Staff

Saqib is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Action Center on Race & the Economy. He works on campaigns to win racial and economic justice by taking on the corporations responsible for extracting wealth and resources from communities of color and poor people. Coming from an immigrant Muslim family from Pakistan, Saqib’s first foray into organizing was with the student anti-war movement following 9/11. After college he spent 10 years working on corporate campaigns with the Culinary Workers Union (UNITE HERE) in Las Vegas and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). He was previously a fellow at the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Roosevelt Institute, where he launched the ReFund America Project, a predecessor organization to ACRE. Saqib is a cofounder and Executive Committee member of the Bargaining for the Common Good Network and serves on the boards of the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, the Midwest Academy, and Political Research Associates. Saqib received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and his master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

Maryam is the Deputy Communications Director at the Action Center on Race & the Economy. Before Maryam initially joined ACRE as its Fact-Checker and Copyeditor, she worked in a variety of roles across higher education and nonprofits, including lecturing in classrooms, curating programs for school-aged and college students, and working at scholarly presses. Maryam (or Mar) has done communications and design work to support movement organizations in Chicago, Karachi, Durham, and Philadelphia.

Bianca Cunningham is a Campaign Director for Bargaining for the Common Good at the Action Center on Race & the Economy. Bianca is a former Verizon Wireless worker who led her coworkers in 7 stores across Brooklyn, NY to join CWA in 2014, making them the first unionized retail workers in the company. She later led her coworkers on a 49 day strike to secure their first contract. Verizon fired her for organizing, and during the Verizon strike, picketers across the country chanted “Bring Back Bianca!” Bianca was on the bargaining team to help secure their first contract for stores in Brooklyn as well as a store in Massachusetts.

Bianca co-founded the DSA’s AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color caucus, a caucus for Black Indigenous and people of color within the organization. She also served as co-chair of the NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America for two terms.

She most recently was on staff at Labor Notes where she sometimes wrote and more often facilitated training on Race and Labor.

The Rev. Francisco García is a Campaign Director focused on labor, faith, and community partnerships for Bargaining for the Common Good at ACRE. As a son of working-class Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles, Francisco was catapulted into immigrant rights activism in high school in response to anti-immigrant ballot initiative Proposition 187. Francisco is a seasoned organizer, educator, and leader in community, labor, faith, and academic settings.

In labor, Francisco has worked in various organizing, negotiating, and leadership capacities with both public and private sector workers, getting his start with AFSCME 3299 and UAW 2865 in the University of California, and later in healthcare organizing with two SEIU locals. His organizing commitments led him to seminary and ordination in the Episcopal Church; in this capacity he has provided pastoral and justice-focused leadership at several parishes in Southern California and Tennessee. Over the years Francisco has convened and supported many local and statewide organizing efforts that integrate racial/ethnic, economic, and environmental-ecological justice concerns.

Francisco has a BA/MA in Latin American Studies and an MA in Urban Planning from UCLA; an M.Div. from Claremont School of Theology; and is currently completing his PhD in Theology, Ethics, and Action at Vanderbilt University.

Kena is the Senior Development Associate at the Action Center on Race & the Economy. Kena collaborates across campaigns to amplify the work of fellow staff members and finds joy in bridging BIPOC led movements and funders. Prior to ACRE, Kena spent time in non-profit development and taught History and English at an independent high school. He holds a B.A. (Hamilton College ‘20) in Government and a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies, and was the sole recipient of The James Soper Merrill Prize, awarded to the member of the graduating class “who, in character and influence, has typified the highest ideals of the College.”

Outside of work, Kena presents at various universities and institutions as a DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice) speaker and panelist, discussing the intersections of Blackness, Queerness, class, and athletics. In his free time, he enjoys painting, reading, writing, hiking, building community, and taking recreational Basketball leagues far too seriously.

