Carmen Perez is the President and CEO of The Gathering for Justice.She has dedicated her 20-year career to advocating for many of today's important civil rights issues, including mass incarceration, gender equity, violence prevention, racial healing and community policing. She began as a probation officer in Santa Cruz, CA, where she ran contemporaneous programming inside nearby prisons, with a violence prevention and community development organization, Barrios Unidos, where she is now a board member. Carmen founded Justice League NYC in 2014 and subsequently led several mass mobilizations which paralyzed New York City after the non-indictment of the officer who killed Eric Garner in December 2015.

As National Co-Chair of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, she brought on over 500 partners and facilitated a joint process to produce the statement of purpose known as the Unity Principles with 32 other women of diverse backgrounds. She is a leading expert on criminal justice reform and police accountability policy, testifying at President Obama’s 21st Century Task Force on Policing in 2015, and being sought after by elected officials who are serious about passing drastic reforms.