Classie Dudley is president of the Duluth NAACP and executive director of Community Action Duluth. In both roles, she works to eliminate systemic racism and gender disparities in the community. Under Classie’s leadership, the city of Duluth now commits $600,000 annually to implement a nonpunitive crisis response team that is separate from the Police Department. With her team, Classie has established the first NAACP-hosted Minnesota Afro-Academic Cultural Technology Scientific Olympics in Minnesota for area BIPOC students, eliminated privatized healthcare in four Duluth-area jails, and is implementing the Stop the Stops campaign to end racial bias policing by pretextual stops. Classie is also collaborating with the area’s top employers and Duluth Chamber of Commerce to recruit and retain BIPOC professionals.

Angela Hooks is a community activist, founder and executive director of Black on Black Development and Entertainment, Inc., a Saint Paul-based nonprofit working to empower Black people and rebuild the Twin Cities’ Black community by removing racial disparities in institutions, corporations and the justice system. Angela provides business consulting and services to Black business owners, in addition to helping the underserved interpret medical and other social service applications. Her next venture will create the Cultural Arts Café and Supper Club in Saint Paul where Black chefs and cooks, entertainers, artists and the formerly incarcerated will showcase their talents while gaining a consistent revenue stream while receiving hospitality and maintenance training.

Txongpao Lee has been the executive director of the Hmong Cultural Center for 20 years. In that time, he has led the Hmong 101 program to teach the culture, history and contributions Hmong Americans make to U.S. culture. He also serves as a cultural resource for social workers, teachers, lawyers, criminal justice officials and health care professionals who are working with Hmong clients. An advocate and teacher for immigrant and refugee clients, Txongpao helps them earn their U.S. Citizenship. In 2021, the Cultural Center’s storefront museum was vandalized with racist White Supremacist graffiti, an incident receiving broad media coverage. As a result of Txongpao’s courageous leadership, the Twin Cities community responded with more than $30,000 in museum support.

Lulete Mola is co-founder and president of the MN Black Collective Foundation, Minnesota's first Black community foundation advancing the genius of Black-led change. She leads the Collective as it is building infrastructure, practicing creative and innovative resource disbursement, growing assets, and expanding Black philanthropic power to advance a new model of philanthropy. Previously, Mola served as Chief Strategy Officer at the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFMN), focused on the advancement of women, girls, and gender-expansive people at the intersection of gender and racial justice. At WFMN, Lulete led the Young Women’s Initiative of Minnesota, a $10 million visionary public-private partnership to achieve equity in opportunities and improve the lives of Black, Indigenous and young women of color.