Meet Our Guest Keynote Speakers
Our confirmed keynote speakers will be presenting in plenary sessions in a variety of formats – from individual keynotes, to panels and rountable conversations. All the speakers have exensive experience engaging in resistance, both as thinkers and through action and community building.
John Holloway
Marxist theorist; long-time Zapatista solidarity activist and proponent of global movements for autonomy and social transformation
John Holloway is a Marxist sociologist, political theorist, and Professor Emeritus at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), Mexico. His influential publications include Change the World Without Taking Power, Crack Capitalism and Hope in Hopeless Times, have contributed to key debates on revolution, power, labour, and anti-capitalist politics.
Holloway has been deeply engaged with social movements, such as the Zapatistas, Indigenous, anti-capitalist, and autonomy-based movements that challenge state-centred and party-led models of political change.
Vivian Tatiana Camacho Hinojosa
Quechua physician and traditional healer; former Bolivian Vice Minister of Health, Traditional Medicine, and Interculturality
Vivian Tatiana Camacho Hinojosa (Quechua) is a distinguished Quechua physician, ancestral midwife, and an influential public health advocate from Bolivia. As the former Vice Minister of Traditional Medicine and Interculturality, she has been a pivotal force in shaping policies that recognize and integrate indigenous healing practices into national healthcare frameworks. Her work embodies a deep commitment to decolonizing health and promoting a pluralistic approach to well-being. Dr. Camacho is also a High-Level Commissioner for the Pan American Health Organization, has worked as the Coordinator of Health for the Bolivian Peoples, and has represented the Andean Region in the Latin American Coordination within the World Movement for Peoples’ Health.
Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons
National Council of Elders civil rights leader; former SNCC co-founder and Islamic feminist professor
Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is a founding member & member of the National Council of Elders, (NCOE) a group of
veteran social justice activists focused on supporting 21st-century movements, fostering nonviolent direct action, and bridging generation gaps. Now Professor Emerita of the University of Florida, she began volunteering in 1962 at the headquarters of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) alongside SNCC Chairperson John Lewis, SNCC Executive Secretary James Forman and others – eventually becoming Spellman College’s representative to the SNCC coordinating committee. Simmons was one of the few female directors of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer projects, and was co-director of the controversial SNCC Atlanta Project, an early grassroots expression of Black Power. By the late 1960s, Simmons had both become a member of the Nation of Islam and a national staff person of the American Friends Service Committee, a position she kept for over twenty years. She also served as a regional coordinator of the National Council of Negro Women, prior to her work at AFSC, treasurer of the National Black Independent Political Party, and an adherent of Sufism; she is still an active member of the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship and Mosque. She and her family are the subject of Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power Through One Family’s Journey (Dan Berger, Basic Books).
Jihad Abdulmumit
Spirit of Mandela Black Liberation Movement organizer; Black Panther former political prisoner
Jihad Abdulmumit is the Honorary Chairperson of the Spirit of Mandela coalition, having served as one of the key organizers of the 2021 International Tribunal on US Human Rights Abuses Against Black, Brown, and Indigenous Peoples. The 2021 Tribunal, held at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Educational Center in Harlem, New York, and presided over by a panel of nine independent jurists, found the US government guilty of five counts of human rights violations, amounting to ongoing policies making the USA guilty of genocide. Abdulmumit is a community activist, motivational speaker, playwright, and retired health care provider who joined the Black Panther Party at age sixteen and eventually went underground with the Black Liberation Army; he is co-editor, with Matt Meyer and Tomiko Shine, of Guilty of Genocide (Africa World Press, 2026). Jihad was a political prisoner and prisoner of war and served 23 years of his life in prison for his involvement in the Black Liberation Movement. He joined the Black Panther Party at age sixteen and eventually went underground with the Black Liberation Army. He is a member of the Muslim community, the Jama’at of the Sheu Uthman dan Fodio of West Africa, and he lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Sami Awad
Palestinian activist, author, co-director at Nonviolence International
Sami Awad is a Palestinian activist, author, and global leader in nonviolence and social transformation. He serves as co-director of Nonviolence International and is the founder and former executive director of Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, where he has spent decades working at the intersection of spirituality, justice, and collective healing. His father, originally from Jerusalem, became a refugee at the age of nine after losing his own father during the 1948 Nakba. Sami’s mother was from the Gaza Strip, where some of his family still lives. Raised amid ongoing realities of war, occupation, and injustice, Sami was deeply influenced from a young age by his uncle, Mubarak Awad, a pioneer of nonviolent resistance during the First Intifada. Awad holds a Doctorate in Divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary, a master’s degree in international relations from American University in Washington, D.C., and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kansas. Awad is the author of The Sacred Awakening: Reclaiming Christ Consciousness (2025), a work that challenges conventional understandings of empire as a structure rather than a consciousness we live in; it calls readers into a deeper journey of transformation, love, and liberation. Across his work, he brings together spirituality, nonviolence, and inner awakening as a lived path toward justice. He is also a devoted father to his three daughters, Layaar, Larina, and Lorian.
