BIOGRAPHY — Mel Harris is an author, internationally-acclaimed speaker and community organizer providing inspired leadership, and stimulating grassroots public policy advocacy in the areas of social and religious reform.

She has authored the well-received book on Light and Love, Truth Serum and a forthcoming work on Reimagining Healthy Spiritual Communities. Regarded as an engaging public speaker, her conference sessions are known to be dynamic, impactful, and transformative. Through the usage of humor and powerful illustrations, she exposes the far-reaching effects of systemic church savagery — across legislative, socioeconomic and every demographic strata. 

As a leading queer, African-American voice of faith, Mel Harris has dedicated her life to finding a better way forward. Mel believes in empowering this generation with the tools necessary to process and dismantle toxic religious power structures, in the hopes of reimagining a healthy spiritual framework that creates powerfully just and equitable communities of belonging.

During her later teenage years, the former high school speech and debate champion served in San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Soup Kitchen, a pivotal experience that led her to pursue a calling in the fight for social justice. She invested her early adulthood into attending Bible College and subsequently working in the pastoral ministry where she led the charge to live a life of love, and curated programming that would help others stand against inequities associated with income inequality, racism, theology, sexism, classism and homophobia. Mel has also been honored to serve as a keynote speaker for the Arkansas Poor People’s Campaign, a moral revival cultivated by the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — which strives to confront the interlocking evils of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. 

She also delights in kinship with the Latinx community, and has organized volunteer efforts from the Mexico border through the Yucatán Peninsula that promote equitable resource allocation and improved healthcare standards. Additionally, she has launched successful non-profits that center resources and collective efforts on populations that have been historically marginalized — including work that led to the incubation of LGBTQ+ safe spaces, and amplifying the voices (and perceived value) of people experiencing homelessness, the effects of substance abuse, domestic violence and those who are impacted by the ravages of poverty and income inequality.

A graduate of the University of Arkansas in Agricultural Business and Economics, she has conducted multiple TV and radio interviews, and served on the Board of Directors of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, The HopeCenter, and OneFayetteville. At the end of the day, Mel is a vested champion in the idea that humans always tell us what they need, if we are willing to embrace human dignity and listen with compassion.