FEATURED | DHS EQUITY SPEAKER SERIES
The DHS Equity Speaker Series is an avenue for DHS to actively support conversations about racial equity which is part of our theory of change to advance racial equity. The purpose of the speaker series is to help normalize conversations about race by introducing racial equity concepts to staff and providers. The series also offers professional development opportunities, tools and resources.
There are no speakers scheduled at this time. Please review our previous speakers below.
PAST SPEAKERS

Alex Locust: May 21, 2024
Community Building Practices Through a Disability Justice Accessibility Culture Lens
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Alex Locust
Alex Locust is a Black biracial, queer, disability justice educator, activist, and “Glamputee” who celebrates the harmony of his identities to help create the world they want to see.
Born disabled (above-the knee-amputee), Alex learned to navigate an ableist world that told him and other disabled people harmful, violent, and reductive ideas around which bodies are worthy and which bodies are beautiful. Armed with bombastic charm, whimsical humor, and a sharp wit, Alex synthesizes his lived experience with professional insight to educate others on how to adopt a disability justice framework that builds community and empowers fellow disabled folks.
Alex offers a series of workshops and lectures that foster empathy and are grounded in cultural humility and intersectionality. He creates spaces that model comfort and ease while exploring complex topics such as disability justice, microaggressions, harm reduction, and cross-movement solidarity.
With an M.S. in Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling, his approach highlights those who have been silenced and invisibilized while also activating those with privilege and power to recognize how to disrupt oppression and promote cultural shifts. Alex creates an environment that is both engaging and comfortable, adapting to the audience so they leave with newfound knowledge and awareness.
While earning his Masters of Science degree, Alex was honored with the Peggy H. Smith Distinguished Graduate Student award and named Graduate Student of the Year from the National Council on Rehabilitation Education.
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TL Lewis: March 14, 2024
Introduction to Disability Justice
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TL Lewis
TL Lewis is a community lawyer, educator and organizer whose work highlights and addresses the nexus between race, class, disability and structural inequity. Recognized as a 2015 White House Champion of Change and one of Pacific Standard Magazine’s Top 30 Thinkers Under 30, Lewis engineers and leads innovative and intersectional social justice efforts that illuminate and address grave injustices within education, medical, and legal systems that have gone unaddressed for generations.
As the creator of the only national database of imprisoned deaf people, Lewis, a prison abolitionist, advocates with and for hundreds of deaf and disabled defendants and incarcerated and returned individuals as the volunteer director of Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of Deaf communities (HEARD). As one of the only people in the world working on deaf wrongful conviction cases, Lewis regularly testifies, teaches, presents and trains on carceral ableism and related topics. Lewis serves as a consultant for dozens of social justice organizations on various topics including racial, economic, gender, and disability justice and as an expert on cases involving deaf/disabled people. A founding member of the Harriet Tubman Collective and co-creator of the Disability Solidarity praxis, Lewis has taught at Rochester Institute of Technology and Northeastern University School of Law.
A recent graduate of American University Washington College of Law, Lewis has received awards from numerous universities, the American Bar Association, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, American Association for People with Disabilities, the Nation Institute, National Black Deaf Advocates, and EBONY Magazine, among others.
Lewis is a 2018 Roddenberry Fellow & a 2018 Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity.
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Ericka Huggins: January 26, 2024
Creating a toolkit for resiliency
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Ericka Huggins
Ericka Huggins is a human rights activist, poet, educator, Black Panther leader and former political prisoner. For the past 30 years, she has lectured throughout the United States and internationally. Her extraordinary life experiences have enabled her to speak personally and eloquently on issues relating to the physical and emotional well-being of women, children and youth, whole being education, over incarceration, and the role of the spiritual practice in sustaining activism and promoting change.
As a result of her 14-year tenure as a leader of the Black Panther Party (the longest of any woman in leadership), she brings a unique, complete and honest perspective to the challenges and successes of the Black Panther Party and, its significance today.
