Ría Thompson-Washington (they/themme) is an anti-racist activist, Afro-Latine, Queer, nonbinary feminist living on unceded Piscataway and Anacostean land known as Washington, DC. They have spent over twenty years organizing and training Black and Latine people, working on various campaigns in the Labor movement to Occupy Wall Street, and more recently, providing legal support to Movements. They are the president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild.
In 2015, Ría joined the National Lawyers Guild as a law student member. An active board member of the DC NLG chapter, Ría is also a legal observer, coordinator, and trainer. They serve on the NLG’s Mass Defense Steering Committee, the Executive Council (EC), and the NLG Foundation. In 2021, Ría was awarded Legal Worker of the Year by the National Lawyers Guild for their work training legal observers across the country during the Uprisings of 2020 that erupted after the murder of George Floyd, and Hulu made a short documentary about Ría’s work as a legal support organizer and trainer.
Ría is the Associate Director of Advocacy and Organizing at Bread for the City in Washington, DC. Before joining Bread, they worked at the Redress Movement (Digital Organizing Director), Center for Popular Democracy (Senior Manager, Voting Rights & Democracy Campaigns), Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Senior National Organizer, Voting Rights Project), and NAACP Legal Defense Fund (Paralegal/Litigation Assistant).