Mississippi Speaks : A Community Conversation

Panelist Bios 

Ellen Reddy 

Ellen Reddy has been the Executive Director for Nollie Jenkins Family for twenty-five plus years. She is responsible for conducting the day-to-day activities including financial, administrative, and programmatic work of a community-based organization that develops grassroots leaders, community organizers, parents, and students and other members of the African American community in Holmes County. 

Kameisha Smith 

Kameisha Smith, from Lexington, MS, is the Youth Program Coordinator for Nollie Jenkins Family Center. She is known for her vision, passion, and dedication to improving the lives of youth in her community. The Equal Voice Network nominated Ms. Smith for the foundation’s Youth Warriors Against Poverty Award and she’s a current “Young Leaders for Change” fellow of Southern Partners Fund. She has been an organizer at Nollie Jenkins Family Center since elementary school. As a child, one of her first efforts to improve her neighborhood was organizing and fighting for new & safe playground equipment for all schools in her district. 

Breon Wells 

Breon Wells is a policy advisor, social impact strategist, communications expert, racial equity consultant, thought leader, public speaker, Faith leader, and author. He is the President and Founder of The Daniel Initiative (TDI), a government relations and strategic communications firm that specifically services traditionally underrepresented and underserved populations in public policy spaces. A former Congressional Aide on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Breon is a National Security Policy Specialist. While on the SASC, he provided legislative support to the Investigations Team (Detainee Abuse), the Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee, and the foreign affairs team (particularly African and Asian geopolitics). TDI continues to assist clients in navigating the annual National Defense Authorization Act and broader national security issues. Breon works with non-profit organizations, corporations, activists and influencers to develop public policy and advocacy programs. On August 28, 2020, The Daniel Initiative coordinated Congressional Engagement for the 2020 March on Washington, convened by Rev. Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King, III. 

Christopher Scott 

Christopher Scott is a Senior Program Manager for Open Society U.S.’s Innovation team focusing on democratizing education and dismantling inequities, reparative justice, and innovative practices and policies to advance alternative paradigms to punitive practices and policies and democratizing public spaces and resources. Chris promotes policy initiatives for Open Society on criminal justice, police reform and youth reentry, and convenes the Federal School Discipline and Climate Coalition (FedSDC), a coalition working to advance police free schools while implementing effective, non-punitive, and culturally-sustaining practices in schools and alternatives to school discipline. In addition to his leadership and role within FedSDC, Christopher also Co-chairs the Reentry Working Group, a coalition working on transformational change in the U.S. without a focus on punitive or carceral remedies or reentry solutions reliant on law enforcement. 

Morgan Craven 

Morgan Craven, J.D., is IDRA’s National Director of Policy, Advocacy, and Community Engagement. She supports the integration and coordination of national and state policy reform efforts impacting school finance, school discipline and safety, education for emergent bilingual students, preparation and access to higher education, and community-led, culturally-sustaining schools. 

In addition to crafting community-centered policy positions and advocacy strategies, Morgan spearheads IDRA’s critical work to expand access to policymaking spaces for impacted communities, particularly for students and families of color, families with limited incomes, and recent immigrant populations. She presented expert testimony in a hearing by the U.S. House Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee on banning corporal punishment. 

Morgan received a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Stanford University, with a secondary focus in African and African American Studies. She received a law degree from Harvard Law School 

This episode will be a conversation featuring amazing women of color who are leaders on the frontlines of the fight for justice, equality, and freedom for all. We seek to learn about what they face as they navigate the political landscape in Mississippi – a landscape designed to neglect the needs of the people these courageous women serve. Listen as our host Courtney Body leads this discussion with these dynamic women of color.

Guest Bios

Cassandra Welchlin,

Executive Director & Co-Convener of the Mississippi Black Women's Roundtable

Cassandra Welchlin is a daughter of the South, raised in Jackson, Mississippi. As a loving wife and mother of three beautiful children, she balances the work & family with grace. She holds an undergraduate degree in social work from Jackson State University (where she became a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority) and a Master's from Brandies University at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. As a licensed social worker, an advocate, organizer, and agent of change, her work spans over twenty years reforming public policy and organizing for power. Cassandra has been featured in national, statewide and local media outlets such as Bloomberg Law and Mississippi Today. Cassandra is an active fellow in various programs & has been the recipient of several prestigious awards that include 2021 Whose Who Mississippi Women- Fannie Lou Hamer Award and most recently the Woman of Vision Award by the Ms. Foundation for Women alongside Ruby Bright of the Women's Foundation for a Greater Memphis, Bozoma Saint John, Maxine Waters, Pamala Buzick Kim and Deja Foxx. One of her favorite quotes-- “If you don’t love the people, sooner or later you will betray the people.” By late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba.

