With support from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Southern Oral History Program, we are pleased to archive this important collection of recordings at the Southern Historical Collection in the Warren Library on campus. Soon, the public will be able to access the recordings and transcripts and podcast excerpts of the interviews will be on this website.

The interviewees for the Heirs Collection are on the frontlines of some of today’s most pressing issues. They are North Carolina social justice activists and organizers invested in the work for the long haul. They offer their stories in the spirit of sharing wisdoms, strategies and lessons learned along their journeys, inviting the broader community to engage with the stories and share their own, and ultimately, inspiring citizen action for social justice.

Cynthia Brown is the principal consultant of The Sojourner Group, a business she founded to help non-profit groups strengthen their leadership and address their organizational development issues. She also is a grassroots organizer and leader, former Durham City Councilwoman and a 2002 candidate for the United States Senate.

A native of Reidsville, North Carolina, she has an undergraduate degree in political science from Bennett College for Women and a Master of Public Affairs degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. As a W.K. Kellogg National Fellow, Brown studied cultural, racial and economic justice issues in Australia, Brazil, Guatemala, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Egypt, New Zealand and Chile. Brown's many organizational affiliations include the N.C. Coalition on Black and Brown Civic Participation, of which she is a founding member, the Latino Community Development Center, the N.C. Conservation Network, Democracy NC and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.

Mandy Carter is a self-described “southern out black lesbian social justice activist” living in Durham. She has worked in multi-racial and multi-issue grassroots organizing for the last 37 years. She is the former executive director of SONG (Southerners on New Ground) and a founding board member of the National Black Justice Coalition. She is the former field director of the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum, and a member of the Black Caucus and Gay and Lesbian Caucus of the Democratic National Committee. In June 2005, Mandy was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.” She now lives and works as a consultant in Durham.

Ajamu Dillahunt joined the Justice Center in April of 2004 as the Outreach Coordinator for the Budget and Tax Center. Ajamu has been a tireless advocate for working families in North Carolina for over twenty-five years. For the 18 years, Ajamu served as President of the Raleigh Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). He was Director of Research and Education for the North Carolina Council of the APWU during that period. Ajamu was a Labor Educator and Arbitration Advocate as well. He has done community organizing and training in various communities in N.C. He has a Masters Degree in African Studies and maintains an active interest in the African Diaspora, particularly in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Theresa El-Amin is a long-time social justice activist. Theresa began her activism with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She spent the spring of 1966 registering voters in Alabama in defense of voting rights for African Americans in majority Black counties. Born in Atlanta, Theresa returned to Atlanta to work with other SNCC activists on the 1966 Julian Bond campaign. She immediately joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and became active in the fight for women's rights in the workplace and for pay equity through 9 to 5 and the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). Her workplace activism led to a union organizing position in 1986. Theresa worked the mid-west and northeast as an organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) for 12 years. She moved to Durham in 1998 and founded the Southern Anti-Racism Network (SARN). The main work of SARN is Strong Parental Involvement in Community Education (SPICE). SPICE was launched in response to the education achievement gap between African American and white students in Durham Public Schools. SPICE is developing as an independent organization of parents and their children to close the education achievement gap and the digital divide. She continues to support the movement for workers' rights by building Jobs with Justice as a coalition of unions, community, student and faith groups.

Claudia Horwitz is the founding director of stone circles, a nonprofit organization that helps individuals and organizations integrate spiritual and reflective practice into their work for social justice. Based in Durham, North Carolina, stone circles creates opportunities for training, retreats, conversation, organizational development, and interfaith exchange. Claudia’s previous work includes developing youth leadership, supporting struggles for economic justice, and strengthening nonprofit organizations. She is the author of The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform Your Life, Your Work, and Your World, (Penguin Compass 2002) is a practical guide to individual and social transformation through spirit and faith. Claudia has a master’s degree in Public Policy from Duke University, is a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellow and teaches Kripalu yoga.

Tema Okun has spent 25 years working in social justice non-profits, including the Carolina Community Project, Grassroots Leadership, and the Institute for Southern Studies. For the past 15 years she has worked as an independent consultant to non-profits and communities. For most of those years she worked in partnership with the late and beloved Kenneth Jones, with whom she helped found the ChangeWork training collaborative. She has been collaboratively developing and focusing on long-term anti-racism, anti-oppression work within organizations and communities with a range of fellow trainers and colleagues and is now a member of the DRworks collaborative. She holds a BA from Oberlin College, a Masters in Adult Education from N.C. State University, and is currently in a doctoral program at UNC-G. She is a Middle East activist, a member of Jews for a Just Peace-North Carolina and active with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA. She is currently pursuing a doctorate in education at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.

