
Rev. Dr. Charles F. Boyer
Founding Director
The Reverend Dr. Charles Franklin Boyer is a third-generation African Methodist Episcopal preacher. He is the pastor of Bethel A.M.E. Church in Woodbury, New Jersey, and the founder of Salvation and Social Justice, a non-partisan Black faith-rooted organization that believes liberation should precede legislation and prophetic vision should precede public policy.
Dr. Boyer is a leading faith voice in New Jersey for racial justice issue, the campaign to abolish the drug war and the criminalization of Black people. His advocacy has led to the statewide adoption of racial impact analysis for sentencing, closure of youth prisons, voting rights restoration for people on probation and parole, the independent prosecutor law, and restricting solitary confinement. He led the campaign to free thousands of incarcerated people from New Jersey’s deadly prisons due to the coronavirus, making it the largest singular decarceration event in the state’s history.
Charles works closely with the Black Legislative Caucus and is a co-convener of the United Black Agenda and the NJ Black Multi-Faith Alliance. He has been recognized as one of New Jersey’s 25 most influential African Americans by the South Jersey Journal, a Game Changer by the NAACP, a Torch Bearer by the ACLU, a Movement Maker by NJ Working Families, and a Community Servant by NJ Citizen Action. He has been recognized by the NJ Work Environment Council and received the Making Democracy Work award by the League of Women Voters. He was named #4 on the “Twenty-Five People to Watch in 2019” by NJ Advanced Media for his work around police accountability and is a 2020 Jefferson Award recipient.
He is married to Rosalee and they have three children; Shaina, Kyle, and Jayden. More than anything, Rev. Boyer is passionate about the spiritual disciplines especially prayer and meditation. He rises early every morning to commune with God and seek guidance. His favorite scripture is Psalms 27:13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed, that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Rosalee Boyer, MHS
Co-Founder, Deputy Director
Rosalee Boyer has many years of experience in the legislative arena. She has worked closely with legislative officials and their offices to organize and plan events and public forums. She has corresponded with agencies on behalf of constituents to settle community related issues. Rosalee is considered the minister of "organization and planning" for Salvation and Social Justice. She is the First Lady at Bethel A.M.E. Church. She has a passion for education, Rosalee has developed and organized off-campus adult continuing education programs. She served over 15 years as a faculty academic advisor in higher education. Her favorite scripture is, "The Lord is my light and my salvation- whom shall I Fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life- of whom shall I be afraid?" Psalm 27:1

Rev. Dr. Robin Tanner
Chief Strategy Officer
Reverend Dr. Robin Tanner is the Minister of Worship and Outreach at Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Summit, NJ. She is a founding partner in Launchpad, a learning collective powering progressive faith communities. Rev. Tanner has a M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School and a Doctorate in Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion. She organizes with Repairers of the Breach and co-convenes the NJ Prophetic Agenda.

Amber Scott
Communications Director
Amber is currently in her third year at Duke Divinity School. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating from Penn, Amber followed her call to ministry and launched the 20/30 Something's Young Adult ministry at Union Baptist Church in Trenton, NJ. During this same year she also launched her career at the National Basketball Association. While at the league, she managed various global partnerships and marketing campaigns for sponsors such as Nike and Gatorade. Amber also co-founded the NBAʼs first-ever Black Employee Network called Dream in Color. Dream in Color assists with the employee professional development, promotes cultural dexterity, and generates local community impact. Amber worked at the NBA for five years before enrolling at Duke Divinity in the Fall of 2018.
At Duke, Amber is the Vice President of the Black Seminarians Union, incoming Co-President for the Duke Divinity Student Body, and she coordinates communication and marketing efforts for Duke Divinity Office of External Relations. She is pursuing a Master of Divinity with certificates in “Faith-based Organizing, Advocacy, and Social Transformation” and “Black Church Studies.” Amber is passionate about the intersection of faith, social justice, and communication/marketing.

