Solutions of the Year: 3 Responses to the Nation’s Reckoning on Racial Injustice

Andre Perry
Brookings Institution
Andre M. Perry is a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, a scholar-in-residence at American University, and a columnist for the Hechinger Report. He is the author of the new book Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities. A nationally known and respected commentator on race, structural inequality, and education, Perry is a regular contributor to MSNBC and has been published by The New York Times, The Nation, The Washington Post, TheRoot.com and CNN.com. Perry has also made appearances on CNN, PBS, National Public Radio, NBC, and ABC. His research focuses on race and structural inequality, education, and economic inclusion. Perry’s recent scholarship at Brookings has analyzed Black-majority cities and institutions in America, focusing on valuable assets worthy of increased investment.

Ryan Bowers
Activest
Ryan Bowers is a co-founder of Activest, an investment research firm that uses economic modeling, financial analysis, and social policy research to advance racial justice in municipal finance. Previously he was a Senior Partner at Frontline Solutions, a national social justice consulting firm, and served in the Mayor’s Office in Philadelphia. He has an MBA from Saint Joseph’s University.

Akilah Richards
Raising Free People Network
Akilah S. Richards is passionate about mindful partnerships and conscious parenting. She uses audio and written mediums to amplify the ways that unschooling in particular, is serving as healing grounds and liberation work for Black, non-Black Indigenous, and People of Color communities. Her celebrated unschooling podcast, Fare of the Free Child, and the numerous workshops and gatherings she has been part of, have garnered the attention of Forbes Magazine, The New York Times, Good Morning America, and most importantly, BIPOC families interested or living in more healthy, consent-based, intergenerational relationships. Her recent experiences within the intersection of privilege, parenting, and power are detailed in her latest book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work (PMPress.org).

Leesa Kelly, Memorialize the Movement
Kenda Zellner-Smith, Save The Boards Mpls
Leesa Kelly co-founded Memorialize the Movement in Minneapolis during the racial justice protests of Summer 2020, starting a GoFundMe page to get support to preserve and store artistic representations of the fight for justice once businesses removed the plywood coverings upon which murals of grief, anger and hope had been painted. Kenda Zellner-Smith started a similar Twin Cities movement called Save the Boards. They've since joined forces as Save the Boards to Memorialize the Movement, and have now partnered with the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum & Gallery to preserve the art in an exhibit.