In this week's episode of Fortification: Spiritual Sustenance for Movement Leadership, Caitlin Breedlove, Vice President of Movement Leadership at Auburn Seminary is joined by Paulina Helm-Hernández.

Paulina Helm-Hernández is a queer femme cha-cha girl, artist, trainer, political organizer, strategist & troublemaker-at-large from Veracrúz, Mexico. She grew up in rural North Carolina, and is currently growing roots in Atlanta, GA. She is the past Co-Director of Southerners on New Ground (SONG), having joined the staff after coordinating the Southern regional youth activism program at the Highlander Research & Education Center for over 4 years. Paulina has a background in farm worker and immigrant / refugee rights organizing, cultural work, youth organizing, anti-violence work, and liberation work that centers people most affected by violence, poverty, war and racism.

Paulina is also a founding member of the national First Nations / Two Spirit Collective, a queer & trans indigenous movement-building cadre, and has served on the boards of YouthAction, Student Action with Farmworkers and The Third Wave Foundation. Paulina currently sits on the Vision and Strategies Council of Kindred Southern Healing Justice Collective, and is always exploring ways to deepen political unity with people willing to fight and organize for collective liberation.

In this week's episode of Fortification: Spiritual Sustenance for Movement Leadership, Caitlin Breedlove, Vice President of Movement Leadership at Auburn Seminary is joined by Rev. Allyn Maxfield-Steele.

Rev. Allyn Maxfield-Steele

Rev. Maxfield-Steele is the co-director of the Highlander Center in Tennessee. Raised in Texas, Germany and North Carolina, Rev. Allyn Maxfield-Steele’s movement work has included solidarity struggles with Thai people’s movements, work as an educator and organizer in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and a range of support for front-line struggles in Nashville, Tennessee, and throughout the South and Appalachia. As a member of the Educational Network for Global and Grassroots Exchange (ENGAGE), Allyn was a member of Highlander’s 2010 Threads cohort and served as an adult ally for the 2010 Seeds of Fire youth program. He joined Highlander’s Board of Directors in 2011, where most recently he has served as chair of the board. An ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Allyn has served congregations in Juneau, Alaska, Nashville, and Springfield, TN. Allyn’s focus and interests lie at the intersection of radical pastoral care, institutional transformation, dismantling toxic white masculinities, and liberation-driven ministry and movement building, especially in rural and small town communities. Allyn holds a B.A. in History from Wofford College (SC) and a Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt Divinity School. He comes to Highlander from the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, where he has served as a member of the education team.

In this week's episode of Fortification: Spiritual Sustenance for Movement Leadership, Caitlin Breedlove, Vice President of Movement Leadership at Auburn Seminary is joined by Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is one of the original pioneers of transgender activism and a champion for Transgender Women of Color, Miss Major leads the cause for transgender rights in the prison industrial complex. She took part in the Stonewall riots. Miss Major is also the Executive Director Emeritus for the Transgender GenderVariant Intersex Justice Project (TGI Justice Project) and founder of the Haus of GiGi.

In this week's episode of Fortification: Spiritual Sustenance for Movement Leadership, Caitlin Breedlove, Vice President of Movement Leadership at Auburn Seminary is joined by Pancho Argüelles.

Francisco (Pancho) Argüelles

Pancho is a co-founder of Colectivo Flatlander for Popular Education, based in Houston Texas and current Executive Director of Living Hope Wheelchair Association. He has been instrumental in the establishment of the BRIDGE Project at the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), the Institute for Development of Leadership (INDELI) at the Highlander Research and Education Center, and the Immigrant Rights working group at the National Organizers Alliance. Before moving to the United States Pancho worked as a popular educator in Chiapas, Nicaragua, and other places. He is principal of Paz y Puente, LLC and father to Maria and Antonio.

In this week's episode of Fortification: Spiritual Sustenance for Movement Leadership, Caitlin Breedlove, Vice President of Movement Leadership at Auburn Seminary is joined by adrienne maree brown.

adrienne maree brown, the Co-Editor of Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, doula and pleasure activist living in Detroit. She is a student of emergence, somatics, transformation and science fiction. She is part of the training body of generative somatics, and coordinating the Just Films Narrative Shift Program for Allied Media Projects. She is the 2015-2016 Ursula le Guin Fellowship, the Knight Arts Challenge for 2013 and 2015, a Kresge Literary Arts Fellow for 2013, in the inaugural Speculative Fiction Workshop at Voices of Our Nation 2014, and a graduate of the Clarion Sci-Fi and Fantasy Workshop in 2015.