Arielle is the Deputy Campaign Director of the Philly Revenue Project and the #AllEyesOnYass campaign at the Action Center on Race & the Economy. Arielle works with the Philly Revenue Project to help support campaigns to win progressive revenue in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Arielle has nearly a decade of organizing experience around racial justice, climate justice and corporate accountability. She has worked predominately with basebuilding organizations in the Center for Popular Democracy-network, both in St. Louis and Philadelphia. Most recently, Arielle managed the campaign of Councilmember Kendra Brooks, the first Working Families Party councilmember in Philadelphia history, and previously led the Our City Our Schools’ campaign to end the 16-year state control of Philadelphia’s schools. She loves to eat, perfect laminated dough recipes and plan actions to disrupt the lives of billionaires.

Ramah is the Campaign Director of the Crescendo Project at the Action Center on Race & the Economy. Ramah was previously the Deputy Director at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, where for nine years she led and supported BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. She has served on the board of the Washington Peace Center and has been a member of the National Committee of the War Resisters League. She also organizes with the Syrian Solidarity Collective and has been an activist with other organizations including the Arab American Action Network.

She holds an M.A. in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University and a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University. She dreams of a world without war, militarism, and borders, and believes we can create that world through a commitment to collective liberation and transnational solidarity with all those fighting oppressive regimes and systems.

Sandra Jeong Lane (she/her) is the Education Director for Bargaining for the Common Good. She has had the privilege of organizing with workers to build bargaining, legislative, and political power across the East and West coast for the past 15 years. She worked with the healthcare union HPAE in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and organized with SEIU 32BJ representing airport workers, cleaners, and security guards across the East Coast. Sandra also organized with CWA to develop political programs to influence key elections across Pennsylvania, and ran AFSCME education and organizing campaigns throughout the Pacific Northwest. Sandra studied Politics and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz and completed her Masters in Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts. She is from the California Bay Area and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Stephen Lerner is a Senior Adviser at the Action Center on Race & the Economy and a Senior Fellow at the Kalmanovitz institute at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Lerner is a labor and community organizer with who has spent more than three decades organizing hundreds of thousands of janitors, farm workers, garment workers, and other low-wage workers into unions, resulting in increased wages, first-time health benefits, paid sick days, and other improvements on the job. He was the Director of SEIU’s Property Service Divison, served on SEIU’s International Executive Board, and is the  Architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign. As the director of SEIU’s private equity project, Lerner launched a multi-year campaign to expose the overleveraged, unregulated, and unsustainable feeding frenzy of private equity firms during the boom years and the economic disaster that would follow once the bubble burst. In 2014 he helped launch the Bargaining for Common Good campaign. Lerner has published numerous articles charting a path for a 21st century labor movement focused on growth and meeting the challenges of a global economy. He currently works with unions and community groups across the country to break the stranglehold Wall Street and big banks have had on our economy and democracy.

Gabriela is the Deputy Director of Strategic Campaigns at the Action Center on Race & the Economy. Gaby immigrated to Miami from Cuba at the age of 6. She has grown up with a deep commitment to build solidarity among black and brown folks in the South to take on corporate greed. Prior to her role at ACRE, she spent 6 years as a Research Analyst with UNITE HERE Local 355, where she helped build worker power in South Florida through research, community coalition building, and member-led electoral campaigns. In her free time, she enjoys making pottery and longboarding near the beach.

Carrie is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of the Action Center on Race & the Economy. She works on campaigns to restore the balance of economic power from Wall Street to Main Street. Prior to that, she spent more than 10 years working in the labor movement as a strategic researcher for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and a rank and file member of the United Auto Workers (UAW). She holds a master’s degree from the University of California at San Diego.

Bahar is the Director of Campaigns at the Action Center on Race & the Economy. Bahar has more than 15 years experience working on campaigns to organize low-wage workers at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) on Justice for Janitors and Stand for Security campaigns, as well as working with labor / community coalition on revenue and budget, housing, and education justice campaigns. She has led teams to analyze budgets, tax systems, and municipal finance deals that have led to policy considerations in cities and states across the country. In all her work, she has worked on campaigns that hold the largest corporations and financial institutions accountable for their extractive practices in low-income and communities of color.