Click Here to Watch Recorded Event June 26, 2024
Our Panelists:
Reverend Mark Hughes, he/him, is a community leader, organizer, advocate, trainer, racial justice activist and abolitionist. He is Founder and Executive Director of Vermont Racial Justice Alliance (VRJA) and Principal of the Vermont Racial Equity Association. VRJA includes the policy leadership in the creation of the Racial Disparities in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System Advisory Panel and the Joint Legislative Resolution that racism is a public health emergency; the creation and the expansion of the Burlington Racial Equity Inclusion and Belonging (REIB) office; the creation of the Burlington Reparations Task Force; the partnership with the City of Burlington on a Declaration and the successful passage of a Joint Legislative Resolution: Racism is a Public Health Emergency and the recent implementation of the Richard Kemp Center. VRJA continues to provide statewide Outreach and Education and Community Engagement and Support addressing root causes, impact and solutions of systemic racism. They host numerous cultural empowerment activities culminating annually with their established First African Landing Day Commemoration and Observance. The VRJA completed the successful passage of a Vermont constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in 2022.
Saudia LaMont, she/her, owner of Op’s Consulting (Optimism/Options/Opportunities) is an advocate, trainer, consultant, Global Engagement & Equity Director of the Working Communities Challenge Lamoille Team at the United Way of Lamoille County, and a Founding Advisor &Facilitator with EmpowR Transformation. Her commitment to networking with community partners, identifying resources, and reinforcing connections to help create a stronger sense of community. Saudia has over 10 years of experience in her field. She combines a unique holistic approach with some traditional methods in her implementation and practice of embodiment, reflection, and actuality. She believes mutual understanding, communal healing, and collective wellness are the foundations for seeing each other’s humanity and creating social change.
Saudia holds many certifications. Having worked in various human services fields, she has dedicated much of her life’s work to researching and supporting youth growth and development, community health and wellbeing, and transformative/ social justice. Saudia currently sits on multiple Boards and committees and serves Vermont as a State Representative from the Lamoille-Washington District. As a public speaker and workshop presenter, Saudia works to unify people and facilitate understanding of justice, equity, access, survivor recovery, and restoring humanity.
Dedicated to family, youth, and community, self-motivated, energetic with integrity, she leads with love, always learning and growing along the way. Her personal mission in life is to help, uplift, support, and inspire anyone she may encounter beginning with herself and her children. Saudia's goal is to have her life’s work to be loving, inspiring, compassionate, encouraging, open, positive, supportive, memorable, comforting, sustainable, system and life-changing.
Kiah Morris, she/her, was born and raised in Chicago and lived in several other cities, including Seattle and the nation’s capital. Upon arriving in Bennington, she recalled “being struck by how few persons of color that I actually saw on the streets.”
After attending local meetings, getting to know community leaders, and becoming part of the local creative scene as a spoken word artist, Morris announced in 2014 that she was running as a Democratic candidate for a seat in Vermont’s House of Representatives. She won, becoming the only African American woman lawmaker in the Statehouse. In 2018, Morris announced that she would not be running for re-election.
Morris had served as the Director of the Alliance for community Transformations, based in Bennington.
In February, 2022, Morris was selected as the Executive Director of Rights and Democracy (RAD). Kiah stepped into the role after serving for nearly two years as the organization’s Vermont Movement Politics Director, and is a leader on issues of diversity, equity, and leadership. She leads RAD and its sister c3 organization, the Rights & Democracy Institute (RDI), across Vermont and New Hampshire, as well as steer the organization as it continues to work alongside national partners like People’s Action and the Center for Popular Democracy.
Sha’an Mouliert, M.Ed. she/her. Originally from New York City, Sha’an moved to the Northeast Kingdom in 1983. For over 35 years she has been a consultant, community organizer, educator and artist. In 2015, she received Lyndon State College’s Presidential Medal of Distinction and in 2021, the Rutland NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award. Sha’an is the coordinator and photographer of the I Am Vermont Too photo-story exhibit https://www.therootsjc.org/i-am-vt-too a project of The Root Social Justice Center, as well as, producer and host for I Am Vermont Too TV show https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i+am+vermont+too
Currently, Sha’an is facilitating Racial Literacy a Healing Practice trainings with several Vermont communities and organizations.
She lives in St. Johnsbury.