Rev. Lori Person-Baynard
Theology & Public Policy Director
Rev. Lori answered the call to ministry in her early twenties and has served in almost every facet of church life. Lori was ordained in 2004, and she served as a Christian Education Teacher, trustee, Elder, intercessor and Pastor. Lori is an advocate for education, firmly believing that it is one of the essential keys to liberation. Lori served as an Affiliate Faculty Member of Eastern University’s School of Leadership and Development where she directed the US program and taught various leadership courses to students in the Master of Organizational Leadership Program. She formerly volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), where she advocated for abused and neglected children in NJ. She also served as a committee member of the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office of Faith Based Initiatives, New Conversation on Race and Ethnicity (NewCORE), which is a multi-racial, interfaith body of people striving to become one through conversations on race and ethnicity.
Currently. Rev. Lori also serves as the Director of Theology and Public Policy for Salvation and Social Justice under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Charles Boyer. Lori is also a Lead Advocate of the Advocacy Committee of Woman of Color in Ministry under the leadership of Dr, Martha J. Simmons. Rev. Lori serves as a United Nations Woman who helps solve geopolitical problems that women face both nationally and internationally. Lori was thrusted into Prison Ministry where she speaks, conducts workshops, and facilitates community meetings with returning citizens. Lori holds a BA degree in Political Science and a Master of Public Administration degree from Rutgers University. She also holds a Master of Theological Studies degree in Faith and Public Policy from Palmer Theological Seminary. Lori’s most prominent roles are that of wife to Rev. Paul Baynard and mother to Alex and Aaliyah.

Gantry Fox
Police Accountability Director
Gantry Fox graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Criminal Justice with a concentration in African American Studies from Rowan University; as well as a Master’s of Public Health from Drexel University. He possesses over 17 years of experience in the criminal justice social work field and has dedicated his career to those with just and unjust forensic backgrounds. He currently serves as director of several diversionary court programs in Philadelphia working in partnership with First Judicial District officials and staff.
Gantry has been a racial justice advocate since his early high school and collegiate years serving in elected positions with the NAACP and other minority centered organizations. He currently serves Phi Beta Sigma Incorporated as the Director of Social Action for the Gloucester County Alumni Chapter driving service, engagement, and elevation of local disadvantaged communities. Gantry continues to do the same in his role on the NJ Environmental Justice Advisory Council and in his affiliation with the NJ Environmental Justice Alliance.
Gantry is most invested in encouraging systemic changes in the current state of policing in an effort to liberate black and brown citizens from both implicit/explicit racial bias and alleviate physical/mental abuse. He believes anything less is to condone arbitrary use of power and control against the defenseless which helps to sustain oppressive governing. His missionary scripture is 1 Corinthians 10:23-24, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another’s wealth.” Gantry is married to Melissa Fox and they have three children: Angelina, Aalliya, and Richa

Rev. Amos Caley
Abolition Campaign Director
Amos is the Associate Pastor of Worship and Faith Engagement at the Reformed Church of Highland Park. He is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and the Rutgers School of Social Work. Amos is committed to the work of building coalitions and programs to address social and racial injustice, particularly in the criminal justice system, and he serves as the lead organizer of the New Jersey Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (NJ-CAIC). He has also worked closely with NeighborCorps Reentry Services, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care. Amos and his spouse Sarah are the proud parents of Leo, Elory, and Ira.

Rev. Sammy Arroyo
Equity in Education Director
Sammy Arroyo grew up in Puerto Rico and received a BA in Education from the University of Puerto Rico. He worked for five years as a High School Social Studies teacher in Puerto Rico. Sammy received his MDiv from Princeton Theological Seminary in 2009 and is currently working on his Phd. dissertation in Christian thought at the Interamerican University in Puerto Rico, where he focuses on studying the first stages of the development of an anti-African slave theology in the Caribbean during the 16th and 17th century. First by studying how Spain and Portugal built an African slavery structure through their respective Crowns and with the help of the Catholic Church, and how they developed a pro-slavery theology in Europe and then translated it to the Caribbean. This happened through legislation from the Crown and church practices (and church legislation) in these centuries. Sammy will bring to the front the historical figures that opposed African slavery by analyzing their sermons, letters, books and Inquisition trials. He will highlight the movements during those centuries that opposed African slavery and the leading voices of the time.
Sammy serves as part of The United Methodist Church of GNJ Board of Church and Society and is part of the Immigration Task Force for the same denomination's conference. In the Spring of 2018 he served as co-chair of the Faith Communities Outreach Committee of the Poor People's Campaign in NJ.
Sammy Arroyo believes his faith moves him to advocate for those who are oppressed in our society. He has been actively speaking at rallies and conferences in the state of New Jersey, advocating for immigrant rights and opposing family separations, not just at the border but for the ones also happening all over the nation.
One of Sammy's goals is to help faith leaders in formulating a social moral argument for the poor and oppressed in their communities.
He enjoys good coffee, good friendships, and reading. He is married to the Reverend Dr. Joy Arroyo, Phd, and is blessed with a five-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl.

