Ash-Lee Henderson is the first Black woman to serve as Co-Executive Director at Highlander Research & Education Center. Previously, she worked at Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide, United Campus Workers-CWA, The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies, and Chicago Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee History Project. She is an Affrilachian (Black Appalachian) woman from the working class, born and raised in Southeast Tennessee. She is a long-time activist who has done work in movements fighting for workers, for reproductive justice, for LGBTQUIA+ folks, for environmental justice, and more. She attended East Tennessee State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in English Language and Literature.
