Jennifer Lawson & Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson

Thursday, September 30, 2021, 6:00pm-6:30pm

Jennifer Lawson first marched for civil rights as a teenager in 1963. She attended Tuskegee University and left to work full-time with SNCC in Lowndes County, Alabama.  She continued her civil rights work for several years before becoming an executive and producer in public television, where she served as head of PBS programming and received numerous awards.  She currently works with the SNCC Legacy Project to preserve the history of the movement and to encourage young activists to document their stories.  For more information, SNCC Digital and the History Makers.

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is an Affrilachian (Black Appalachian) woman from the working class, born and raised in Southeast Tennessee. She is the first Black woman to serve as Co-Executive Director of the Highlander Research & Education Center in New Market, TN. As a member of multiple leadership teams in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), Ash-Lee has thrown down on the Vision for Black Lives and the BREATHE Act. Ash-Lee has served on the governance council of the Southern Movement Assembly, the advisory committee of the National Bailout Collective, and is an active leader of The Frontline. She is a long-time activist who has done work in movements fighting for workers, for reproductive justice, for LGBTQUIA+ folks, for environmental justice, and more.