Andrew Pearson is a Durham-based organizer who serves as part-staff for the NC Peace & Justice Coalition organizing to end the Iraq war, counter military recruitment in our schools, and amplify and build capacity for social and economic justice work in NC. He is also statewide organizer for NCYT, North Carolina's network for young nonprofit professionals. Andrew studied women's history at UNC-Chapel Hill, and after graduation managed the Internationalist Books and Community Center, a nonprofit, volunteer-run radical bookstore. He helped transform the bookstore into a cooperatively owned 501c3 nonprofit, and currently serves on its board of directors. He serves on the board of directors of Resource Generation supporting and challenging young people with access to wealth to engage in progressive social change philanthropy. Andrew is originally from Australia, and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a certified yoga teacher, an artist, a wilderness guide, and dances the swing, salsa, contra and waltz.

Lou Plummer has been the primary organizer for Military Families Speak Out at Ft. Bragg, NC since the beginning of the Iraq War and is a charter member of Fayetteville Peace With Justice. He is a member of Veterans for Peace, serves on the national coordinating committee of the Bring Them Home Now! campaign and is a member of the board of directors for NC Peace Action. A veteran of the North Carolina National Guard, Lou is the father of former military resister Petty Officer Andrew Plummer. A former correctional officer, Lou became involved in activism through People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. He participated in a successful campaign that culminated in the adoption of a death penalty moratorium in North Carolina. Lou lives with his family in Fayetteville, NC.

Bryan Proffitt is a 27-year old Hip-Hop generation organizer, public school teacher, and writer living in Durham, NC. He is a founding member of Men Against Rape Culture (MARC) and has been affiliated with Hip Hop Against Racist War, United for Peace and Justice, and the North Carolina Peace and Justice Coalition, among other organizations.

Manju Rajendran Manju Rajendran is a 26 year-old organizer from Durham, NC. She has helped with vision, design, development and outreach for the Heirs Project. Manju and her family immigrated to the United States from India when she was a child. As a biology student at UNC-Chapel Hill, Manju was awarded the Davis-Putter Scholarship for young activists. She has shown leadership in many organizations, including School in the Community, Youth Voice Radio, NC Lambda Youth Network, Hip-Hop Against Racist War, Southerners On New Ground, and the House of Mango, a living collective of young activists in Durham. Manju was a member of Breaking the Chains, an anti-imperialist coalition, and she has worked with the NC Peace and Justice Coalition. She is on the national advisory board of Not Your Soldier.

Ed Whitfield graduated from Little Rock Central High School in 1967, and as a presidential scholar went on to Cornell University. He was the head of the campus black student organization during the struggle for black studies. He came to North Carolina to teach at Malcolm X Liberation University that had been established by Duke University Students along with community activists. Since its closing he has continued to do community and labor organizing and to raise a family. He chaired the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission for nearly 10 years and ran for public office on four occasions. He writes a column for the Carolina Peacemaker, does a radio talk show on WNAA, and works in industry as an electronics specialist while still volunteering in schools. Ed has worked with the Greensboro Peace Coalition, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and serves on the interim steering committee of the NC Peace and Justice Coalition.

Lynice Ramsey-Willams is the executive director of North Carolina Fair Share, a statewide people’s advocacy, issue education and leadership development organization that works with low-wealth, unemployed, and working poor grassroots North Carolinians on grassroots issues and health care. NC Fair Share provides oppressed people the tools they need to fight their own battles for fairness. Lynice has taught community members about health care policy, organizing skills and leadership development strategies. This work has led NC legislators, Town Council members and County Commissioners to adopt and implement important health care policies that benefit those most in need. Lynice helped establish the NC Fair Share People’s Legislative Agenda and the NC Fair Share People’s Advocacy Institute, two programs that have significantly shaped the General Assembly’s response to the needs of low-wealth North Carolinians. Lynice serves on the Board of the NC Alliance for Economic Justice and the Wake County Indigent and Uninsured Commission.

Barbara Zelter has lived in North Carolina since 1971 and has been involved in organizing in the areas of economic justice and peacemaking through a number of groups, including NC Equity, NC Fair Share, the Common Sense Foundation, Democracy North Carolina, NC Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, New Beginners Community Help Mission, and for the past 10 years with the NC Council of Churches. She is an active partner in the Southern Faith, Labor, and Community Alliance. Barbara and two partners founded a statewide nonprofit called JUBILEE, operating from 1997-2002, linking churches with families affected by welfare reform and fostering the family voice in welfare policymaking. She has written several study guides and curricula on faith and justice.

She has co-led a long-term, experimental inter-racial, interdenominational group of four churches in rural Orange County, NC, in a program called Living the Word. With others she coordinates Triangle-area Sabbath Economics gatherings that tie into Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries of activist theologian Ched Myers.

Honors include: Health of the Public Award, UNC (1994); Mitch Snyder award for antipoverty action (Boston, 2001), NC Justice Center’s Defenders of Justice award for JUBILEE (2002), the NC Peacemakers award from NC Peace Action (2006), and the Distinguished Service award from the NC Council of Churches (2007). Zelter is currently taking a year away from organizing for discernment of the next stage of calling.