2021 Minor Grantee

DonChristian Jones is a New York based interdisciplinary and multimedia creator. His work spans musical and time based performance, albums, video and public murals, blending genres of painting and performance installation. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 2012 and has shown at institutions such as The Whitney Museum, MoMA Ps1, New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie Center, and was an artist-in-residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva, Florida in collaboration with Eiko Otake. In the spring of 2020, Don founded Public Assistants, a mutual aid network, design lab, and resistance hub located in Crown Heights. 

2021 Minor Grantee

Trinice McNally is a nationally recognized transformative leader, student affairs professional, community organizer and creative committed to the liberation of oppressed people. As a two-time alumnus from Bethune-Cookman University, she is most passionate about developing national strategies and best practices for HBCUs to foster welcoming & inclusive environments for their historically marginalized populations through programmatic, advocacy & political education efforts, in addition to to providing political education & strategy for DC/MD college students, faculty & staff interested in abolition and community.

Trinice considers work at HBCUs a pivotal component towards Black liberation. She believes that HBCUs—among the oldest standing institutions for Black people in America—should be sanctuaries for historically marginalized people and have a responsibility to ensure a quality, affirming and liberatory college experience. She hails from London, England–with her lineage traced to St. Mary’s, Jamaica, by way of Miami, Florida. Trinice is a member of the Black Youth Project 100, National Women’s Studies Association, UndocuBlack Network, Black LGBTQ+ Migrant Project and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. She currently serves as the founding director of the Center for Diversity, Inclusion & Multicultural Affairs at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), one of the nation’s oldest HBCUs.

Personal statement:

I define myself as both emerging and an activist  based on me shifting my advocacy and activism work from focusing primarily on college campuses to the community and larger society. I started my activism tenure by organizing against college administrators at my alma mater to create the first Gay-Straight Alliance at an HBCU in the state of Florida. Through my work, I created policies to protect and support LGBTQ students, wrote my graduate thesis and conducted a study on the “Best Practices to support LGBTQ students at HBCUs” which later supported me in creating my own position and the first Diversity & Inclusion center at an HBCU in Florida. My work primarily sat at the intersections of racial justice and LGBTQ Equality for the first couple of years and was sustained through campus organizing and national advocacy efforts while leading LGBTQ Resource Centers and providing cultural competency training and programs to college administrators, staff, faculty and student leaders. 

My understanding and consciousness has evolved as I have made more liberating commitments to oppressed people at large and not just Black and Queer folks. As I came into a Black feminist politic, concepts like the Black Queer Feminist Lens and  Intersectionality transformed my understanding of systemic oppression and state sanctioned violence. As a result, I joined a political home to help sharpen my analysis and create a container for accountability, political education and community building. 

My commitment to organizing has forced me to understand social issues initially from  race, gender and sexual orientation to expand to class-status, educational background, age, ability and immigration status. I have assessed how I have contributed to the liberation of all oppressed people and it has evolved and allowed me to emerge from a limited perspective to a more inclusive activist that can make the connections between a spectrum of identities and systems of oppression. Ella Baker said, “Build it and they will come”. This mantra guides my work to build spaces, opportunities where they don’t exist in honor of freedom fighters passed and those of future generations. I am honored to be an awardee for the Kevin Zeese Emerging Activists Fund and plan to amplify my efforts to provide political education and restorative justice practices to DC/MD college students & faculty through the Envisioning Safety On Our Campuses project and continue organizing with in various capacities with the Black Youth Project 100, UndocuBlack network and the Black LGBTQ Migrant Project.

Our 2021 Major Grantee

In 2007, Ruth lost her 21-year-old son to a senseless killing with a gun in Boston. As a result of her personal loss and violence in the community, Ruth became an early architect of Operation LIPSTICK, a nationally recognized organization that addresses the crisis of gun trafficking and straw buying of firearms in urban communities, and served as its first Program Director.

In addition to her work with LIPSTICK, Ruth has been involved in protecting Families from domestic violence in various capacities as an advocate, crisis and substance abuse counselor, community organizer, and domestic violence educator/trainer and program planner. She has been the Support Group Coordinator for the Elizabeth Stone House, serving families for 19 years.

In 2016, Ruth founded We Are Better Together: The Warren Daniel Hairston Project to educate, support, and serve families on both sides of the gun violence problem and break cycles of violence and victimization. Ruth developed language and curriculum on Community Harm, removing the stigma surrounding families of victims and families of offenders traumatized by gun violence, and that families on both sides experience anger, guilt, shame, and fear that their loved ones will eventually end up dead or in prison. Through the Warren Daniel Hairston Project, Ruth and courageous mothers like her are working to end cycles of violence and help them actualize a future free of violence for them and their children.

Relevant Accomplishments and Community Involvement

• Founder and Executive Director of “We Are Better Together: The Warren Daniel Hairston Project” (website)
• Community Coordinator of Domestic Violence, Outreach and Support Groups at the Elizabeth Stone House
• Co-Founder and Former Executive Director for Operation LIPSTICK (Ladies Involved in Putting a Stop to Inner-City Killing)
• Orchestrated 300 Boston youth who attended March for our lives trip to Washington DC March 26th (2018)
• Co- Curriculum developer for Boston Public Health Commission’s Domestic Violence and Resilience Training Institute (2016)
• Featured in People Magazine: How These Women Turned Their Pain into Purpose to Get Guns Off the Street (2016)
• Completed Batterers’ Intervention Trainings (2014)
• CHEC Mental Health Training (2012)
• Completed the MA Victim Assistance Academy Training (2010)
• Certified Domestic Violence counselor (2006)
• Health Institute and Recovery Family Nurturing
• Louis D. Brown Peace Institute Survivor Leadership Program