Sumaya Said Selma
Sarhawi activist from the Western Sahara refugee camps in Algeria
Sumaya Said Selma is a Sahrawi woman from the Western Sahara refugee camps in Algeria, where she was born and raised. Growing up in the camps shaped her deep understanding of displacement, resilience, and the daily realities faced by Sahrawi women and families living in prolonged exile. Sumaya attended the United World College Red Cross Nordic (UWC RCN) in Norway, an experience that expanded her global perspective and strengthened her commitment to advocacy, education, and social justice. Through determination and perseverance, she earned a scholarship to continue her studies in the United States, overcoming many personal, financial, and immigration challenges along the way. Today, Sumaya uses her voice to raise awareness about the Sahrawi struggle, with a particular focus on women’s rights, refugee life, and the ongoing fight for dignity, visibility, and self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. Her journey reflects both the hardships and the strength of a generation of Sahrawi women determined to create change beyond the walls of displacement.
Esreen Ghadri
Kurdistan human rights advocate, researcher, and community leader
Esreen Ghadri is member of both the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK), and the Kurdistan Communities Assembly (KCA). An independent human rights advocate, researcher, and community leader, Ghadri has a multidisciplinary background in psychology, environmental and social studies, and political analysis. She is dedicated to empowering Kurdish communities and other marginalized populations through evidence-based research, public education, and grassroots engagement. Drawing from both lived experience and scholarly inquiry, Ghadri addresses systemic discrimination, promotes social justice, and fosters cultural understanding, bridging the gap between community needs and interdisciplinary solutions. She is a former executive board member of the Kurdish American Group KAG), a nonprofit organization
Luis Rosa Pérez
Puerto Rican patriot, former political prisoner of war and independence activist
Luis Rosa Pérez is a Puerto Rican patriot, a former political prisoner of war and independence activist who spent over 19 years in U.S. federal prisons. Convicted at age 19 for seditious conspiracy as part of the Armed Forces for National Liberation (FALN), he was released as part of a massive international campaign which culminated in September 1999. Born into a nurturing, matriarchal family, he became involved in political activism at a young age, leading to his arrest and a 108-year sentence. Since the moment of his release, he has continued to advocate against colonialism, linking it to human rights and community liberation. Rosa Pérez is truly a beloved, unifying figure in the contemporary Puerto Rican movement, having worked steadfastly with the Oscar Lopez Rivera Freedom Campaign and OLR Foundation, with Casa Corretjer and Casa Filiberto, with the Puerto Rican Campaign for Human Rights, and many other organizations and efforts. A founder of the Occupied People’s Forum and regional representative of the Spirit of Mandela Coalition, a musician and musical director, a jack-of-all-trades, Rosa Pérez is a true internationalist—centering justice, peace, and resistance in all that he does.
Matt Meyer
Senior Research Scholar, Resistance Studies Initiative, Secretary General Emeritus of IPRA
Matt Meyer, Senior Research Scholar of the UMass/Amherst Resistance Studies Initiative, Secretary General Emeritus of the International Peace Research Association, and an educator-author-organizer with extensive experience, including the War Resisters International and the International Fellowship of Reconciliation.
Siena Mann
Activist and organizer, Occupied People's Forum
Siena Mann is an activist and organizer with a decade of experience working in social movement organizations, predominantly in the immigrant rights movement in the U.S., as well as supporting people’s movements for freedom and justice around the world. Mann is a recent graduate of the Kroc Institute International Peace Studies program, University of Notre Dame.
Stellan Vinthagen
Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance and Director of the Resistance Studies Initiative at Umass, Amherst.
Stellan Vinthagen is professor of sociology and a scholar-activist. He is the Inaugural Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance and Director of the Resistance Studies Initiative at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Vinthagen researches resistance, power, social movements, nonviolent action and social change. He has written or edited eight books and numerous articles. Vinthagen has been a Council Member of War Resisters International, and academic advisor to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). Vinthagen has since 1980 been an educator, organizer and activist in several countries, and has participated in numerous nonviolent civil disobedience actions, for which he has served in total more than one year in prison. Vinthagen is one of the initiators of the European Plowshares movement; Academic Conference Blockades; and one of the founders of Ship to Gaza Sweden, a coalition member of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.