Authors & Partners
AUTHORS
Gina Clayton, Endria Richardson, Lily Mandlin, and Brittany Farr, PhD
RESEARCH TEAM
Catalina Bautista-Palacios (Co-Chair), Verleah Jones (Co-Chair), Esi Maria Mathis (Co-Chair), Arvene Knox (Survey Lead), Mercedes Williams-Brown (Survey Lead), Anita Wills (Survey Lead), Desire Asey, Haewon Asfaw, Anna Calderon, Lisa Castellanos, Cheryl Diston, Jessica Escobar, Atra Flemons, Lydia Goff, Darcie Green, Aliza Heslop, Theresa Jeter, Marie Levin, Karen McDaniel, Liz Robinson, Khadijah Shabazz, Natasha Terry, Le’Char Toki, Dianna Vineyard, Mercedes Williams-Brown, and Shamika Wilson
DEMANDS TEAM
Desire Asey, Catalina Bautista-Palacios, Starr Britt, Jasmine Brown, Lilia Chaidez, Cheryl Diston, Jessica Escobar, Atra Flemons, Esther Goolsby, Theresa Jeter, Elizabeth Joyner, Marie Levin, Sakari Lyons, Mariella Saba, Shawanda Scott, Khadijah Shabazz, Natasha Terry, Dianna Vineyard, Mercedes Williams-Brown, Anita Wills, and Diana Zuñiga
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Nana Duffuor, Adlemy Garcia, and Puck Lo
COPY EDITORS
Vanessa Reid and Christina Scholten-Clayton
RESEARCH PARTNERS
Prison Policy Initiative and Research Action Design
STATE PARTNERS
Detroit Justice Center, Family Unity Network, Florida Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, Mothers in Charge, People’s Advocacy Institute, Project Blackbird, Southerners on New Ground, Special Project, Texas Advocates for Justice, Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project, Voices of the Experienced, Workers Center for Racial Justice
REPORT REVIEWERS
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Charlene Carruthers, author of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements (publication 2018)
Megan Comfort, author of Doing Time Together: Love and Family in the Shadow of Prison
Hedwig Lee, author of “Racial inequalities in connectedness to imprisoned individuals in the United States”
Andrea James, founder of The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
Andrea Ritchie, author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
Karen Shain, Board Chair of Essie Justice Group
Marbre Stahly-Butts, founder & director, Law for Black Lives
Ula Taylor, author of The Promise of Patriarchy: Women and the Nation of Islam
Donna Willmott, co-author of “Dignity Denied: The Price of Imprisoning Older Women in California”
ESSIE JUSTICE GROUP STAFF
Gina Clayton
Founder & Executive Director
Nana Duffuor
Development Associate
Adlemy Garcia
Community Organizer
Arvene Knox
Organizing Fellow, Los Angeles
Lily Mandlin
Director of Strategy
Endria Richardson
Research Coordinator
Myah Rodriguez
Executive & Administrative Assistant
Le’Char Toki
Organizing Fellow, Bay Area
Zoe Willmott
Manager of Advocacy & Programs
ESSIE JUSTICE GROUP BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Karen Shain, Chair
Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Jared Leiderman, Treasurer
Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation
Chantá Parker, Secretary
Innocence Project
Makis Antzoulatos
Committee for Public Counsel Services
Gina Clayton
Essie Justice Group
Kirsten Levingston
Wellspring Advisory LLC
Malika Saada Saar
Google
Tejinder Singh
Goldstein and Russell, P.C.
Teresa Younger
Ms. Foundation for Women
Essie Justice Group
Essie Justice Group is an organization with a mission to harness the collective power of women with incarcerated loved ones to end mass incarceration’s harm to women, and communities. Our nine-week Healing to Advocacy model brings women with incarcerated loved ones together to heal, build collective power, and drive social change.
Founded by Gina Clayton in 2014 in Oakland, CA, Essie Justice Group is named after Gina’s great-grandmother, Essie Bailey, who grew up on a Louisiana sharecropping farm and whose feats on behalf of family in the face of Jim Crow, sexism, and poverty mirror the uncelebrated efforts women with incarcerated loved ones make daily.
To nominate a woman to Essie Justice Group visit essiejusticegroup.org