Bishop Tonyia M. Rawls is Founder and Executive Director of The Freedom Center for Social Justice (FCSJ).  The Center’s focus is Wellness, Empowerment, Literacy and Cultural Diversity/Expression.  Last year the Center was launched with a successful tutoring and career development program for at-risk high school students in Charlotte’s low performing High Schools and has now expanded that work to include a national program focusing on empowerment, inclusion and mobilization of Transgender people of faith.  Bishop Rawls has more than 20 years of organizing experience working with faith communities and marginalized groups in the US and abroad.  She is the Founding pastor of Unity Fellowship Church Charlotte and the first church with the Unity Fellowship Church Movement to open in the Bible Belt of the South.  The denomination and her local congregation work at the intersections of faith, race, sexuality and social justice.

She is a graduate of Duke University, has served or serves on: the Advisory Council of the National Black Justice Coalition, The Diversity and Inclusion Council of the Human Rights Campaign, The Mancini Foundation and The Charlotte African Americn Giving Circle (Charlotte-based community fund that provides micro grants for efforts that promote leadership development within the Charlotte  LGBT community of color.)   Bishop Rawls is a noted national speaker and workshop facilitator.  She is a co-founder of The International Black Buyers and Manufacturers Expo and Conference, which was the country’s first trade show dedicated to the development of the Black retail and manufacturing arena in the US and abroad.  In the 1990’s the event focused on trade, education and networking and grew from 50 United States businesses to more than 1,000 from the US, Africa, the UK, the Caribbean and other parts of the Diaspora meeting in the DC Convention Center.  She has also been a reviewer for the Journal of African-American Studies and is published in Black Sexualities:  Probing Powers, Passions, Practices, and Policies (Released 2010). 

Janene McClure, Administrative Assistant.  McClure overseas scheduling, assists with coordination of Center activities and supports planning team and board.   She previously worked with Bank of America and Adecco as an Administrative Assistant performing a wide range of administrative duties of a highly responsible and complex nature generally for one or more upper level managers. 

Mandy Carter is a self-described "out, southern, black, lesbian, social justice activist."  2008 marks her 40th year of working in multi-issue and multi-racial grassroots organizing. Although she was first introduced to social justice activism in 1965 when the Quaker-based American Friends Service Committee visited her high school in Schenectady, N.Y., it was the 1968 Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Poor People's Campaign that officially marked the beginning of her activism.

In 2010 Carter received the $10,000 Anderson Prize Foundation's Susan J. Hyde Longevity Award at the 2008 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's (NGLTF) Creating Change Conference in Detroit, Mich.   Carter was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as one of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005" which recognized, made visible and celebrated the impressive and valuable, yet often invisible peace work of thousands of women around the world.

Dr. Lisa Griffin, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice. She received her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin with Highest Honors and Special Honors in Psychology; she is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She obtained her M.A. and Ph.D. in child psychology from the University of Denver, and she was a child specialty intern at Baylor College of Medicine. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Texas Children’s Hospital, specializing in psychological intervention with pediatric cancer patients and their families.

Currently, her practice focuses on issues related to gender identity and gender variance. Dr. Griffin has drawn on her expertise in children’s play and development not only in her clinical work, but also in her volunteer service with Time Out Youth (a support and advocacy organization for LGBTQI youth) and Junior Achievement, as well as during her many years of service on the board of directors of Planned Parenthood Health Systems. As an ally and activist in the transgender community, Dr. Griffin serves on the advisory board of the University of North Carolina Center for Professional and Applied Ethics and on the board of directors of the Freedom Center for Social Justice, a new service organization whose inaugural initiative is a conference created by and for African-American transgender people of faith. She is part-time faculty in the Women’s and Gender Studies program at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, currently teaching an upper-level undergraduate course entitled “Gender and Sexuality”. She regularly guest lectures on the topic of gender identity and has facilitated several conference panels on transgender experience. She gave the keynote address at the 2008 Transgender Day of Remembrance Commemoration at the Charlotte Lesbian and Gay Community Center.

Dr. Griffin is a member of the American Psychological Association, the North Carolina Psychological Association, the Mecklenburg Psychological Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the International Foundation for Gender Education.

Beverly "Mecca" Moss.,was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY.  Her vision is to make the world a better place for all children and adults.  Moss wants to provide support, engage, connect and empower individuals and make a lasting change throughout the local community and the world.  In 2001, she graduated from the City University of New York (CUNY), College of Staten Island (CSI) with a degree in Social Work.  In 2005, she went back to college to obtain her Masters in counseling and graduated from Webster University in Greenville, SC, in March 2007.

Moss is presently the Executive Director of Caring Arms Youth and Family Services (CAYFS) in Charlotte, NC working with youth and adults who are diagnosed with MH/DD/SAS disorders.