A Letter to Our Community: 21 Years of Leadership, Love, and Transition

May 6, 2026

Dear Beloved Community,

After 21 years of living, breathing, and loving this work, I will be transitioning from my role as President & CEO of The Gathering for Justice effective Friday, May 8, 2026. I am honored to continue serving as President Emerita, carrying forward the mission and vision of our founder, Harry Belafonte, in a new way.

When I first stepped into this work over two decades ago, I could not have imagined the journey ahead, nor the community that would shape me along the way.

The Gathering for Justice has been one of the greatest loves of my life. Not only in fulfilling its mission each day, but in the privilege of building alongside all of you, our community, our partners, our board, our amazing staff and everyone we have been blessed to be in solidarity with and serve.

Together, we grew The Gathering from a movement into a national organization. We brought attention to the humanity of our young people and the injustice of youth incarceration. We advanced the fight for justice, from campaigns that brought our people home, to working in partnership with families seeking accountability and safety, to organizing our 250-mile March to Justice and convening “Growing Up Locked Down” conferences that helped shape solutions to end youth incarceration. From our local work in Stockton and Oxnard to close youth prisons, to building MLK Freedom and Unity Weekend and the Youth Organizers United program, we invested deeply in community-led change. We also helped shape national movements like the 2017 Women’s March, Free Meek, and I Am Meg, and built Justice League NYC and California, centering directly impacted voices. We trained thousands of leaders, built coalitions across the country, and created spaces rooted in love, strategy, and action.

This is what we built together, and I am deeply proud.

I have grown up in this work with you. I’ve learned how to lead, how to grieve, and how to keep going even when it felt impossible. What we’ve carried together is something I will hold for the rest of my life.

One of the greatest gifts of this journey was being mentored by our beloved Mr. B. I will always cherish the hours we spent planning, learning, dreaming, and sometimes dancing to hip hop and the sounds of Africa. Those moments shaped me in ways I am still growing into.

When we lost Mr. B three years ago, something shifted in me. I didn’t fully understand it at first, but I knew I had to listen: I had fulfilled my assignment with him.

Now I find myself at a moment every leader must face, knowing when it is time to pass the baton and make space for the next generation. This organization has weathered transition before, and each time, this community has risen.

I am asking you to rise again.

Support The Gathering for Justice. Continue to invest in it and fight alongside it. The mission to end child incarceration and build a future where our young people are supported and able to thrive must continue and it will take all of us.

As for me, I have given this work everything I have. And now, I am being called to expand that service beyond this role, across this country and around the world, through speaking, training, writing, and supporting leaders as they build power in their own communities.

To stay connected or collaborate in this next chapter, you can reach me at carmen@carmenperez-jordan.com, follow me at @msladyjustice1, or subscribe to my Substack: msladyjustice1.substack.com.

You can also stay connected with The Gathering for Justice at info@gatheringforjustice.org, and look out for updates from the board and staff regarding the search for a new executive director.

Thank you for trusting me with your stories, and for allowing me to lead.

There are pieces of my heart in every room we’ve ever been in together, in every young person and family we’ve supported, and in every fight we refused to walk away from.

I will continue to love our people with everything I have, just in a new way, and in even wider spaces.

With all my love, and always in community,

Carmen Perez-Jordan