand his skillset as an artist. He comes from a long line of family members that became engineers and owned studios.
This is what inspired him to enroll in the Studio Engineering program at Full Sail University
in Winter Park, FL. It was here that he learned to create his own beats.
Upon graduation, he opened his own studio (House of Wattz Studio) and began to record and produce local talent.
Realizing he needed money to brand his production company, Big Hed Productionz (B.H.P.), he used his degree to his advantage and landed an assistant engineer position with long time musician and friend of the family Steve “Stone” Huff and his production company “Stone Productions”. It was here that he worked with amazing talents like Avant, Keke Wyatt, Joe, and Joan Rezorio. Goldenchild worked with Mr. Huff for one year. Leaving with what he had learned, he resumed focusing on his production company full time.
Goldenchild found success because of his business savvy and musicianship. His artists performed alongside artists such as Tonex, Kierra “Kiki” Sheard, Kurt Carr, Dorinda Clark-Cole, New Direction, and the Chicago Mass Choir. Consequently, GoldenChild, initially his artists’ hype man, was often mistaken as an artist himself. Eventually, he secured a record deal for himself and his cousin. The group Chozin by God (CBG) was formed. They received radio airplay with the two singles
“Do Dat There” and “Handz Up.” Following this, Goldenchild returned to work alongside Steve “Stone” Huff as a Production Assistant. While working at Stone Productions the group landed a song on Darius Brook’s album entitled
“Hands Up.” However, in early 2009 CBG disbanded and Goldenchild emerged as a formidable solo artist, releasing his debut album “Freedom” in 2010. His first single “So Amazin” featuring Eddie V. created major buzz.
Currently, he is putting the finishing touches on his latest album Trinity 3:1 and is performing at live events to promote the single “The Greatness of The Lord” from his album.
He endeavors to inspire the youth and older adults. His music
bridges the gap between secular and traditional gospel music and transcends age. His music communicates the power of the Gospel to help people overcome drug, alcohol, and sexual abuse. He wants people to know that God can reach the unreachable and save anyone from a life of sin. He wants the world to know that the devil is a liar and only seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.
Golden Child’s mission is to use his music to serve as a reminder that Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life.
Bailee Rue is a program manager and evaluator with a diverse background spanning public health, youth development, and community engagement.
Bailee holds a Master of Public Health in Social and Behavioral Sciences from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University. Her focal areas of interest revolve around the social determinants of health, health equity, and community engagement.
Roland is a second-year MBA student at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. He joined FirstRepair during the winter of ’23 as an Ex-Officio Board member through the Golub Capital Board Fellows Program at Kellogg. As a fellow, he will complete a strategic project to advance the mission of FirstRepair. His life-long goal to narrow the racial wealth gap motivated him to join FirstRepair. Long-term, he plans to address the wealth gap by working in business roles within the education sector.
Roland started his career working as a research engineer at Globus Medical. Later, he pivoted into a program management role for a large pharma company, Merck. He also worked in a digital health at Merck. Last summer, he interned at the Office of the State Superintendent of Education in D.C. He is currently interning as a summer consultant at the Boston Consulting Group.
He holds a B.S. in Engineering Science from the University of Pittsburgh, and an M.S. in Bioengineering from Syracuse University.
Dr. Iva E. Carruthers is General Secretary of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC), an interdenominational organization within the African American faith tradition focused on justice and equity issues. SDPC is both a 501c3 and United Nations Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). As founding CEO and a trustee of SDPC, she has steered the organization as a unique, influential and esteemed network of faith based advocates and activists, clergy and lay. Former director of the Black Theology Project, Dr. Carruthers has a long history of teaching, engagement in community development initiatives and social justice ministry, fostering interdenominational and interfaith dialogue and leading study tours for the university and church throughout in the United States, Caribbean, South America and Africa.
Dr. Carruthers is Professor Emeritus and former Chairperson of the Sociology Department at Northeastern Illinois University and was founding President of Nexus Unlimited, an information and educational technology firm. She was appointed to the White House Advisory Council on the internet, “National Information Infrastructure”, Mega Project and the educational software she developed was awarded a ComputerWorld Smithsonian Award. She is also founder of Lois House, an urban retreat center, Chicago, Illinois.
Dr. Carruthers is a frequent guest speaker before various national and international forums, including U.N. Civil Society Forums. She has served as a consultant and delegate to many organizations in the public and private sectors. She currently serves as a Life Time Trustee for the Chicago Theological Seminary and trustee for The Kwame Nkrumah Academy, Chicago; American Baptist College, Nashville; Shared Interest, New York; Bread for the World, Washington, DC. She is a member of the National African American Reparations Commission and is working on initiatives related to the U.N. Decade of People of African Descent.
Dr. Carruthers is co-editor of Blow the Trumpet in Zion: Global Vision and Action for the 21st Century Black Church and has authored and edited a number of articles and publications, in the areas of sociology, technology and instructional technology. Her many study guides on African American & African history were developed as a co-producer of a multi-year educational television program. She was a delegate to the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance and her publication, The Church and Reparations, was distributed by her denomination, United Church of Christ, in several languages.
She received the B.A. degree from the University of Illinois; the M.A. and the Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University; a Master in Theological Studies degree from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Humane Letters, Meadville Lombard Theological School. Awards and postdoctoral fellowships received by Dr. Carruthers include Northwestern University Center for Urban Affairs, The Russell Sage Foundation, University of Chicago, Adlai Stevenson Institute for International Affairs and The National Endowment for the Humanities.
Her many awards and appointments include the 1999 Life Achievement Award by Northeastern Illinois University and “Year 2000 Woman Entrepreneur of the Year” award, given by the National Foundation of Women Legislators and the Small Business Administration. She was inducted into the National History Makers; was a recipient of Ebony Magazine’s year 2001 Outstanding Mother Award for Mentoring; and, noted as a Chicago area social justice pioneer in the Women Alive! A Legacy of Social Justice Exhibit.
Dr. Carruthers is the mother of two sons.