Redress Movement

Background

The Redress Movement, originally known as the New Movement to Redress Racial Segregation, was founded in 2022 by a group of civil rights activists led by Theodore Shaw, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and former director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina. The organizers claimed to have been inspired by Richard Rothstein’s book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, as well as the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, to “redress racial segregation.” They began raising funds the year prior in 2021 before formally incorporating the organization in 2022. ^{1 3}

Activities

The Redress Movement claims to promote policies intended to promote “collective action” to prevent alleged racial segregation still occurring within the United States.  ^{1 2}

The group specifically focuses on economic policy towards affordable housing availability, gentrification, and “racial redress” policy prescriptions regarding property taxes, corporate landlords, and Homeowners Associations. ^{2 4}

Redress Movement has a “curriculum” on its website that gathers videos and podcasts on the history of “redlining,” and an alleged “racial wealth gap,” as well as concepts derived from critical race theory. ⁵

In July 2025, the Redress Movement joined over 600 nonprofit organizations in signing an open letter in opposition to the House Homeland Security Committee and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). Prior to this, Sen. Hawley and the Committee sent letters to hundreds of nonprofits requesting funding information, with a focus on anti-ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) activities in Los Angeles as well as groups involved in settling migrants under the Biden administration. Three groups that were singled out included  the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the Union del Barrio (UD). The letter signed by the 600 nonprofits claimed Committee was “using unchecked power to chill constitutionally protected activity, community activism, and voices those sending the letters may disagree with.” ^{6 7 8 9 10}

Financials

In 2023, the Redress Movement reported revenue of $1,544,570, total expenses of $1,369,398, and net assets of $1,127,736. ¹¹

Leadership

As of 2025, the executive director of the Redress Movement was Cashauna Hill. Hill was previously the executive director of Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center. ^{12 13 14}

Ria Thompson-Washington, who goes by “she/they/elle” pronouns, was the national digital organizing director for the Redress Movement as of July 2025. At that time, she was also the president of the National Lawyers Guild Foundation, an affiliate of the radical-left association of attorneys, law students, and legal workers known as the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Her bio on NLGF’s website described her as an “anti-racist, Afro-Latine Queer nonbinary feminist” who had organized for the Occupy Wall Street movement and Movement for Black Lives. ^{15 16}

As of 2025, Washington-Thompson was a legal observer, coordinator, and trainer in the Washington, D.C. chapter of NLG; as a member of the NLG Mass Defense Steering Committee; an executive council member of NLG; and as a senior co-chair of the United People of Color Caucus. Washington-Thompson was awarded Legal Worker of the Year by the NLG in 2021 for her work in training legal support personnel across the United States during the George Floyd riots. Prior to joining Redress as a national and local organizer, Thompson-Washington worked at the Center for Popular Democracy, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. ^{17 18}