Regional Organizers for Community Change
NORTH CAROLINA
Program Overview
Regional Organizers for Community Change (ROCC) is a state-specific, and sometimes regional fellowship, that brings together movement leaders across sectors to develop long-term strategy. The fellowship, which is offered by Leadership for Democracy and Social Justice (LDSJ), is designed to give social justice leaders an opportunity to hone their leadership skills, deepen their understanding of power and strategy, and expand their networks. This semester-long program provides an intensive cohort experience, granting Fellows the chance to connect and build relationships, and collectively to develop a shared analysis, a long-term vision, and a winning strategy for their state or region. The program offers a unique combination of academic coursework, immersive retreats, and individual coaching and mentorship as part of a holistic approach to leadership development.
ROCC was born from the understanding that while the challenges we face are not limited to a particular state or region, organizing and campaigns at this level remain the lifeblood of the progressive movement. It is where people most frequently come together and organize. It is also where great power lies — in state legislatures, elected officials, and local governments, but also in the grassroots leaders, movements, and coalitions found in every locality and state. And it is where a real opportunity exists to push back against an authoritarian agenda that seeks to limit rights and freedoms, and puts profits before people and the environment. Struggles at the state level can also resonate and have an impact nationally. Nowhere is this more true than in North Carolina, the focus of the 2025 ROCC fellowship.
Meet the Fellows
-
Georie Bryant is a Durham‑based community organizer, chef, farmer, and descendant of Stagville Plantation who leads SymBodied LLC—a nonprofit that promotes equity in agriculture and food systems while supporting worker-owned cooperatives and ethnobotanical practices. With decades of hands-on experience in culinary arts and sustainable farming, he collaborates across generations and cultures to challenge systemic injustices impacting Black and Brown communities in food access and cultural heritage.
-
Clara (they/them) comes from Durham, NC where they've been part of worker, racial justice, and gender justice struggles since high school. Clara organizes with the Union of Southern Service Workers, and believes in the power of southern workers to come together to transform our lives and society.
-
I am a lead organizer with NCAE, our statewide public school workers’ union. I had the opportunity to work on the exciting campaign to build a majority union in Durham and secure union recognition and a seat at the table for Punic school workers. I’m excited to connect with organizers from across the state and collaborate on our work and statewide strategy.
-
Nick is a Colombian-Salvadoran New Yorker currently living in NC, a top .5% Bad Bunny listener, and an abolitionist.
-
Hi everyone! I'm a queer, white/Latine organizer living in Durham. I've been working on racial, economic, and environmental justice issues in the Triangle for over a decade and am so excited to dig into learning more about strategy and power with this group!
-
Delaney Vandergrift is an award-winning social impact strategist and cultural worker. She has a deep passion for North Carolina and for using cultural organizing to build a South we all deserve!
-
Vicente Cortez is a political organizer and strategist committed to building working-class power across North Carolina. He serves as the Political Director at Down Home North Carolina, where he leads statewide efforts to elect progressive candidates, grow grassroots membership, and win transformative campaigns. With deep roots in the South and a passion for co-governance, Vicente works to ensure everyday people have a real voice in the decisions that shape their lives.
-
Kylah works with Southern Vision Alliance to build power among young people in the South.
-
Andressia Ramirez, a proud daughter of Mexican immigrants, serves as Engagement Coordinator for the Workers’ Rights Project at the North Carolina Justice Center. Drawing on her roots and lived experience, she works closely with immigrant and low‑wage workers, offering education, advocacy, and support. Her heart is in building collective power so every worker can live with dignity, protection, and true opportunity.
-
Quanisea Moses is a dedicated community organizer with a strong passion for equity, justice, and civic engagement in rural communities. Originally from Florence, South Carolina, and now based in Charlotte, North Carolina, she brings over a decade of experience in grassroots organizing, leadership development, and building power in underrepresented areas across the state.
-
Having been brought up in the more rural area of Craven County, agriculture was a central focus of Lucas's early advocacy work, allowing him to learn the essential components of community organizing while addressing issues within the agriculture industry. In his last year of college, his focus shifted to voting rights. He began interning with Democracy NC in the summer of 2021, and they have not been able to get rid of him since. In 2023, Lucas progressed from intern to Eastern Regional Managing Organizer. His work is guided by the hope that, through civic education, Eastern NC can build a strong voice to fight for the changes that need to be made.
-
I am an organizing manager with the North Carolina Association of Educators, focused on building union power among public school staff in Eastern North Carolina. I began organizing in 2018 by salting with UNITE HERE and now lead majority membership campaigns aimed at winning formal worker voice. I love water, and during the summer, you can find me in the Eno.
-
As Cultural Strategies Manager at Family Values at Work (FV@W), Laura Collins designs cultural and narrative interventions to shift mindsets around care. She leads FV@W's new Caring Out Loud Fellowship, a pilot program in partnership with We Are Down Home. This Fellowship will empower organizers to design programs that foster the cultural shift needed for all North Carolina children and families to thrive, building collective power for a future where care is universally valued.
