Meet Our BOLD Trainers
Check out our Black QTGNC Overview Sheet here.
We are excited and honored to be partnering with BOLD - Black Organizing for Leadership & Dignity as trainers for our Black QTGNC Cohort this year.
BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) is a national training intermediary focused on transforming the practice of Black organizers in the US to increase their alignment, impact and sustainability to win progressive change. BOLD carries out its mission through training programs, coaching and technical assistance for BOLD alumni and partners.
Jonathan Stith (he/him) A BOLD Director Cohort in 2012 alumni, Jonathan Stith is also a founding member and National Director for the Alliance for Educational Justice, a national network of intergenerational and youth-led organizations working to end the school-to-prison pipeline. He has over 20 years of experience organizing with youth and community organizations to address injustice in education. Alliance for Educational Justice played a critical role in shaping federal policy on school discipline, ending the access of school police departments to military grade weapons from the DFA 1033 program and the defense of Niya Kenny and Shakara in the #AssaultAtSpringValley.
Last and most importantly, he is a father of three young adults whom taught him everything he knows.
Whitney Maxey (she/her) leads and supervises the design, implementation, and learning for our campaigns, organizing model, and base-building approach. She believes in the power and potential of communities of color and their allies to create systemic change by harnessing the power of elections.
Her experience in social justice organizations began in Florida and spans over more than a decade working in issue areas from anti-gentrification to immigration rights. Whitney enjoys the outdoors and a good book.
Paige PG Watkins (they/them) is a nonbinary organizer, facilitator, trainer and organizational strategist from Detroit. They are a Program Coordinator at BlacKOUT Collective, training on and supporting Black-led direct action and coordinating Black direct action practitioners. They currently sit on the Council of the James & Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, and they are a member of the Black Leadership for Organizing & Dignity (BOLD) training team. As a member of the Data for Black Lives Detroit Hub, PG is currently involved in campaigns to end mass surveillance in Detroit, to create a People’s Budget that divests from policing and to stop the new county jail development. They helped start 313 Liberation Zone, a group that organizes cop-free autonomous zones, abolitionist mutual aid and community education programs to build our capacities to imagine a world beyond policing.