Meet Our 2022 Fellows

“What kind of leadership does racial justice require? How might the imagination yield greater impact? And what possibilities exist in this unique constellation of leaders? As we welcome this fifth cohort of inspiring change makers, we will live into these lines of inquiry and build towards collective action.”
— Sebabatso Manoeli-Lesame, AFRE Executive Director

This week, we welcomed our fifth cohort of Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity—20 racial equity leaders working across South Africa and the United States to build worlds where Black people and all people of colour can thrive.

Amid these times of upheaval, the racial equity landscape remains peopled by leaders who continue to disrupt harmful dynamics and build narratives, policies and institutions for new, liberated worlds.

Our 2022 Fellows represent a stellar sample of this contemporary constellation of leaders. They lead in the fields of policy, narrative, political organising, and law, and they bring far-ranging professional and personal experiences to the work of transformation. All are connected by a commitment to a world beyond anti-Blackness and an urgency about the generative potential of relationships with other leaders.

“Some of the questions that animate us at AFRE are, ‘What kind of leadership does racial justice require? How might the imagination yield greater impact? And what possibilities exist in this unique constellation of leaders?’ As we welcome this fifth cohort of inspiring change makers, we will live into these lines of inquiry and build towards collective action,” says Sebabatso Manoeli-Lesame, AFRE’s executive director.

This week, our 2022 Fellows begin their journey through our Fellowship experience, rooted in that vision of generativity of relationships. Over the next 18 months, they will ground themselves more deeply in their personal leadership, find relationship with each other, and do the work of visioning liberated Black futures together.

We are thrilled—and honoured—to journey alongside them.