Dr. Carroll A. Watkins Ali is a pastoral/public theologian. Her seminal text in womanist pastoral theology, Survival and Liberation: Pastoral Theology in African American Context, is widely used. Currently, Dr. Watkins Ali is the executive director of Greater Denver Interfaith Alliance and the founder and CEO of Watkins Ali & Associates, which is a consulting firm.  She is also the convener of the “Above Ground Emancipation Movement”, which is a national collaborative effort to develop, implement and replicate a communal system of care to impact the mental and spiritual healing of Black people in this country.  She opted out of a tenure track teaching position in the Academy to go into the trenches to bring her own theories to practice in the African American context and she has never regretted it to this day.  She has felt the urgings of the Ancestors to see “a brighter coming day” — to see the survival and liberation of  the descendants of Africans stolen from the Motherland and  brutally enslaved in this country.  Survival is recovery of ourselves as a whole people; Liberation is self-determination of ourselves and the ability to transform the society we live in.  The legacy that she wants to leave for her children and grandchildren is: “A Sister who found her freedom, walked in it and inspired others to do the same. “