Ericka’s desire to serve humanity began in 1963, when she attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. There, she committed to moving from the sidelines to the frontlines in the global human rights movement. In 1968, at age 18, she became a leader in the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party with her husband John Huggins.
Three weeks after the birth of their daughter, John Huggins was killed and Huggins was widowed. After returning to New Haven, Connecticut to be with John’s family, Ericka was invited by community members and students to open a party chapter there. She accepted the invitation.
In May 1969, Huggins and fellow Party leader Bobby Seale were targeted and arrested on conspiracy charges sparking “Free Bobby, Free Ericka” rallies across the country. The resulting trial, one of the longest and most celebrated of the era, spawned several books.
While awaiting trial for two years before charges were dropped, including time in solitary confinement, Huggins taught herself to meditate as a means to survive incarceration. From this time on, she would incorporate spiritual practice into daily life, her community work and teaching as a tool for change – not only for herself, but for all people.
A lifelong writer and poet, upon release from prison in 1971, Ericka became writer and editor for the Black Panther Intercommunal News Service. In 1974, her book of poetry chronicling her experience of imprisonment and liberation, Insights and Poems, co-authored with Huey P. Newton, was published. Her poetry and writings have appeared in numerous magazines and books.
From 1973-1981, Huggins was Director of the Oakland Community School, a groundbreaking community-run child development center and elementary school founded by the Black Panther Party. She created the vision for the innovative curriculum for the school, which became a model for and predecessor to the charter school movement.
In 1976, Ericka Huggins became both the first woman and the first Black person to be appointed to the Alameda County Board of Education.
In 1979, ten years after her release from prison, Huggins returned to California state, county and federal prisons and jails to share her experiences of yoga and meditation. A focus of her volunteer effort was her work with incarcerated youth. She has continued this work with adults and, in addition, has continued to teach in homes for foster and adopted children and pregnant teens. For the past 20 years, she has also taught relaxation and mindfulness in California youth correctional facilities in addition to many Northern California public school districts and community colleges.
In 1990, at the height of public awareness of HIV/AIDS, Huggins was the first woman practical support volunteer coordinator at the world-renowned Shanti Project. She also developed a unique volunteer support program for women and children with HIV in the Tenderloin and Mission districts of San Francisco. During her time at Shanti Project, Huggins helped develop citywide programs for the support of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender and questioning youth with HIV/AIDS.
Ericka is also available for programs featuring the documentary, Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and leading a lively and engaging post-screening discussion.
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Dr. Yodit Betru: November 16, 2023
Trauma-Informed Race-Sensitive Work: How do you actually do it?
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Dr. Yodit Betru
Yodit Betru, DSW, LCSW is the Director of the MSW Program and a Clinical Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at University of Pittsburgh. She holds MSW and BA degree from the University of Oklahoma, and a DSW from the University of Pennsylvania. She is developing a trauma-informed curriculum for case managers that provide services to women and families experiencing homelessness. Her clinical experience includes working in schools, shelters, jails, public child-welfare, and therapeutic services in community and private practice settings. Dr. Betru is committed to working with oppressed, vulnerable, and marginalized populations and aims to shed light on and alleviate the traumas experienced by women, children, and families.
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D’Lo: September 22, 2023
Using comedy to heal trauma
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D’Lo
D’Lo is a queer/transgender Tamil-Sri Lankan-American speaker and performer whose work ranges from keynotes and workshops to stand-up comedy, from one-person shows to poetry and storytelling. Rooted in social justice, D’Lo brings the fierce with the funny through his presentations about being a queer/trans artist and activist raised within an immigrant family and community, as well as his stories about being an artist schooled by hip-hop, feminists, and queer artist elders.
His solo shows Ramble-Ations, D’FunQT, D’FaQTo Life and To T, or not To T have toured theaters and festivals nationally, and he is a popular performer and speaker on the college and university circuit as well events for companies, agencies, and non-profit/community organizations.
