Photo: Jean Melesaine
Leading Edge Fellows Find Inspiration at Mesa Refuge
This year we welcomed Leading Edge Fellows including Cat Brooks, Malkia Devich Cyril, Shimica Gaskins and Chaney Turner for week-long residencies at the Mesa Refuge. Leading Edge Fellows are progressive movement leaders who are pursuing bold visions for change for Black communities and communities of color. Their work is supported by several foundations including the Rosenberg Foundation.
Kendra Fox-Davis, Chief Program Officer at the Rosenberg Foundation, established this residency soon after she visited Mesa Refuge in 2022. Kendra said, “Our partnership with Mesa Refuge supports BIPOC and queer movement leaders in our Leading Edge Fellowship. The retreats provide a beautiful, safe, and inspiring space where they have dedicated time to write, rest, and dream together.”
From Fellow Cat Brooks: “I spent my time at Mesa Refuge working on my book proposal, which chronicles my growth as an organizer and human and how that intertwines with the growth of the modern fight to end state terror,” Cat said. “Just as important, the week was spent building relationships with two other amazing Black organizers, sharing stories, lessons, meals and laughter. It was a game changer.”
Meet the Leading Edge Fellows
Cat Brooks – Cat’s vision is to revolutionize public safety in cities across the state by engaging visual arts, theater and organizing to imagine and implement abolitionist solutions to effectively respond to community crises with care – not a badge and a gun. She played a central role in the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant, and spent the last decade working with impacted communities and families to rapidly respond to police violence and radically transform the ways our communities are policed and incarcerated. She is the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project and the Executive Director of The Justice Teams Network. Cat was also the runner-up in Oakland’s 2018 mayoral election.
Malkia Devich Cyril – Malkia’s vision is to create a Radical Loss Movement, mobilizing California’s bereaved Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color to build a radical practice of grief that can fuel transformative grievance and governance to replace racialized policies and practices that punish and disenfranchise BIPOC grief. The focus of Malkia’s work is to transform the conditions for mourning in public schools, prisons and popular movements, and catalyze that grief as a tool for change. At Mesa Refuge, Malkia examined how prisons continue to contribute to mortality for people of color and Black people in particular; and how movements can supercharge our capacity for transformative change by radicalizing grief.
Shimica Gaskins – Shimica is the President and CEO of GRACE and End Child Poverty CA. She has worked in law and public policy specializing in legislative, regulatory and policy issues associated with criminal justice reform and children’s rights. Shimica serves on the boards of Impact Justice, California Budget and Policy Center, as well as the Liberty Hill Foundation and is a commissioner on the LA County Commission for Children and Families. While at Mesa Refuge she worked on a children’s book as well as a chapter in a collaborative manuscript on sisterhood and leadership in the nonprofit sector.
Chaney Turner – Chaney is an entrepreneur, organizer and equity thought leader, born and raised in East Oakland. They have been an organizer for over twenty years with a specific focus on Black and Brown communities. Chaney believes in accessibility, equity and a dedicated, transparent investment in the economic, social and political lives of those most impacted by gentrification and violence. In 2016, Chaney co-founded The People’s Dispensary, catalyzing community empowerment through cannabis. In 2020, they founded Beyond Equity, a cannabis educational and advocacy organization. Chaney currently serves as chair on the Oakland Cannabis Regulatory Commission.