Board of Directors

Rev. Willard Bass, Jr. is Director/ Organizer of one of Crossroads’regional organizing partners, the Institute for Dismantling Racism (IDR) in Winston-Salem NC, and is also a Crossroads Organizer/Trainer Apprentice. He is Assistant Pastor of Outreach, Green Street United Methodist Church. Willard is engaged in a broad range of civic and church activities focused on building and enhancing community and dismantling racism. He and Shirley Lewis Bass, his wife of more than 33 years, have three children.

Jyaphia Christos-Rodgers is a community organizer, sociologist and community chef who lives in New Orleans. Her experience includes over 20 years of work in program planning, evaluation and facilitation in a wide range of human service and social justice contexts. She has served in the fields of workforce development, adult education, youth development, food justice, public health and disaster recovery. As an Antiracism Organizer/Trainer, Jyaphia works with Crossroads, with the Unitarian Universalist Association, and belongs to European Dissent, a collective of antiracist white people associated with People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. She is active in a lay ministry of “Radical Hospitality” that aims to foster strong multiracial justice-making networks.

Derrick Dawson is a member of the AntiRacism Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, and served as its Co-Chair for three years. He is the Training Manager at the Chicago law firm of Barack Ferrazzano Kirschbaum & Nagelberg in Chicago, and is a graduate student and teaching assistant in English Composition at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. Derrick was also a broadcaster and journalist in the United States Navy, where he served for eight years on ships in Asia and the Pacific.

Bill Gardiner is an antiracism consultant in the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Bill was the UUA’s Director for Antiracism and Social Justice Empowerment Programs in the Department for Faith in Action in Boston from 1990 through 2004. Prior to that, Bill served as a parish minister in Washington DC, Nashville TN and Philadelphia PA.

B. Jo Ann Mundy is the is the Co-Executive Director and Organizer/Facilitator with ERAC/Ce (Eliminating Racism and Claiming/ Celebrating Equality), a regional organizing partner of Crossroads in southwest Michigan. She serves on the boards of World Fare, a fair-trade store; the OutCenter of Benton Harbor, MI; Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training; and is a founding mentor of the NIA Project where she encourages the celebrations of identity, purpose and sisterhood in adolescent women of color. Enjoying over 20 years of pastoral ministry, Jo Ann currently serves as a solo pastor of On Common Ground (formerly First Baptist Church) of Three Rivers, MI and is a founding member of the Three Rivers Area Faith Community, an ecumenical and faith-based social justice network of church where she completed her doctoral thesis in “Sacred Action to Claim and Anti-Racist Identity in the Faith Community of Three Rivers Michigan.” Jo Ann enjoys reading, music, her guitars and computers and, most of all, the young people in her life.

Iván Pérez was born in Puerto Rico, and was raised and resides in Chicago. He is the proud husband of Victoria Alvarez (a civil engineer from Colombia) and father of Nicolás. Iván is co-chair, organizer and trainer for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Metropolitan Chicago Synod Antiracism Team. he has gained insight into social responsibility, justice and creativity and seeks to positively impact the evolution of our society and of our hopeful witness to the world. Iván is a project analyst in the financial services industry, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture from the Harrington College of Design and a Master of Management from North Park University.

Janis Pryor has worked in politics and media for over 30 years. She is a member of the Trinity-Boston Antiracism Team. Prior to producing and hosting Commonwealth Journal (a syndicated public affairs program from WUMB-FM public radio at UMass-Boston) she worked at Boston’s three affiliate television stations as a producer and Editorial Director. She received an Emmy nomination for a composite entry that included the first on-location editorials in the broadcast area. In 1984 Janis produced an award-winning series of three one-hour documentaries on Jesse Jackson as presidential candidate and political leader. She currently sits on the board of The John E. Mack Institute.

Carmen is a coordinator of the Minnesota Collaborative AntiRacism Initiative (MCARI), a long-time regional partner with Crossroads. Born and raised in Arizona, she lived in Minneapolis for over 25 years and recently returned home. Carmen has a variety of management and training experience in both corporate and nonprofit sectors. Active in MCARI since its inception in 1993, she has a long history of activism in ecumenical church and community organizations that have worked to cross the boundaries of gender, class and race. She is a 1995 graduate of United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighton MN.