Dr. Christy Perez Recognized in NY Weekly Magazine’s Top 30 Inspirational Women To Look Out For in 2026
Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 27th Mar 2026 – Dr. Christy Perez has been named one of NY Weekly Magazine’s Top 30 Inspirational Women To Look Out For in 2026, recognizing her work as a public theologian, journalist, historian, and social impact strategist advancing conversations around justice, faith, and systemic change.
Perez is the founder of the Dreaming Justice Project, a collective focused on confronting structural inequities and supporting communities navigating incarceration, reentry, and systemic marginalization. Through policy engagement, journalism, education, and community programs, the organization works to expand access to resources and reimagine systems that impact economic, racial, and gender justice.
In addition to leading the Dreaming Justice Project, Perez serves as State Gender Policy Manager at Georgia Equality and is a Senior Journalism Fellow with the Alice Dunbar Journalism Fellowship at The Lighthouse | Black Girl Projects. Her work examines the intersections of politics, religion, and culture, translating complex social issues into accessible insights that help communities better understand systems of power and pathways toward change.
A 2024 Stillwater Award recipient and Marvel Cooke Abolitionist Journalism Fellow, Perez’s writing and analysis have appeared in national media outlets where she offers commentary on policy, faith traditions, and justice-centered social movements.
Perez is also the author of Practicing Freedom: A Dreaming Justice Project Handbook for Faith, Abolition, and the Work of Repair, a book that explores how faith, history, and community action can intersect to address structural harm while imagining new possibilities for collective liberation.
Through both scholarship and direct community engagement, Perez’s work focuses on building frameworks that move beyond critique toward practical strategies for transformation. The Dreaming Justice Project provides direct support to individuals navigating reentry after incarceration, HIV awareness and prevention resources, identification document assistance, and advocacy focused on protecting marginalized communities.
Perez’s work is also deeply informed by her own lived experiences. At age five, she witnessed the murder of her mother, an event that shaped the trajectory of her early life. Years of instability followed, including abuse within the foster care system, homelessness during adolescence, addiction, and survival sex work beginning at age thirteen. Those circumstances ultimately led to her incarceration as a young adult. During and after that period of her life, Perez pursued education and scholarship while critically examining the systems that had shaped her own experiences.
Today, her work integrates that lived perspective with academic research, journalism, and policy engagement to advocate for structural reforms and community-centered solutions.
Being recognized among NY Weekly Magazine’s Top 30 Inspirational Women To Look Out For in 2026 highlights Perez’s growing influence as a thought leader working at the intersection of journalism, theology, and public policy.
“Recognition like this reflects the collective work of communities and movements that continue to imagine freer futures,” Perez said. “The work of justice is always collaborative.”
About Dr. Christy Perez
Dr. Christy Perez is a public theologian, journalist, historian, and social impact strategist whose work bridges scholarship, advocacy, and systems change. Her work is informed by both academic study and lived experience navigating systems of trauma, incarceration, and recovery.
She is the founder of the Dreaming Justice Project and serves in leadership roles across policy, journalism, and justice organizations. Her work explores the intersections of faith, abolition, history, and public policy, translating complex social issues into accessible insights that support community action and systems transformation.
About The Dreaming Justice Project
The Dreaming Justice Project is a collective working at the intersections of decarceration, reentry, harm reduction, and racial, economic, and transformative justice.
Through community support programs, policy engagement, journalism, and education, the organization works to build systems rooted in dignity, healing, and collective liberation.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/uncagedchristy
Company Details
Organization: Dreaming Justice Project
Contact Person: Dr. Christy Perez
Website: https://dreamingjustice.org
Email: Send Email
City: Atlanta
State: Georgia
Country: United States
Release Id: 27032643053