Rae Garringer (Country Queers), Ash-Lee Henderson (Co-Director Highlander), Greisa Martinez (United We Dream), Marquez Rhyne, Monique Verdin

Imagine our future stories in a world where all under heaven is intact. What stories do we need to create in order to build a loving, liberated and just world? What needs to be healed to live into our future stories? This interactive plenary invites us to individually and collectively daydream our future stories. We’ll hear from organizers, activists, and artists as we build our collective vision for a beautiful future.

Rae Garringer (they/them) is a writer, oral historian, and audio producer who grew up on a sheep farm in southern West Virginia, and now lives a few counties away on traditional S’atsoyaha (Yuchi) lands. Rae is the founder of Country Queers – an ongoing, multimedia, community-based oral history project documenting rural and small town LGBTQIA+ experiences. Rae is white, queer, nonbinary, and a hermit-introvert who prefers to be surrounded by animals and mountains.

Greisa Martinez (she/ella/they) is Executive Director at United We Dream. Originally from Hidalgo, Mexico, Greisa immigrated to the U.S. with her family at an early age and grew up in Dallas, TX as an undocumented immigrant. Greisa has organized immigrant youth and workers for the passage of pro-immigrant policies at the local and national level for the past 10 years. She founded the Texas Dream Alliance and was a fellow with the League of Young Voters.

Márquez Rhyne (they/them) is a liberatory artist, coach, strategist, and popular educator, originally from Memphis, Tennessee. A former Highlander Center Education Team member, Rhyne strategically uses art, culture, and narrative while weaving powerful networks to make healing, justice, and liberation common sense, alluring, and inevitable regionally and globally.

Monique Verdin is an interdisciplinary storyteller, citizen of the Houma Nation and director of The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange. Monique is currently working to support the Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, a network of indigenous southeastern gardeners, to grow food and medicine sovereignty in the lower Mississippi River Delta.