Rachael Reichenbach (she/her) is a facilitator, coach, and soul friend. She currently creates under the name Resist Reimagine, supporting individuals and organizations through the iterative and ongoing process of showing up as liberation workers, change shapers, and systems leaders. She has worked closely with the FSLN since 2018 and has been in a posture of deepening her inner work and white anti-racist praxis for the past decade. She lives in a log cabin at Wild Hydrangea, an intentional community on the land of the Creek & Cherokee in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in northern Alabama. Here she practices and grapples with the beauty & challenge of living in community, the many facets of her Southern identity, and the ongoing experience of getting into right relationship with poison ivy.

Rachael was a Systems Leadership Retreat participant in New Orleans in 2018, and co-facilitated last year’s first-ever virtual Systems Leadership Retreat with Lindsey Lunsford and Joseph McIntyre. This year she is excited to partner with and learn from Lindsey and Natilee to create a retreat experience that makes the relationship between systems leadership and racial justice & equity explicitly clear. She is excited to co-create a space that centers connection, spaciousness, deep thinking, personal reflection, and sharing tools to translate what is learned in the Zoom world into practical application in the real world.

Dr. Lindsey Lunsford is an assistant professor of food systems, education, and policy at Tuskegee University. As a researcher, her passions lie in bringing forth and centering stories of Black joy, resilience, and power as they relate to food systems and equity work.  Lunsford’s research centers the “restorying” of narratives surrounding Black joy and resilience as they relate to food systems and collective liberation. Based in Tuskegee, Alabama she enjoys living closely to a rich culture and heritage that has already contributed vastly to the world. Lindsey is a highly sought after food systems expert & anti-racist education leader. Dr. Lunsford ranks nationally as one of the “Top 20 Emerging Leaders in Food and Agriculture” in the United States. 

Lindsey co-facilitated last year’s first-ever virtual Systems Leadership Retreat with Rachael Reichenbach and Joseph McIntyre whom she first met when she attended the Systems Leadership Retreat as a participant in New Orleans in 2018. Lindsey is diligently learning to cook better and more often, while still finding time to write poetry and try her hand at comedic writing. Few adore her more than her two dogs, Latto and Bambino, and that is perfectly ok. 

Natilee McGruder (she/her)  is a Montgomery native with deep roots in sustainable agriculture and community organizing nationally and specifically in the Black Belt. She has access to an extensive and diverse network of food and farming organizations, institutions, and individuals. As a food systems and equity consultant, she has expertise in building community food systems, facilitating crucial discussions, strategic planning, project management, planning and coordinating regional and national food and farming conferences as well as growing consulting relationships with organizations like the Wallace Center, Alabama Arise, the ACLU of Alabama and Tuskegee University.

Natilee is drawn to work that feels generative, impactful and fun. She was introduced to the concept of systems leadership as a participant in the 2019 retreat in New Hampshire. Through the process of co-creating this year’s Systems Leadership Retreat with Rachael, Lindsey and the Wallace team, she has explored liberatory consciousness, conflict resolution, equitable relationship building and co-visioning. She is excited to share those skills in a collaborative and creative spirit.