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The Current Protected Class Network Cohort

 

First, We Were 3

 

Now, We’re 10


 

And We’ll Continue to Grow...

Initial Network Cohort

Partners and Allies

Justice Impacted Advisory Council

Funders

​Public Welfare Foundation

​Open Society Foundation:

Soros Justice Fellowship

Borealis Black-Led Movement Fund 

Bridgette Simpson is a formerly incarcerated survivor, activist, advocate, entrepreneur, published author, motivational speaker, mentor, and certified life coach who partners with other survivors, activists, social justice reform organizations, organizers, public figures, and formerly incarcerated and incarcerated people to empower, inspire change, and promote hope. She is a 2023 Soros Justice Fellow. 

 

Since being released from prison in 2018 after a decade inside, she has been: ►co-founder/co-coordinator of and lead organizer for Barred Business; ►campaign organizing co-manager, and minister of organizing and recruitment for ecosystem for the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL); ►site coordinator/case manager for the National Bail Out and the Center for Resilient Individuals, Families and Communities; and ►lead community organizer for Women on the Rise.

 

Bridgette spearheaded the successful 2022 Atlanta Protected Class Campaign. She has since been appointed by the Atlanta City Council President to the city’s Human Relations Commission—making her the first justice-impacted person to ever be a member of the body that is responsible for implementing local human rights ordinances and protecting people from all protected classes against discrimination. In October 2022, she addressed the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls’ annual FreeHer Conference on “Leveraging Local Legislation as a Springboard for Federal Wins.”

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The Network Coordinator

The Protected Class Network is a project of Barred Business, an abolitionist, intersectional Black feminist membership organization—founded and led by formerly incarcerated Black women activists, counselors, and business owners. Our mission is to empower marginalized formerly incarcerated people who are disproportionately affected by the U.S. legal system of mass incarceration, especially Black and LGBTQIA+ community members. Based in Atlanta, we have organizational partners across the country.

 

Though we’re a small organization, we’ve accomplished quite a lot. We began in 2019 to work closely with the National Bail Out (NBO), partnering locally with FAAM (the Free Atlanta Abolition Movement), Atlanta's Black autonomous bail foundation, to disburse over a half-million dollars in NBO funds to bail out Black mamas statewide from pre-trial detention and provide post-release case management and support. In the early days of the pandemic, after the federal Small Business Administration added to its Paycheck Protection Program application two questions about criminal records for all loan applicants, we raised nearly $100,000 for grants to struggling small business owners who were ineligible for government funds because they had been incarcerated. We developed the S.T.A.B.L.E. program—the only residential gender-responsive, LGBTQIA+-positive re-entry program in Georgia designed specifically by and for previously incarcerated Black women. We sponsor the local Google Career Skills for the Justice-Impacted Program and are an Atlanta hub of the Participatory Defense Network, a community organizing model for people facing charges, their families, and communities to impact case outcomes and shift power in the court system.

 

With support from M4BL Invest/Divest Campaign funds, we’ve begun the Protected Reinvestment Campaign to get the city to divest $3 million from its budget and invest in housing and other resources for residents who are most impacted by mass incarceration. To get the broadest possible support, we’re framing the campaign in terms of public safety. (The earlier “defunding” message resulted in a 2021 increase in the police budget by $15 million.)

 

Learn more about Barred Business:

About Barred Business

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