Houston Dinner

Trailblazer Awardee

Cameron Samuels (they/them/theirs) graduated last year from the Katy Independent School District where they organized an initiative to distribute hundreds of banned books across Texas. Once the only student to speak at a school board meeting, receiving no applause while others viciously diminished queer identities, Samuels and peers built a student-led movement within months by packing school board meetings and filing legal action with the ACLU. The district reconsidered decisions to keep certain books on shelves and dismantled an internet filter targeting queer websites like the Trevor Project and The Human Rights Campaign. Now a student at Brandeis University, Samuels’ efforts to demonstrate youth visibility in the traditionally adult-dominated field of policymaking are ongoing in a coalition of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas.

Kelley Robinson is the ninth president of the Human Rights Campaign — the first Black, Queer woman to lead the organization. The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality and liberation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. Robinson — widely respected for her work over the last 15 years creating and leading winning campaigns and programs — steps into her new role at HRC after serving as Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. From community organizer to progressive leader, Robinson has been at the forefront in the fight for bodily autonomy and racial and gender equity, with a focus on lifting up marginalized communities and building political power. Robinson will lead HRC — and its more than 3 million member advocates — as the organization fulfills its mission to realize a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.