Rev. Bryan McAllister
Black Church Affairs
Reverend Bryan S. McAllister was born in Wilmington, Delaware and is the oldest son of Rev. Dr. Patricia S. McAllister and the late Reverend Charles E. McAllister. He currently serves as the Pastor of Heard A.M.E. Church, Roselle, New Jersey.
After attending Norfolk State University for three years, McAllister entered the United States Air Force where he served in England, Turkey, Japan and Iraq over a period of six years, receiving numerous commendations and awards. McAllister matriculated from the University of Maryland University College, graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Criminal Justice. He graduated with distinction in May 2018 from Payne Theological Seminary, Wilberforce, with a Master of Divinity Degree.
McAllister is the Founder of “My Life Matters,” a mentorship program for young boys ages 10-17and as a Group Leader within the Support Homeless Veterans Organization in Philadelphia, leading weekly prayer and Bible Study meetings with military veterans.
Reverend Bryan S. McAllister is married to Kamaria M. Byrd-McAllister, currently a second-year student at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J.
Because he believes that only what we do for Christ will last, his ministry is summed up with one verse, Matthew 6:1 which says: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”

Grace Appiah
Youth Coalition Coordinator
Grace is a daughter, sister, soul friend, loving aunt, native of Ghana and a resident of Newark, Jersey. She graduated with two Bachelors of Arts in Public Administration and African American and African Studies with a Social Justice Concentration from Rutgers University-Newark. During her years in college, Grace was a scholar of the Honors Living and Learning Community (HLLC); a residential scholarship that helps to cultivate social justice leaders to make local and global impact. As a part of the inaugural cohort of the BOLD Women’s Leadership Program, she helped to implement a transformation project to bring awareness of sexual violence on campus. In addition, she served as the Community Outreach Senator of the Student Governing Association and mentored freshman students through HLLC and the Bonner’s Leaders Program. In college, Jesus met Grace in her questions about her passion for social justice and her faith. She then came to the realization about the deep intersection between the Gospel of Jesus and social justice. She then helped to co-create Intervarsity Newark Black Campus Ministry to help bridge the gap between the Black identity and Christian spirituality as well as hold the space to discuss issues that affect the Black community on campus.
Through travel, activism, and service, Grace has exchanged cultures and connected with people in Curacao, India, Cuba, Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico. She also studied abroad at the University of Cape Town, South Africa during the fall 2019 semester and focused on African and Gender Studies through the Gilman Scholarship. Currently, she is pursuing a one-year fellowship with Salvation and Social Justice as the Coordinator of our Youth Coalition through the BOLD Women’s Leadership Program. This fellowship aims to financially support graduating BOLD scholars and enabling them to serve and work with an organization that aligns with their purpose and passions as well as BOLD’s commitment to advancing progressive social change and fostering equitable and inclusive communities. Grace chose to work with Salvation and Social Justice to deeply understand the spiritual and physical aspects of prayerful activism from a policy perspective. Grace’s deepest desire and prayer is to help create spaces, opportunities, and resources of discipleship for Black people to experience Jesus for themselves, understand and practice prayerful resistance and truly be free in the land of the living. Lastly, one of her favorite Bible verses is: Luke 4:18, NIV, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind and set the oppressed free.”

Marilyn W. Whittington
Finance & Administration
Marilyn Whittington graduated with a bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She has many years of experience in the financial arena which includes positions as branch manager for PSFS, Mellon Bank and H& R Block.
Bethel A.M.E. Church of Woodbury is Marilyn's church home where she serves as Financial Secretary. Her duties include developing a church budget, recording the income and expenses of the church and preparing financial reports at all levels of the church - local, district and Episcopal.
Marilyn is married to Elwood Whittington. They have one son, two grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Marilyn's hobbies are traveling with her husband, cooking, reading, and doll collecting.
Her favorite quote is "To God be the glory for the great things He has done."