MEET THE COLLECTIVE
The steering collective is the central hub of decision making for the Center for Grassroots Organizing. We are organizers and educators with a diverse background in community organizing, social and environmental justice, indigenous solidarity, prison abolition, and in connecting the dots between these struggles.
ASHANTI ALSTON / Providence, Rhode Island
Ashanti is a former member of the Black Panther Party, an ex-political prisoner, and publisher of the Zine Anarchist Panther for over ten years. He has been a guest lecturer all over the country, including at the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont, speaking on the Panthers and the history of Black nationalist movements. He has spent time in Chiapas, Mexico, as an organizer with Estacion Libre, while studying the autonomous structure of Zapatista communities and working on his memoirs. Ashanti resides in Providence, RI with his two wildly adorable and amazing children, Biko and Yasmeeni. He is active with the South Providence People’s Center, Jericho Amnesty Movement, Estacion Libre, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Critical Resistance.
Sarah Coffey / Detroit, Michigan
Sarah has been a movement organizer for over 20 years and co-founder of the Midnight Special Law Collective. She has worked to foster and support autonomous, organizer-led movement legal support from the WTO shutdown in Seattle in 1999 to the South Central Farm eviction resistance in LA in 2006, the Ferguson uprising in Missouri in 2014, the Line 3 & Line 5 fossil fuels pipelines resistance, the Stop Cop City Movement in Atlanta and many smaller struggles, Sarah is committed to changing the structure of power in society and non-coercive forms of collective action. She is an engaging workshop facilitator on topics ranging from group decision making, legal support for small and mass actions, repression resilience and more.
HENRY HARRIS / Marshfield, Vermont
Henry grew up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and has lived and worked in social movements and and worked in building trades around the US. He has an incredible 20-year-old, Louisiana Lightnin’, an amazing activist and horticulturist. Henry has been involved with mass actions against economic globalization, climate justice, wild nature, and many other issues since 1998. Henry likes to give trainings in direct action, “know your rights”, and regenerative farming 101 to youth and adults, and participates in local actions and organizing. A proud highschool dropout, Henry is also a founding member of the Vermont National Lawyers Guild, works as a carpenter, and is also enjoying being an organizer and education coordinator for the White River Natural Resources Conservation District in the White River watershed of Vermont. He hopes the grassroots center can be part of breaking through the trend of brief mobilizations and actions into a stronger grassroots community organizing model.