Charlene Carruthers ’07 was among the 2020 Freedom Scholars announced by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and Group Health Foundation. Recognizing scholars standing at the forefront of movements for economic and social justice, and creating the catalytic ideas for transformative change, the foundations are placing power in the hands of changemakers through new Freedom Scholars Awards, $250,000 grants that give leaders greater freedom to build a truly representative economy that works for working families and people. Charlene is a political strategist, cultural worker and Ph.D. student in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. Her research includes Black feminist political economies, abolition of patriarchal and carceral systems, and the role of cultural work within the Black radical tradition. Her work spans more than 15 years of community organizing across racial, gender and economic justice movements. She is the author of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements, and received Illinois Wesleyan’s Robert M. Montgomery Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2017. Read more here.