Alexis Wilson Briggs

Alexis joined the Red Umbrella Fund in 2019 as a Programme Associate and has served as Deputy Coordinator since July 2024.

Alexis was born in California on unceded Patwin territory where she later completed a Bachelors Degree in Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley in 2004 (Ohlone territory). Prior to completing her degree, she worked at the Lusty Lady in San Francisco and was a part of the efforts to unionise the peep show in 1996.

Alexis later moved to Philadelphia (unceded Lenape territory) and earned a Juris Doctor from Temple University School of Law in 2007 and returned to California to work as a criminal defense attorney in private practice for seven years. She provided pro bono mass defense for Occupy Wall Street protestors throughout Northern California and members of Anonymous in the PayPal 14 case in Federal Court.

Compelled by her experience at the Lusty and the overpolicing and incarceration of her communities, she has spent over twenty years seeking to abolish prisons and end enforcement of vice and poverty-based crimes through community activism and allying with non-profits within the criminal justice and drug policy sectors including the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service (ICEERS); Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice; National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and NORML Women’s Alliance (NWA); and Drug Policy Alliance (DPA).

Informed by a multitude of roles as an activist and as an advocate, she supports community-led and harm reductionist theories of change. She speaks English, and basic Dutch and Spanish.`