About Us
Comrades Education (formerly White Awake) hosts educational programming, community building, and skill development in service of grassroots, working class, antiracist, and decolonial movements.
We offer online courses for people from all of walks of life who care about their communities and worry about the state of the world.
Whether you’re already active in community organizing or standing up for your values is new to you, our courses have something to offer you.
If you’ve felt isolated, overwhelmed, or helpless, attending our programming can create a deep sense of relief and help you feel empowered to take action for a better world.
Organizational Oversight
About our Director
ELEANOR HANCOCK built Comrades Education (formerly White Awake) from a small website to an organization of national significance. As founder and director of the organization, Eleanor holds a strong vision for Comrades Education’s work, and has built a supportive team of leadership to guide it. Her leadership grows out of years of experience as an activist, academic, artist, educator, and mother of a multiracial young woman. For more on how Eleanor frames her work, you can listen to this interview on Upstream Podcast.
A note from Eleanor:
While we are director driven, there is a strong vision behind our work I am here to serve. The core values of the organization are socialist (ie a world in which major decisions that effect all of our lives are made collectively & democratically), antiracist and decolonial …. So while I am the person making the decisions about what programming we are going to run, or what does or doesn’t align with the organizational mission, these decisions are not based on personal preferences. They are based on a particular set of values and supported (or critiqued!) by a small but mighty board of directors and Advisory Council. The work we do at Comrades Education is also highly influenced by the facilitators and guest teachers who contribute to and collaborate on our programming.
Comrades Education Advisory Council
BETTY BURKES has been an educator/activist for five decades. She has been a Montessori teacher for children, a peace educator with the United Nations, and educational consultant with Rethinkers in New Orleans. Her activism has been expressed internationally and nationally with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and as a columnist at the Cape Cod Times. Betty currently serves on the board of the Cambridge Insight Meditation Community, and is an active supporter of White Awake’s work.
BONNIE DURAN Dr.PH (mixed race Opelousas – Coushatta descendent) is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle and a Buddhist minister who serves on the guiding teacher council at Spirit Rock and regular teaches retreats at Spirit Rock & Insight Meditation Society.
Bonnie has worked in public health research, evaluation, and education for Tribes, Native Organizations, and other communities of color for over 40 years. Read some of Bonnie’s publications here!
KATRINA MESSENGER is a DC native with over fifty years of experience as a grassroots activist and community leader. She has taken on leadership roles in almost every group she has joined, including her election to the state presidency of Maryland NOW and later when she served eighteen months as the acting minister for the Sojourner Truth Congregation of Unitarian Universalists. Katrina is a full time Wiccan mystic, an ordained minister, and founder of the Reflections Mystery School in Washington, DC.
Board of Directors
Comrades Education is blessed with a small, hands on board of directors.
Andy Banks – former Campaigns Director, International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Heather Fercho – Theravada/Insight practitioner, and leader of Rose City Rebel Dharma meditation group
Ruby Grad – former board member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center
