Ida B. Wells Education Project
Board of Directors
Peta Lindsay, Founder & Director
Peta Lindsay is a grassroots organizer, a social science educator and a firm believer in the power of history education to inspire young people to change the world.
Lindsay has a long background in building grassroots movements for change, starting when she joined the Philadelphia Student Union in 1996. In 2001 she joined the new movement against the war on terror and soon became a nationally-recognized youth leader in the nationwide movement against the Iraq war. She spent over a decade helping to build local and national campaigns for racial justice, immigrant rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and more. One of her proudest achievements is serving as a lead organizer in the historic Million Hoodies Los Angeles March for Trayvon Martin in 2012, part of a nationwide uprising that inaugurated a new movement for Black lives.
Peta Lindsay has an BA in History and African American studies from Howard University and a Masters in Teaching from USC. She is currently a high school teacher in Los Angeles. She has collaborated with organizations like the UCLA History-Geography Project, the UC Davis History Project and the LA LGBT Center in creating classroom resources that center multicultural, people’s history and movements for justice and liberation. She has been a featured speaker at conferences and workshops on culturally relevant teaching and also frequently provides culturally-responsive feedback for Black history curriculum and educational materials. For more information, view her CV here.
Charla Johnson
Charla Johnson is an educator, writer and activist from the South. After growing up in the Metro-Atlanta area, she attended Spelman College, where she earned a B.A. in English and Secondary Education. Afterwards, she taught high school English Language Arts in Decatur, Georgia for thirteen years. During that time, she worked inside and outside of the classroom to provide high-quality, inclusive, empowering and identity-affirming educational experiences for all students. Her interests lie in instructional technology and design and curriculum development. She earned a M.S. Instructional Design and Technology from Georgia State University. As a writer and activist, Charla has written and published works of fiction and non-fiction in various outlets, as well as used her pen and keyboard in the service of several social justice organizations. Charla currently resides in New Orleans.
Tina Perez
Originally from Detroit, MI and a proud product of Detroit Public Schools, Tina has over a decade of experience fostering operations and strategic growth in schools and mission-driven organizations. She is currently a Director of Program Management at Charter School Business Management, a B-Corporation and professional services consultancy providing fiscal management for schools and education focused non-profits across the nation. Previously, she was the founding Director of Operations at Mott Haven Academy Charter School (South Bronx). Tina has been dedicated to reimagining equitable, diverse, community driven schools through a previous role as a long-standing, founding Board Member of Heketi Community Charter School (South Bronx). As a parent, Black woman and HBCU alumnus, Tina is excited to support the imperative work of the Ida B. Wells Education Project in providing anti-racist curricula that uplifts and prioritizes the current life experiences and rich histories of Black, brown and other marginalized people. Tina holds a BA from Howard University and an MPA from the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College.
Cyrus Hampton
Cyrus Hampton is a classroom educator and the assistant director of the First-Year Writing Program at Howard University. He has been working in the classroom since 2006, teaching a range of levels from Pre-K up to college. A proud alum of both the District of Columbia Public School System and the undergraduate program at Howard University, he has seen, firsthand, the value of diverse, representative education curriculums for both marginalized and privileged students. He joined the Ida B. Wells Education Project because he shares in the vision that education is one of the most important routes through which to fight inequality and oppression and that educators have a duty to be non-neutral to systemic injustice.
He dreams of a world in which all students have free access to the advanced learnings that lead to critical, dialectical analysis of their realities and radical, loving, transformative engagement with their cultures, governments, communities, and their own beliefs.
Martin Barrera
Martin Barrera is a non-Black Latinx educator in Northeast Los Angeles who strives to uplift Black and Indigenous voices in his STEM and Ethnic Studies classes. Having grown up in a similar neighborhood demographic as his students, he is particularly keen to the pervasive anti-Blackness and colorism that exists within the Chicanx-Latinx communities. After attending Pomona College, a predominantly white liberal arts school, he gained resources to be able to research and reflect on his own identities and be inspired by the Black and Indigenous legacies of resistance and resilience. This inspired him to collaborate to form and join organizations on campus that emphasized Black and Brown unity as well as focusing on youth outreach.
He has been teaching in the classroom since 2013. Since then, he has dedicated his time and energy to building community within his classes to encourage self reflection, growth and empowerment through the acknowledgement of systemic oppression, ancestral wisdom and community power. Through his work, he was invited to join the Ida B Wells Project, where he hopes to offer support creating accessible and engaging lessons for educators seeking to fight back against racism and anti-Blackness in their school communities. He is also currently involved in his local chapter of the Los Angeles Tenants Union assisting community members in confronting anti-Blackness within East LA neighborhoods and within the organization.
Laura Roberts
Laura is a mixed race educator who focuses on teaching US History from an anti-racist lens. Born overseas in South Korea and growing up in a military family in a suburb of Sacramento, California, she became a service member herself and experienced living in different societies: Southern Virginia and Germany. Through her experiences and studies, she focuses on researching other cultures, experiences, and intersectionalities through histories. This spurred her passion to combat racism and end oppression.
She graduated from University of California, Davis with a B.A. in Sociology with an emphasis in Law, an MA from UCD in Education, and an Administrative Services Credential from University of Southern California. As a classroom teacher since 2008 and current Social Science Department Chair, she has dedicated her career to promoting equity in the classroom and continues to lead fellow educators in curriculum development to include histories and experiences from Black, Indigenous, Asian-American, and Latinx perspectives. In her district, she pioneered Ethnic Studies as a class offering, is the founder of the Equity Team on her school site, and a member of the district’s Equity Task Force. She is excited to be a part of Ida B. Wells Education Project to offer a different perspective.