Terry Keleher is the Program Director of the Applied Research Center’s Racial Justice Leadership Action Network. With over thirty years of experience in leadership development, community organizing, popular education and strategic coaching, he provides racial justice training and consulting to organizations around the country. He specializes in advancing racial equity and addressing systemic inequities. He is a lead presenter of ARC’s Racial Justice Webinar Series and a frequent presenter at conferences on race issues.

He has authored several reports on race and equity issues, including Leadership & Race: How to Develop and Support Leadership that Contributes to Racial Justice, the Illinois Legislative Report Card on Racial Equity and Facing the Consequences: An Examination of Racial Discrimination in U.S. Public Schools. He has also developed educational resources such as the Racial Equity Impact Assessment Toolkit, the Green Equity Toolkit and Justice by the People: Action Education Workshops for Community Safety and Police Accountability. His writings have appeared in a variety of publications such as Colorlines.com, Yes! Magazine, Critical Issues Forum of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, Leadership Magazine, and Adoptive Families Magazine.

He coordinated the national ERASE Initiative (Expose Racism and Advance School Excellence) and he served in the leadership of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), a national network of white people organizing for racial justice. He has served on the Illinois Editorial Forum and the Human Relations Advisory Committee for the 2040 Chicago Regional Plan. He previously worked as a community organizer with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and was a co-founder of the National Organizer’s Alliance.

Terry has testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the California Senate, and was a national recipient of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition’s Push for Excellence in Education Award. He is a certified executive coach through the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching and a graduate of the Results Management Program of Results/Support Seminars. Terry graduated from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. He is the father of a 9-year old son.