Naomi Washington-Leapheart
Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart is a Black queer preacher, teacher, movement strategist, and justice advocate. She is an adjunct professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University and Arcadia University, and was the Government Fellow for Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School from 2022 to 2024. Rev. Naomi also serves as the first-ever Strategic Partnerships Director at Political Research Associates (PRA), a social justice research and strategy center that provides strategic insights and actionable research that identifies, disrupts, and competes with movements and institutions that undermine democracy, justice, and human rights. In 2021, Rev. Naomi founded Salt | Yeast | Light, an organization that develops spaces of spiritual education, disruption, reflection, transformation, and public action.
Upcoming Programs by Naomi Washington-Leapheart
Octavia as Prophet
June 12 - 14, 2026
Searching for New Suns: Engaging the Prophetic Wisdom and Imagination of Octavia E. Butler
June 12 - 14, 2026
Award-winning science fiction and speculative fiction writer Octavia Estelle Butler said, "There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns." Butler's stories, grounded in human vulnerability and human agency, anticipated the current chaos of our time. During this retreat, we will explore what Butler's words can teach us about identity, survival, community, […]
New Suns Cohort
June 12, 2026 - June 13, 2027
“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns." -- Octavia Estelle Butler In this in-depth, year-long program based on Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, we will apprentice ourselves to Butler’s main character, the brilliant visionary organizer Lauren Olamina. Together, we will plumb these prophetic novels […]