Shaka Senghor

Founder of Redeemed Sole

Shaka Senghor is a New York Times best-selling author, speaker, and leader who has dedicated his life to criminal justice reform. His work concentrates on storytelling, giving a voice to those often marginalized, unseen, and unheard in society. Leaning on his own experience of incarceration and redemption, he’s focused on creating the tangible effects that become possible when you lead with compassion, forgiveness, accountability, and second chances.

Moonshot

Creative Partner

Moonshot is a strategic brand, story, and design firm in the Bay Area. They focus on diving deep into the core ethos and capabilities of their clients and crafting a story and brand identity that connects on a deeper level with the audience. Moonshot’s work is focused on forward-thinking, innovative clients who are driving change within their community or the world at large. They've helped scores of founders, providing everything from bootcamps for startups to long-term branding partners for larger companies, combining strategy, story, and creative.

Casie Casanova

Partner at Shaka Senghor, Inc.

Casie is a partner at Shaka Senghor, Inc. She’s passionate about raising the universal vibration by telling authentic stories from marginalized communities, and thrives at scaling up businesses and project management. She’s also a writer and producer of digital content, tv/film, documentaries, children’s series, and theater plays. Casie began her career working with subscription video on demand start-ups owned by YouTube, Technicolor, and DreamWorks, directing their human resource, talent acquisition, and strategic partnership teams.

Terri Hinton

Co Creator of Redeemed Sole

Terri has been a leader and entrepreneur all her life, co-founding a multi-million dollar company, Art To Wear, Inc., while living on welfare as a single parent. In her early thirties, Terri left her company to dedicate herself to spiritual practice, but after 12,000+ hours of meditation, 300,000+ prostrations and fifteen years, she decided it was time to come down off the mountain and returned to the business world in a creative mentorship role. She uses relationship building and creative branding to get individuals and companies involved in conversations that elevate culture—integrating their brands with forward-thinking solutions to life’s serious questions.

Our partners

Topeka Sams

Executive Director of The Ladies of Hope Ministries

While in prison, Topeka K. Sam witnessed the epidemic of incarceration, particularly its effect on women of color. She felt an urgency to bring the issues facing women during and post-incarceration to the public. After her release in 2015, Topeka created The Ladies of Hope Ministries (The LOHM), an organization whose mission is to help disenfranchised and marginalized women transition back into society through education, entrepreneurship, spiritual empowerment, and advocacy. Together with Vanee Sykes, Topeka also developed the vision for Hope House NYC, a safe housing space for formerly incarcerated women located in the Bronx.

Sam Lewis

Executive Director of Anti Recidivism Coalition

Sam Lewis is the Executive Director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC). A former life prisoner, Sam understands the obstacles, challenges, and difficulties the prison and reentry populations face. In 2017, Sam created the Hope & Redemption Team (HART), a first-of-its kind initiative. HART is a group of nine former California life prisoners who go back into California state prisons to provide hope, demonstrate that redemption is achievable, and to prepare participants for successful reentry into our communities. In 2018, Sam was the recipient of a Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Award, Uncommon Law’s Uncommon Heroes award, and 2019 Danger Man Award.

Michael Mendoza

Executive Director of #cut50

At 15, Michael was sentenced to adult prison, in an era during which the prospect of release was under 5%. While in prison, he turned his life around and focused on education and becoming the person he wanted to be. In 2014, he was paroled and immediately began working on criminal justice reform, testifying and advocating for key changes to law. He now leads #cut50 as the National Director.

Tara Libert

Co-Founder & Executive Director of Free Minds Book Club

Before co-founding Free Minds Book Club & Writing Workshop in 2002, Tara worked as a radio, television, and documentary producer. Her work often covered issues related to the U.S. criminal justice system, and she felt compelled to begin working for reform. She’s since dedicated her life in service to issues related to incarcerations, and trained at the Freedom Writers Institute before starting Free Minds. She is a winner of the Linowes Award for “unsung community heroes” and the DC Department of Corrections George Strawn Volunteer Award.

Nora Krinitsky

Director Prison Creative Arts Project

Nora is a historian of the modern United States, who specializes in urban history, African American history, the history of racial formation, and the history of the American carceral state. She earned her PhD from the Department of History at the University of Michigan in 2017. She is also the director of the U-M Carceral State Project’s Documenting Criminalization and Confinement research initiative.

Van Jones

CEO Reform Alliance

Van Jones is the CEO of REFORM Alliance, and CNN host and political commentator. Jones has been a leader in the fight for criminal justice reform for more than 25 years. He has founded and led many thriving social enterprises, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and the Dream Corps—a social justice accelerator that houses #YesWeCode, #GreenForAll, and #cut50, which recently led the charge to pass the FIRST STEP Act. Jones has authored three New York Times best-selling books, The Green Collar Economy (2008), Rebuild the Dream (2012), and Beyond the Messy Truth (2017). In 2009, Jones worked as the Green Jobs Advisor to the Obama White House.

Katherine Katcher

Executive Director/Founder Root and Rebound

Katherine is a civil rights attorney and the Founder and Executive Director of Root & Rebound, which works to restore power and resources to the families and communities most harmed by mass incarceration through legal advocacy, public education, policy reform, and litigation. She’s a strong believer that the most powerful models of change include immediate support to end suffering, increase equity, and provide opportunity for people in need, as well as longer term work for policy and systems change.