Shawné Lee serves as an advisor to the board of directors and is the spiritual center of Friends of Abolitionist Place. Shawné is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and later migrated to Los Angeles, where she pursued a business degree at the United Business Institute, graduating at the head of her class. She later relocated to New York City, where she honed her skills in West African Dance. In 2003 she co-founded the Maat Organic Summer Camp, where the children were instructed in dance, drumming, drama, martial arts, and cultural enrichment. Shawné is also the founder and CEO of BlackEmpress368 Enterprise, a network of conscious performing artists, photographers, and models, providing them with media exposure, and employment through shows and concerts. She was the Cultural Arts Coordinator for Ifetayo Cultural Arts Academy and is a former member of Seewe' Drum & Dance Ensemble, and Forces of Nature Dance Theater Company. Since the recent passing of Shawné's mother and best friend Joy Chatel, she has combined her talents to continue her mother’s dream of saving and preserving the family home, 227 Abolitionist Place, from developers, through lecture demonstrations at schools, libraries, festivals, and other events. It was Mama Joy’s vision to create a historical museum and cultural arts center within the home. Prior to Joy’s death, she often gave tours in the basement, showing people who traveled as far as Japan and Germany the actual tunnels through which enslaved Africans and indentured servants sought refuge. The house was also used for rehearsals, fundraisers, workshops, and events. It is within that same spirit that Shawné continues her mother’s legacy.

Raul Rothblatt serves as a founding board member and vice-chairperson of Friends of Abolitionist Place. Raul moved to NYC in 1993, and finished his MFA in Musical Theater Composition from the Tisch School of Arts in 1995. He is the manager and cellist of Kakande, a 9 piece band playing the Mande music led by balafonist Famoro Dioubate, a griot from Guinea, West Africa. He plays bass with Életfa Hungarian Folk at venues ranging from the Hungarian House in UES and with the NY Philharmonic at Lincoln Center. He has been an activist for Downtown Brooklyn Abolitionist history since 2004, and is a fervent advocate for reframing Brooklyn's Abolitionist/Black history as central to the American Civil Rights movement—it should be celebrated as widely at the Harlem Renaissance. A close friend of Mama Joy and her family, he has also been the informal liaison between Abolitionist Place advocates and the academic community. As Co-President of the PS9 Brooklyn Parent Teacher Organization, he led the efforts to rename the school after Sarah Smith Garnet. He manages the Brooklyn Mishpucha Facebook group, which is the living history effort of the Brooklyn Jewish Historical Initiative. He is currently the Director of Constituent Services for Assemblyman Brian Cunningham. A father of two, his wife is a librarian at Brooklyn Public Library and they are all active members of Kolot Chayeinu.

Aleah Bacquie Vaughn is a founding board member and co-chairperson of Friends of Abolitionist Place. Aleah serves as Executive Director of the Circle of Justice Innovations Fund, and was previously Deputy Director at the American Committee on Africa and The Africa Fund, where she championed the release of political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, and divestment from companies doing business with South Africa’s apartheid government. In South Africa, Aleah worked for the South African Council of Churches to decrease violence in the East Rand; on the Independent Electoral Commission, to educate communities about voting in the country’s historic first democratic elections; for the World Council on Religion and Peace, which first called for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and for the Women’s Development Foundation, which supported electing women to national government. Returning to the US in 1996, Aleah worked on the Jubilee campaign to cancel African debt, and demand HIV/AIDS medication for African countries. As Director of Social Justice Ministries for Riverside Church, she supervised 13 social justice ministries, including The Sharing Fund, and Prison Ministry. She also co-created the Prison Family Support Group and Sojourners, a ministry to support and advocate for releasing people detained in U.S. facilities. She then served as the Director of Grants and Training at the Peace Development Fund. Aleah is the granddaughter of Irene Morgan, of the Morgan v. Virginia Supreme Court decision against segregation in interstate travel. The Freedom Rides supported her case. Aleah is the proud, fierce mother of two black boys.

Justin C. Cohen serves as a founding board member and treasurer of Friends of Abolitionist Place. Justin is a writer, activist, community organizer, public policy expert, and nonprofit executive. In 2016 he co-founded, and served as chief operating officer of, Wayfinder Foundation, which provides micro-grants to community activists working in historically marginalized communities. His work as a writer has appeared in The New York Times, Bklyner, Education Week, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and HuffPost. Previously, he served as president of Boston-based education nonprofit Mass Insight Education, as chief strategy officer of Cambiar Education, and as a senior advisor to the chancellor at the DC Public Schools. He founded the anti-gun violence campaign #PoliticizeMyDeath and has organized with Racial Justice BK, Get Organized Brooklyn, Brooklyn Shows Love, and Equality 4 Flatbush. He was a founding board member of the youth activist network Our Turn and is a strategic advisor to the YVote network of youth civic activists across New York City. In 2020 he ran for the New York State Assembly in central Brooklyn, on a platform of radical abolition. He has been a writer in residence at the Carey Institute for the Global Good, an Organizer in Residence at Civic Hall, and a fellow of the Broad Academy. He served on the education policy committee for President Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and holds a BA in Cognitive Science from Yale.

Tricia Olayinka Ben-Davies has been an advocate for Abolitionist Place since learning about the movement to save the home in 2019. She serves as Board Secretary. Born in Brooklyn, she is first-generation Sierra Leonian, of Krio heritage. Her parents grew up in its capital, Freetown, established by liberated Africans, Jamaican Maroons and Abolitionists.  She is the co-founder of Flatbush Mixtape, a grassroots mutual aid organization that supports neighbors through food access, resource distribution and relationship building. Tricia is the host of Rose child healing, a podcast for adult survivors of childhood sexual assault. Tricia's work aims to take a holistic approach to the effects of gentrification through storytelling, media, art, and community-led activism.