The Carrie Nelson Foundation

The Carrie Nelson Foundation is intended to be an organization that enriches the local and global community via grantmaking, mutual aid, and educational scholarships.

Moreover, we work to create and preserve spaces for the healing and advancement of those who have been historically marginalized, silenced, and underserved.

A Letter from Our Founder

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine, I undertook a quiet project: collecting and archiving my family’s oral history and heritage in South Carolina. Throughout this journey, I uncovered many events, stories and moments that I never imagined I’d have the opportunity to dig into. This project also opened up very meaningful conversations with my loved ones that gave me an even deeper understanding and appreciation for the “strong stock I come from”.

Carrie Nelson is my maternal great-great grandmother. She is recorded in a late 1800 census taken in the marsh and sharecropping lands of South Carolina, alongside her husband and children. Unfortunately, while giving birth to her youngest child, she passed away. As I reflect on the lineage that has bloomed beyond her death, I wonder who she would’ve been and what she could’ve accomplished with even a fraction of the resources I have available to me now. It’s a contemplation that drives me to honor the legacy she never had a chance to bear witness to on this side.

The Carrie Nelson Foundation is not just another organization that wants to operate within an echo chamber. It is a lifestyle, a praxis, and a divine birthright that I am honored to assume and embody. Every program here is entirely funded and operated by myself and my chosen family/Board of Directors. We are here in service to you, hoping to make Mama Carrie and all of our loving, ancestral guides proud.

Love,

Najya

Our Board of Directors

Lex Brown
Lex Brown is an organizational strategist, personal and group mental health practitioner-in-training, and systems-level theorist utilizing person-centered practices to increase accessibility to sustainable resources for society’s marginalized. She employs anti-oppressive praxis advancing individual and organizational alignment, action planning, and implementation of capacity-building structures.

Kelcee Everette, PhD
Kelcee Everette, PhD is a Ft. Worth-raised, Boston-based scientist, engineer, and artist deeply inspired by southern Black culture and the myriad of cultures in the African diaspora. She uses both her scientific training in genome editing and artistic training across various mediums to support the physical and emotional health of her community.

C. Alexandria-Bernard Thomas
C. Alexandria-Bernard Thomas is a Black Queer Non-Binary champion of poetry. Their work, which focuses on Child Abuse Prevention, the elevation of Black voices and Black LGBTQIA liberation is a beacon of hope and change.  

Carlynn Newhouse
Carlynn Newhouse (she/her) is a poet, host, performer and educator. Carlynn believes poetry is a form of activism and tool for raising awareness in hopes of making the world a safer space.

Taylor Beidler
A byproduct of the American Midwest, Taylor Beidler is a London-based playwright, prose, and performance artist. Proudly Neuroqueer, their writing and teachings work at the intersection of mental health, environmental justice, and the belief that writing is an act of community building.