Michelle Colon

Co – Founder and Executive Director, sHERo MS

Michelle Colón is a lifelong grass roots, social justice activist and organizer, entrenched in the battlefields fighting for abortion rights, access and justice. She has been organizing throughout Mississippi fighting restrictive reproductive health legislation for over two decades, having worked the halls of the Capitol, outside and inside MS’s only abortion clinic; organizing large scale demonstrations, civic engagement events, major fundraising efforts and combating anti-abortion terrorist. As co-founder and Executive Director of SHERo Mississippi, a Black Women’s statewide reproductive justice collective, she continues to focus and highlight the struggles and experiences of Black women, girls and femmes by helping them find their path to liberation through community organizing and capacity building. An unapologetic abortion freedom fighter, lover of animals, and all things GoT, Michelle holds a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Jackson State University.

Lorena Quiroz

Founder and Executive Director, Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity

Lorena Quiroz, is a 22-year Mississippi resident. Born in Ecuador, by way of New York, she’s an organizer and mother of three amazing girls; first generation Afro Latinas born in the beautiful Delta flatlands. She is the founder of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, an organization whose purpose is to amplify the voices of marginalized, multi-racial, and immigrant communities by active participation in civic engagement in deconstructing barriers that perpetuate racial, xenophobic, socio-economical, and gender identity and sexuality disparities and oppression.

This legislative session was definitely one to remember. With teacher pay, income tax elimination, and the historic funding provided by ARPA all at the center of the work our legislators faced. Listen as our host Tevin Brown discusses this legislative session with two state legislators and Kyra Roby, One Voice Policy analyst. 

Guest Bios

Otis Anthony, MS House of Representatives 31st District

Representative Otis is a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity Inc and Cutting Edge gentlemen's club. In the House, Rep. Anthony serves as vice chair of the Youth and Family Affairs Committee. He also serves on the Agriculture, Banking and Financial Serves, Corrections, Transportation, and Workforce Development committees. He was born on July 12, 1979, in Indianola MS and married to the former Porchia Caldwell.

Kyra Roby, One Voice Policy Analyst

Kyra Roby, Esq. is a native of Madison, Mississippi. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Mississippi Croft Institute for International Studies, and she holds a law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law. Kyra is currently a Policy Analyst at One Voice. She is a member of Word of Life Church in Flowood, Mississippi, and she is a devoted mother to her son, Jaxson Roby.

Zakiya Summers, MS House of Representatives 68th District

Representative Summers is affiliated with Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., MS Sickle Cell Foundation-Vice chair, Jayne Ave. Neighborhood Assn-secretary, NAACP, ACLU, Women For Progress, Federation of Dem. Women, S.T.A.N.D., UMMC Community Advisory Board, Jackson Association of Black Journalist, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community leadership Network Fellow. Representative Summers was born January 14, in Houston, Texas. She is married to Andra Harlee.

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened economic inequality and heightened pre-existing workforce and workplace issues. This episode will examine labor in our time.  How have policymakers, employers, and community groups addressed the most pressing labor issues in Mississippi?  And how can we build a strong labor movement?

• Host: Tevin Brown - Communications at One Voice

Mississippi is one of only a handful of states that has not expanded Medicaid. The current state program provides coverage to low-income individuals and families with a primary enrollment population of children, disabled, and low-income parents. Medicaid expansion would provide coverage to over 200,000 uninsured Mississippians that are not eligible for the current program but still do not earn enough to afford private coverage or do not receive coverage from an employer. This discussion will provide information about what Medicaid expansion would mean for Mississippi

• Host: Kyra Roby –  Policy Analyst at One Voice

• Sponsors: One Voice (Executive Director Nsombi Lambright-Haynes) and MS State Conference NAACP (Executive Director Corey Wiggins | State President Reverend Robert James) 

• Sponsors: One Voice (Executive Director Nsombi Lambright-Haynes) and MS State Conference NAACP (Executive Director Corey Wiggins | State President Reverend Robert James) 

On May 14th, the Mississippi Supreme Court voided the state’s ballot initiative process essentially overturning previous ballot initiatives such as medical marijuana and ending future ballot initiatives such as Medicaid expansion and early voting. The petition to challenge and void the state’s ballot initiative process was filed by Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler. Her argument stemmed from the constitutionality of the state’s ballot initiative process. The current ballot initiative language requires petitions to collect signatures in the state’s five congressional districts with no district exceeding 20% of the total. The state, however, only has four congressional districts. The state lost one congressional district after the 2000 Census. Therefore, the Supreme Court ruled that the state’s ballot initiative process was “unworkable” and “inoperable.