D’Lo’s acting credits include the HBO series LOOKING, the Amazon series TRANSPARENT, the Netflix series SENSE 8 and MR. ROBOT, and NBC’s CONNECTING, as well as the Issa Rae-produced MINIMUM WAGE. He can also be seen in the SpeakOut produced short feature film, THE SYED FAMILY XMAS EVE GAME NIGHT, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2021. D’Lo was last seen in Billy Eichner’s movie BROS, a recent episode of QUANTUM LEAP, and RO & SHIRELLE, a short buddy comedy with Shakina Nayfack.
D’Lo is the recipient of numerous grants and awards for his work – from the City of Santa Monica, Durfee Foundation, National Performance Network, Ford Foundation, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Most recently, D’Lo was awarded the Artist Disruptor Fellowship through the Center for Cultural Performance and 5050×2020 an initiative started by Joey Soloway. He is also a Senior Civic Media Fellow through USC’s Annenberg School of Innovation funded by the MacArthur Foundation, a Cultural Trailblazer Award recipient from the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs, and winner of a CTG Sherwood Award for Theater.
As a writer, D’Lo’s work has been published in numerous academic journals, literary anthologies, and is featured in print/online media such as The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, NBC, The Advocate, and CNN. He has appeared in Buzzfeed and Fusion videos, and the award-winning documentary PERFORMING GIRL centers his queerstory as a trans artist.
He is the creator of the “Coming Out, Coming Home” writing workshop series which have taken place with South Asian and/or Immigrant LGBTQ organizations nationally, which provide a transformative space for workshop participants to write through their personal narratives and share their truths through a public reading.
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Tim Wise: July 19, 2023
DEI (diversity-equity-inclusion) or DOA (dead on arrival)? How to move beyond window dressing to achieve institutional equity
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Tim Wise
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and educators in the United States. He has spent the past 25 years speaking to audiences in all 50 states, on over 1500 college and high school campuses, at hundreds of professional and academic conferences, and to community groups across the country.
Wise has also trained corporate, government, entertainment, media, law enforcement, military, and medical industry professionals on methods for dismantling racial inequity in their institutions, and has provided anti-racism training to educators and administrators nationwide and internationally, in Canada and Bermuda.
Wise is the author of nine books, including his latest, Dispatches from the Race War (City Lights Books). Other books include Under the Affluence, Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority and Colorblind (all from City Lights Books); his highly-acclaimed memoir, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son, (recently updated and re-released by Soft Skull Press); Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White; Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male; and Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama.
Named one of “25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World,” by Utne Reader, Wise has contributed chapters or essays to over 25 additional books and his writings are taught in colleges and universities across the nation. His essays have appeared on Alternet, Salon, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, The Root, Black Commentator, BK Nation and Z Magazine among other popular, professional and scholarly journals.
From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s he was Youth Coordinator and Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke.
Wise has been featured in several documentaries, including two from the Media Education Foundation. “White Like Me: Race, Racism and White Privilege in America,” which he co-wrote and co-produced, has been called “A phenomenal educational tool in the struggle against racism,” and “One of the best films made on the unfinished quest for racial justice,” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva of Duke University, and Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, respectively. “The Great White Hoax: Donald Trump & the Politics of Race & Class in America” features Wise explores how American political leaders of both parties have been tapping into white anxiety, stoking white grievance, and scapegoating people of color for decades to divide and conquer working class voters and shore up political support.
Wise also appears alongside legendary scholar and activist, Angela Davis, in the 2011 documentary, “Vocabulary of Change.” In this public dialogue between the two activists, Davis and Wise discussed the connections between issues of race, class, gender, sexuality and militarism, as well as inter-generational movement building and the prospects for social change. More recently, he appeared in Chelsea Handler’s Netflix documentary Hello Privilege, It’s Me Chelsea on white privilege and racism in the United States.
Wise appears regularly on CNN and MSNBC to discuss race issues and was featured in a 2007 segment on 20/20. He graduated from Tulane University in 1990 and received antiracism training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, in New Orleans. He is also the host of the podcast, Speak Out with Tim Wise.
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