-
Derrick Beasley is a cultural organizer and multi-disciplinary artist based in Durham, NC. His work aims to help people—especially Black people—reclaim their humanity by fostering reciprocal relationships with the non-human natural environment.
-
Sun H (she/her) was born in Vietnam, lived in a refugee camp in Cambodia, and resettled in Greensboro, NC, at age six with her family in 2002. She is Montagnard, specifically from the Bunong tribe, an indigenous group in the Central Highlands of Vietnam; North Carolina has the largest Montagnard community outside of Southeast Asia. Sun studied at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and International Studies in 2017. She has been with SEAC Village for the past seven years as an organizer and is currently the Community Engagement & Power Building Program Director. Sun leads community engagement and policy campaigns with partners across North Carolina—building power in communities and uplifting the voices of marginalized people.
-
Lisa Forehand is Carolina Jews for Justice’s Western North Carolina Organizer, based in Asheville. An Interfaith Minister raised in a culturally Jewish household, Lisa brings a deep commitment to justice, spiritual exploration, and community building.
-
I’m Lexus Hayes, and I do community engagement work, coming from a background in electoral work, digital organizing, and campus organizing. I’m passionate about safety that doesn’t rely on policing, shifting power into the hands of our communities, and amplifying community voices and needs. I joined this cohort to sharpen myself professionally, learn from others, and share ideas with like-minded leaders!
-
Emerson is an organizer with the Southern Region of Workers United (SEIU), where they represent workers across a variety of industries in North Carolina with a focus on higher education. Emerson previously worked as a tenant organizer in Durham, NC.
-
I am the oldest of ten children. I am the first in my family to attend college and struggled with the application process, having no one to ask for help. I hold a Bachelor’s in Business Administration and a Master’s in Textile and Apparel Design from North Carolina State University. I began to celebrate my Latinidad only after leaving Wilson, as there were no spaces to honor my identity in my hometown.
-
Mikayla Massey, a native of Fayetteville, NC, is a dedicated steward of community organizing. She currently works for Advance Carolina, a 501(c)(4) organization committed to building Black political and economic power across North Carolina. As the Triad Regional Coordinator, Mikayla led a team that knocked on 37,000 doors across Guilford County during the 2024 General Election. She centers her work on building community-based power to ensure a more equitable future.
-
Sharmîn (she/her) is a Kurdish-Peruvian-American who organizes with Durham Community Fridges, where her work is rooted in social justice and mutual aid. She is fired up about leveling up her organizing skills and dreaming up alternatives that disrupt the harmful systems that run this empire. Sharmîn spends as much time as possible with her beloved dog, Maya, who also believes that all cops are bad.
-
Raised in the South and finding a home in North Carolina, Rachel’s current efforts focus on being a team lead in their union, with a keen interest in developing strategies that strengthen people power. Coming from a background in progressive infrastructure building within mutual aid organizations, Rachel hopes to use their knowledge as a sociologist to bring a critical analysis of social systems and lift up underrepresented communities.
-
Reverend Ryan Brown walks the red clay roads of Carolina carrying two inheritances: the Black church that taught him to pray in thunder, and the warehouse floor that taught him why thunder matters. A son of Waco, North Carolina, he learned young that sermons and strike chants rhyme, both insisting every soul bears the image of God. Now, as president and co founder of CAUSE, Brown stands beneath Amazon’s fluorescent hum naming a hard truth, your worth is not the sum of scanned boxes but the dignity you refuse to surrender. From pulpit to picket line his voice, equal parts psalm and protest, reminds the South that bread and breath, wage and wonder, belong to those who make the world move, not the men who merely own it.
The ROCC Fellowship Offers:
Academic coursework: All fellows take the course “Power and Strategy,” taught by faculty at the School of Labor and Urban Studies (SLU) at CUNY. The course is focused on strategy fundamentals and is based on the book Practical Radicals by Deepak Bhargava and Stephanie Luce.
Immersive retreats: Fellows are expected to attend two week-long residential retreats for in-person learning, relationship building, and leadership training, including on personal sustainability practices.
Executive coaching and mentorship: Each fellow will be provided with a 360° Leadership assessment at the beginning of the fellowship, as well as a dedicated coach and mentor with whom they will meet regularly on a 1:1 basis for the duration of the fellowship.
LDSJ, which is based at the City University of New York (CUNY), worked closely with movement leaders in North Carolina to develop a ROCC cohort that is tailored to the context, needs, and priorities of the state, and that serves to strengthen existing leadership and power-building initiatives.
Ana María Reichenbach — Siembra NC, Movement Leader Fellow ’25
Aiden Graham — UNITE HERE, ROCC Alum ’23
Bennett Carpenter — Liberation Road
Brett Stargell — Brighter Future Network
Courtney McSwain — Narrative Organizer & Facilitator, Movement Leader Alum '24
Irene Godinez — Poder NC Action
Laurel Ashton — Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), ROCC Alum ’23
LeiLani Dowell — Southern Vision Alliance (SVA)
Marques Thompson — Democracy NC, ROCC Alum ’23
Torre White-Garrison — Reparations Stakeholder Authority of Asheville (RSAA)