At this year’s Annual Celebration, NLG Chicago will be announcing the inaugural Trailblazer Award. The Trailblazer Award is an opportunity to highlight someone who pushes boundaries within movement work, or creates resources that people previously may not have imagined or believed were possible in their community. We seek to honor a Trailblazer involved in movement work in the Chicagoland area that embodies the NLG Mission.
Many amazing candidates were nominated and our finalists are Marsheda Ewulomi, Emmanuel Andre & Christian Snow! Each finalist will have a donation made in their honor to an organization of their choice. The finalist who receives the most votes will be honored as our 2021 Trailblazer Awardee and given a platform to speak about their work at our virtual Annual Celebration on Nov 13th. Visit www.tinyurl.com/NLGChi2021 to purchase tickets to the event. Please see the bios below for reference and cast your votes! Voting closes at midnight on Sunday, Oct 17th.
Finalists:
Marsheda Ewulomi
Marsheda Ewulomi (she/her) works at BPI as Staff Counsel focused on police accountability. She played an integral role in bringing community coalitions together to further the passage of the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS). Marsheda specializes in supporting grassroots coalition work and providing creative policy and strategic support to communities. She owns her own consulting company, She-Verse LLC, focused on supporting women and girls in identifying who they are and owning their power. Marsheda is driven by the power of narrative to transform lives: the narrative associated with an issue, the story that is missing to inform policy, and the narrative that must be shared to motivate collective action.
Please donate to Chicago Freedom School on behalf of Marsheda Ewulomi.
Emmanuel Andre
Emmanuel Andre (he/his) is passionate about creating spaces that center the lived experiences of communities impacted by the criminal legal system. Mr. Andre has over 10 years of experience litigating complex criminal cases. A restorative justice practitioner, he co-created Circles and Ciphers, an organization which incorporates hip hop into its work of conflict resolution independent of the courts with a path towards healing. Additionally, he has helped launch several innovative solutions to violence, working towards abolition through community partnerships. Mr. Andre is currently the Deputy of Policy and Strategic Litigation at the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender.
Please donate to Circles and Ciphers on behalf of Emmanuel Andre.
Christian Snow
Christian Snow (she/her) is a long-time resident of Chicago’s west side and Program Director at the Illinois Justice Project, a non-profit that engages in criminal legal system reforms to make communities safer and reduce carceral systems. There she works to bridge gaps between grassroots organizers building power and policy advocates implementing reforms. She previously worked as an Associate Attorney at People’s Law Office, focused on civil rights cases. Additionally, Christian was the first Executive Director of Assata’s Daughters, a Black women-led, young person-focused abolitionist organization rooted in the Black radical tradition, that serves as a political home for young Black people in Chicago where they can build community as they learn to become rigorous and effective organizers.
Please donate to Assata’s Daughters on behalf of Christian Snow.
