STAFF
Executive Director, Cyrus Wilson
Cyrus has been a champion of social justice for over 20 years in Nashville. His passion has been advocating against the system to create unique avenues for educating our youth about systematic disparities. In a series of legal petitions, he has created supportive legislation in opposition to some of the legal systems' most biased and prejudicial practices. As an impacted victim of systematic injustice, he brings an open and honest view of the criminal legal system from the impacted perspective.
Before joining our team as Participant Coordinator, Cyrus was the first participant in NCBF's internship program with American Baptist College a Historically Black College or University. During his time as NCBF's intern, Cyrus bailed people out of jail and provided administrative support. Cyrus is currently on the President's List, and he will graduate from American Baptist College in 2023.
Cyrus is the visionary behind NCBF's Community Connect Program. The Community Connect Program provides cell phones to people we bail out so they can communicate with their family and friends while staying up-to-date on their court dates. Cyrus is dedicated to mitigating the harm of money bail by posting bail for community members so they can return to their lives. Additionally, Cyrus coordinates with NCBF participants and their families to help them navigate their cases and attend court.
In addition to his social justice work, Wilson is an entrepreneur. He founded or co-founded several businesses, including his clothing brand in 1987. He is an aspiring writer who has been credited with a live production play hosted at Nashville Auditorium. His hobbies include basketball, lifting weights, and anything to do with automotive buying, selling, and trading.
Bail Fund/Participant Coordinator, Reggie Williams
Reggie is a Nashville native who grew up on all sides of town in the most policed and incarcerated areas. Reggie knows well what divestment from community resources and overinvestment in policing and jails can do to a community. Reggie experienced a dysfunctional home environment and a school system that lacked the tools and skills to support him as a young person. After getting into trouble at 19, Reggie decided to devote his life to community service to prevent this from happening to other people.
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Reggie is working to be the change he wants to see in the world through his involvement in community efforts that focus on mentoring young people and providing opportunities for youth to access education. Reggie is also a business owner. Through his business, he builds relationships with community members. Reggie is also a student at American Baptist College, where he is on the Dean's list.
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As the NCBF Fellow, Reggie works part-time to post bail for community members the court would otherwise confine to pretrial detention. Reggie is committed to using his gifts and talents for the benefit of our communities. In Reggie's own words "I hope that money bail will be eradicated and that justice will be based on truth and not a lie. That our communities will be places of unity and not criminality. At the Nashville Community Bail Fund, we will make sure justice is a universal phenomenon. Let's allow freedom to be our mantra and our mission. God be with us!"
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
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JOAN SHAYNE
Joan has long been a volunteer reading tutor with young children. She came to understand that the children she was tutoring (and whose innate talents she recognized) might well be on the school-to-prison pipeline if they couldn’t read on grade level by end of third grade. She landed on the idea of a community bail fund for those sent to jail upon arrest just because they could not afford bail. With the hard work and coordination of many others, particularly her friend Martin Brown, the NCBF was formed. Joan continues to study and remain active as an advocate on criminal justice issues and is hoping to help find a way to end that school-to-prison pipeline.
DR. ROSEVELT L. NOBLE
Rosevelt Noble attended Vanderbilt University and completed a Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in Sociology and Human & Organizational Development. In 2003, he completed a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt in Sociology with a dissertation entitled, Race Matters: Black Rage in the American Prison System.
A scholar of the American criminal justice system, he has publications pertaining to the interracial dynamics of prison violence, racial disparities in incarceration sentences, and he is currently working on a publication examining racial bias in the jury selection process in capital punishment cases. He has worked as a quantitative research consultant for the Tennessee Department of Corrections, the Federal Prosecutors Office, and several law firms.
In the fall of 2002, he started teaching in the Vanderbilt Sociology Department as a Senior Lecturer while simultaneously working at the Tennessee Higher Education Commission as the Director of the Workforce Investment Act. After leaving state government in 2014, he continued teaching at Vanderbilt and became a Senior Fellow at The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt. In 2017, he was named Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt.
REVEREND DAVIE TUCKER
Reverend Tucker is the Pastor of Beech Creek Missionary Baptist Church and currently serves as the Coordinator of Alumni Affairs for American Baptist College. He is the President of the Interdenominational Ministers Fellowship, a member of the Nashville Baptist Ministers Conference and director of the Center for Equity, Change and Sustainability, and a Commissioner on the Metro Human Relations Commission. He is also the founder and chairperson of the Center for Imagination, Inc., an after school program focusing on at-risk youth.
Reverend Tucker strongly believes that the criminal justice system in America is wealth-based and negatively and disproportionately impacts persons who are resource challenged. He is committed to system reform and advocacy for those adversely affected.
DR. CRAIG PHILIP
Dr. Craig Philip is Research Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Transportation Center at Vanderbilt University; his research focus includes infrastructure sustainability and resilience, transport safety and regulatory policy.
He came to Nashville in 1982 to join Ingram Industries and was CEO of their Marine Transport businesses until his retirement in 2014. He began his career with Conrail and later Southern Pacific Railroads, after earning a PHD from MIT and Bachelors degree from Princeton. He is active in numerous professional societies and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2014. Professor Philip has been actively engaged in campus worked involving mental health and social justice and is presently involved with the Vanderbilt Prison Project as Faculty Advisor and the Advisory Board for the Vanderbilt Recovery Support Program.
In the community he has served on the Boards of the Rochelle Center, Franklin Road Academy, and the Nashville Civic Design Center. He currently serves on the Boards of Cumberland Heights, the Cumberland River Compact, the National Waterways Foundation and Seamen’s Church Institute.
TRACEY SHAFROTH
Tracey Shafroth has worked as a philanthropy advisor to family foundations across the country for the past three decades. Her current philanthropy work is focused on criminal justice, climate change, food waste and land conservation. She has worked in Nashville since 2013 and helped to establish the Nashville Community Bail Fund in 2014. She serves on the Michigan Advisory Board of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, on the Midwest Council of the National Parks Conservation Association, as a board member of the Nashville Community Bail Fund, as a fellow with the Keller Science Action Center at the Field Museum, as a strategic advisor to the Vital Lands Program of the Grand Victoria Foundation, and as a volunteer for Freshwater Futures.