The Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resiliency and Joy is pleased to introduce five new board members who have joined our leadership team in 2026. We anticipate a full year ahead and are grateful for their wisdom and leadership as they step into these new roles. By way of brief introduction, please join us in welcoming our incoming board members:
Blair Bowie, Esq.
Blair Bowie directs Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote project, which focuses on ending felony disenfranchisement by democratizing access to rights restoration services and working with directly impacted communities to dismantle systemic barriers to the ballot box through advocacy, litigation, and policy change. Blair is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Middlebury College. At Penn Law, they served as a Toll Public Interest Scholar, founded the Democracy Law Project, and were granted the Dean Jefferson B. Fordham Human Rights Award. They are a participant in the Prince George's County Lynching Memorial Project and served as a Braxton Institute Community Fellow.
Rev. Dr. Kelle Brown
The Reverend Dr. Kelle Brown is the senior pastor at Plymouth United Church of Christ in Seattle, Washington. She brings a wealth of experience, from spiritual leadership and business acumen to inclusion education and community building. She has facilitated weekly empowerment and spirituality groups, led powerful and dynamic worship, worked as community liaison to other faith organizations, and facilitated conversation on dismantling oppression. She offers ways to consider and reflect on privilege, bias, prejudice and bigotry, and provides individual spiritual and leadership coaching.
John P. Comer
John P. Comer is the Founder of The Architects of Justice and Sr. Organizer with 20+ years experience organizing around housing, criminal justice, and education disparities. He has led death penalty reform and abolition efforts, through working directly with family members of murder victims, as well as organizing speaking tours with death row exonerees. He was a member of the Braxton Institute’s Golden Repair Circles of Care for Reparations Leaders inaugural cohort in 2025.
Dr. Eric Freeman, MD
Dr. Eric Freeman, who has been practicing general pediatrics in the Richmond community for the past 21 years, opened Old Dominion Pediatrics in August of 2012. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatrics where he carries board certification in general pediatrics. He is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Department of Family Medicine and Population Health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.
Mélisande Short-Colomb
A native of New Orleans, Meli retired from a lengthy culinary career and now serves on the Board of Advisors for the Georgetown Memory Project, is a founding Council Member of the GU272 Descendants Association, and was on the GU272 Advocacy Team. Meli is frequently invited to speak on the subjects of the GU272 and reparations. Her talks vary from testimony before the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights, to speaking at the Brooklyn Historical Society, to a TEDx talk. Meli has been featured in multiple print outlets and news programs.
We are so grateful to be in community with these new board members and welcome them to the Braxton Institute leadership team. From Medicine, to the arts, to organizing and prophetic witness, these new board members bring a multitude of strengths to our board matrix, as the Braxton Institute enters a new era of infrastructure building and sustainable growth. Welcome Kelle, Meli, John, Blair, and Eric!