Highlander Welcomes Vonda McDaniel and Garrett Stark as Incoming Co-Executive Directors
The Highlander Research and Education Center is excited to announce Highlander’s new co-executive directors Vonda McDaniel and Garrett Stark.
Following an extensive year-long leadership search and a participatory transition process led by Strategies for Social Change along with Highlander’s Board and Staff, Vonda and Garrett will formally join Highlander as our new Co-Executive Directors in February 2026 as an established leadership team with more than 50 years of combined experience in grassroots organizing, leadership development, and movement building in the South.
Vonda is a lifelong Southerner from Nashville, TN, who has served as President of the Central Labor Council of Nashville/Middle TN since 2013 and as a Vice President of the AFL-CIO since 2017. The Central Labor Council of Nashville/Middle TN under McDaniel’s leadership has been an incubator for experimentation and innovation during a decade marked by transformative work that expanded Labor’s voice in the community. Vonda’s leadership included extensive involvement in community initiatives focused on equitable access to resources, solidarity economies, and a commitment to transparency and democratic values. Prior to these roles, Vonda was an active organizer, educator and union member for more than 30 years.
Garrett knows ordinary people can win extraordinary things together. As a strategic campaigner based in Western North Carolina, he has over 20 years of experience building effective worker- and community-led organizations. He has helped multi-racial groups of low-wage workers win life-changing victories in industries ranging from local car washes, to construction, to big tech. Through collective action, direct action, and coalition building, Garrett has helped win first contracts, back wages, community-benefit agreements, and legislative wins. He effectively builds on traditional organizing models while experimenting and innovating to reimagine what is possible. His work has repeatedly intersected with Highlander’s regional solidarity network—notably when mobilizing faith communities to support H-2B workers escaping working at gunpoint, and supporting a community campaign and strike following five worker fatalities at a single general contractor site.
Vonda and Garrett’s 15-plus years of collaboration has spanned many initiatives, including a particularly impactful partnership during Vonda’s tenure as President of the Central Labor Council (CLC) of Nashville and Middle TN. Together they substantially expanded the organization’s capacity with a shared campaign-oriented vision that recruited thousands of affiliated union members, while simultaneously increasing affiliate dues. This joint effort led to a remarkable transformation of the CLC, moving it from an entirely volunteer structure to a staffed organization with a lasting legacy of growth and impact. Several community-labor initiatives have grown directly out of this foundational work.
From Vonda McDaniel:
“The success of our partnership directly reflects Highlander’s core values in action. We know the power of collective action and collective leadership firsthand. We embody that, and find strength in our established intergenerational, multi-racial, and multi-gender leadership team.”
From Garrett Stark:
“For us, the principle that we are stronger together is not abstract. Movement work is deeply personal for both of us, and we are honored to continue our shared track record of transformative capacity building and collective leadership at this organization that means so much to each of us and our movement communities.”
In a joint statement, they shared:
“Highlander provides a vital Southern platform from which to directly confront the escalating dangers of global fascism, oligarchy, and nationalism, through strategic organizing and inclusive coalition building. This moment requires urgency as social movements face determined rollback by those who would return us to an era of profound inequality and oppression – we are prepared and determined to scale up our movements to hasten transformative justice in our communities, grounded in the history of struggle that Highlander has bravely challenged for over nine decades.”
Vonda and Garrett join Highlander as Co-Executive Directors following transitional leadership helmed by Allyn Maxfield-Steele and Salimah Muhammad, and previously Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson.
For seven years, Highlander was led by the Co-Executive Director team of Allyn Maxfield-Steele and Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson whose many extraordinary contributions include:
- strategically guiding the institution through direct attacks to our organization and movements,
- exponentially growing our staff capacity and programming,
- regaining parcels of our historic original home,
- establishing one of movement’s most robust community safety teams, and
- co-establishing the Southern Power Fund that funds organizations throughout the region.
For the last year, Co-Executive Directors Allyn Maxfield-Steele and Salimah Muhammad served as a transitional leadership team preparing the organization for new leadership. Salimah Muhammad will remain at Highlander following the transition in her previous role as Chief Financial Officer.
Board Co-Chair Loan Tran states: “We are immensely grateful for the powerful leadership of Allyn, Ash-Lee, and Salimah that has significantly grown Highlander’s strength and impact through an intense period of rapid shifts and threats to our communities. Their contributions to Highlander’s work and to movement building are immeasurable and have built an incredible foundation for Vonda and Garrett to grow and build upon.”
“Vonda and Garrett have been in deep relationship with Highlander through their community organizing work for many years,” Highlander Board Co-Chair Adrian Reyna Chavoya shares. “We have seen their brilliance and shared commitment to grassroots organizing in the South, and we are excited to welcome them as Highlander’s Co-Executive Directors in this critical movement moment.”
With appreciation,
Highlander’s Board of Directors