Sharon Martinas

SHARON MARTINAS "joined the movement in the summer of 1965, when she was recruited to teach in a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee Freedom School in Selma, Alabama. She played a leading organizing role in the student strike led by the Third World Liberation Front  at San Francisco State University that won the first Ethnic Studies program in the country.  She was a legal staff worker with the National Lawyers Guild and developed curriculum at SF City College for working class women navigating the welfare and prison systems.  She was the volunteer coordinator through the 1980s with the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).

"In 1990, she co-created a history course for activists called "Addressing White Supremacy in Progressive Movements." After participating in a People's Institute "Undoing Racism Workshop", Sharon co-founded "The Challenging White Supremacy Workshop" in 1993, for which she wrote The CWS Workshop Exercise Manual. In 2000, she co-created Anti-racism for Global Justice which then became the Catalyst Project. She is part of European Dissent in New Orleans and works closely with grassroots people of color-led organization work to rebuild New Orleans post-Katrina.  She continues to mentor hundreds of white anti-racists in the Bay Area and around the country."


 * Advisory Board, Catalyst Project