Past Honorees

Alicia believes that Black communities deserve what all communities deserve—to be powerful in every aspect of their lives. An author, political strategist, organizer, and cheeseburger enthusiast, Alicia founded the Black Futures Lab to make Black communities powerful in politics. In 2018, the Black Futures Lab conducted the Black Census Project—the largest survey of Black communities in over 150 years.

Alicia is the co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, an international organizing project to end state violence and oppression against Black people. The Black Lives Matter Global Network now has 40 chapters in four countries. She also serves as the Strategy & Partnerships Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the nation’s premier voice for millions of domestic workers in the United States. Additionally, Alicia is the co-founder of Supermajority, a new home for women’s activism.

Alicia has become a powerful voice in the media and frequently contributes thoughtful opinion pieces and expert commentary on politics, race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. Her work is featured in Time, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Elle and Essence.

In addition, Alicia has received numerous accolades and recognitions, including being on the cover of TIME’s100 Most Influencial People in the World issue (September 2020), named to TIME’s 100 Women of the Year list (March 2020), Bloomberg 50 (2020), BBC’s 100 Women 2020, Fortune’s 40 Under 40, Fast Company’s Queer 50 list, Politico 50 and 3x recipient of The Root’s list of 100 African American achievers and influencers. Alicia has received the Sydney Peace Prize, Adweek Beacon Award, Glamour’s Women of the Year Award, Marie Claire’s New Guard Award, and washonored as the Community Change Agent at BET’s Black Girls Rock Awards.

Alicia’s first book, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, released October 20, 2020 with One World (Penguin Random House.) She shares her thoughts on politics and pop culture on her podcast, Lady Don’t Take No.

Alicia warns you – hashtags don’t start movements. People do.

Kifah Shah is a campaign strategist and digital/field organizer. She is currently a Research Fellow at the Analyst Institute, adjunct faculty at Columbia University, and co-facilitates a large cross-sectional organizing space called RISE Organizing. Her work spans several places and spaces: migration in the EU with the Migration Policy Group in Brussels; research on economic empowerment with USAID in Karachi; labor rights with Unite HERE! and CLUE in Los Angeles; and civic engagement with MPower Change. Recently, she co-authored Hold the Line: a Guide to Defending Democracy, which predicted the scenarios witnessed surrounding the 2020 general election. In her spare time, Kifah overindulges in chocolate, works out to get stronger, and coordinates teach-ins on organizing with her friends and cofounders at Rad Organizing. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Times, TED, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, NPR, and more. Kifah holds a Masters in Public Administration in Economic Policy from The London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley.

Urvashi Vaid is an attorney, organizer and social entrepreneur who is President of The Vaid Group, a mission driven consulting and innovation firm working for racial, gender and economic equity. Vaid has worked as: Executive Director of the Arcus Foundation; Deputy Director of the Governance and Civil Society Unit at the Ford Foundation; Director of the Engaging Tradition Project, at the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School; Senior Fellow at CUNY Graduate Center Department of Sociology; Executive Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force; and Staff Attorney at the National Prison Project, ACLU.

Vaid’s community based research and advocacy includes the first survey of HIV/AIDS policies in US prisons (conducted in 1984); the Black Pride Survey 2000; the first national policy agenda on criminalization of LGBTQ people called A Roadmap for Change: Public Policy Issues Affecting the Criminalization of LGBTQ People and People Living with HIV (2014); a participatory research project to develop a national agenda addressing LGBTQ poverty called Intersecting Injustice: Addressing LGBTQ Poverty and Economic Justice for All (2018), and the forthcoming National LGBTQ+ Women’s Community Survey (2021).

Vaid is co-founder of the Donors of Color Network, LPAC, the National Religious Leadership Roundtable, the Federation of Statewide LGBTQ Organizations (which became Equality Federation), and the Creating Change, among other projects.

She is author of Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and The Assumptions of LGBT Politics(Magnus, 2012); Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay & Lesbian Liberation (Anchor/Doubleday, 1995). She co-edited the anthology Creating Change: Public Policy, Sexuality and Civil Rights (St. Martin’s Press, 2000), with historians John D’Emilio and William Turner. Vaid is a graduate of Vassar College and Northeastern University School of Law.

The Rev. Dr. Katharine R. Henderson is president of Auburn Seminary, a 200-year-old institution that equips bold and resilient leaders of faith and moral courage to build communities, bridge divides, pursue justice, and heal the world.

Author of God’s Troublemakers: How Women of Faith are Changing the World (Continuum, 2006),

Henderson is an internationally known speaker and has been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, MSNBC, NPR, TEDx, and more.

Henderson was named co-recipient of the Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize for her lifelong passion to create spaces for authentic interfaith engagement, including spearheading the creation of “MountainTop,” a national gathering of 80 faith leaders to catalyze a multifaith movement for justice. Past recipients include His Holiness the 14^thDalai Lama of Tibet.

She earned her Masters of Divinity degree at Union Theological Seminary and her doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A).