Jeremiah Camara
Jeremiah Camara will be screening his new film, “Americaste: The Caste Behind the Curtain,” a 1 hour and 15 minute documentary. The FFRF Board member is author of the books “Holy Lockdown: Does The Church Limit Black Progress?” and “New Doubting Thomas: The Bible, Black Folks & Blind Belief.” Camara is a creator of the widely watched YouTube video series, “Slave Sermons.” He is creator of the full-length documentary film, “Contradiction: A Question of Faith,” examining the saturation of churches in African-American communities coexisting with poverty and powerlessness, and director of the documentary film, “Holy Hierarchy: The Religious Roots of Racism in America.” “Holy Hierarchy” explains how the beliefs in a supreme being during colonial America ultimately turned racism into an institution. Previous films are on Amazon Prime Video.
Gigi Cervantes
Gigi Cervantes, who’ll be receiving FFRF’s Civil Rights Heroine Award, was a high school theatre and acting teacher at a fine arts charter school who left her position in protest of the Texas Ten Commandments Statute SB 10. Gigi is a professional actor who has performed for 40-plus years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as well as regionally at the Cleveland Playhouse, Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She also has over 20 years of experience as an acting teacher and has taught classes, camps and workshops at multiple DFW theatre companies. Gigi is also an accomplished singer-songwriter, avid Dallas Cowboys fan, and dog lover who lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband Chris, who is a painter, musician, attorney and constitutional law professor, and their two dogs, Donny Osmond and Bill Murray (Donny & Murray).
Kate Cohen
Kate Cohen, who received FFRF’s “Freethought Heroine” Award at the 2023 convention, is author of “We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (And Maybe You Should Too).” Cohen, who lives in Albany, N.Y., grew up in Virginia and has a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Dartmouth College. Her essays — whether print, online, radio or live — seek to distill observations of family, politics and culture into moments of clarity and insight. She also writes nonfiction documentary scripts, including the Emmy Award-winning “Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero” and the Gold Panda award-winning “How China Works.” She is the author of two other books, “A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding” and “The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival Through My Italian Family.” She speaks Italian and is fluent in food. She was formerly a contributing writer to the Washington Post and now writes a column, “Scratch,” on Substack.
Johnnie D. Cotton
Johnnie Cotton, a Texas native, will receive FFRF’s First Amendment Hero Award after quitting his position as high school band teacher last fall rather than put up a Ten Commandments poster in his classroom. He graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1983 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts and from Texas A&M University in 2005 with a Master’s of Education Administration. He served as a high school principal for nine years in Texas, Alaska and New Mexico, and was director of secondary education for three years in Alaska and Kuwait. He is married to Ruth Cotton, an RN at the Texas State Hospital in Rusk, Texas, has two daughters, a son, two stepdaughters and five grandchildren.
Steven Emmert
The Henry Zumach Freedom From Fundamentalism Religion Award, now at $75,000, will go to the Secular Coalition for America’s Education Fund and be accepted by SCA Executive Director Steven Emmert. The Zumach Award has been solely endowed by a generous Wisconsin state/church activist to recognize and further the work of allies.
Percival Everett
Percival Everett, distinguished professor of English at USC, will receive FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award, reserved for public figures who make known their dissent from religion. His latest novel, “James,” was published in March 2024 to great critical acclaim, winning both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His other titles include “Dr. No” (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award”), “The Trees” (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), “Telephone” (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), “So Much Blue,” “Erasure” and “I Am Not Sidney Poitier.” He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. “American Fiction”, the feature film based on his novel “Erasure,” was released in 2023 and was given the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. For more information on Everett, please visit www.prhspeakers.com.
Jared Huffman
Jared Huffman, a US congressman representing California’s 2nd District, is the only elected official in either house of Congress to admit that he does not believe in God. He founded the Congressional Freethought Caucus, which he cochairs with Congressman Jamie Raskin, to promote sound public policy based on reason, science, and moral values. He received FFRF’s “Emperor Has No Clothes Award” at FFRF’s 2018 convention. His book, “ No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism,” will be released on August 18, 2026, and he will sign copies of the book at the convention.
Peter Isley
Peter Isley, who is receiving FFRF’s Clarence Darrow Award and statuette, is a survivor of childhood sexual assault and abuse by a Roman Catholic priest. He is a co-founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and has spent decades working with survivors, journalists, prosecutors, and human rights advocates to expose clerical abuse and institutional cover-ups — and to press for permanent removal of abusers and the officials who protected them. He lives in Milwaukee.
Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar
Ibtissame Lachgar, known as “Betty,” will be the 2026 recipient of the Avijit Roy Courage Award, which includes a plaque honoring Roy, an atheist killed in Bangladesh in 2015, and $5,000. She has been incarcerated in Salé Prison, Morocco, since August 10, 2025 and was found guilty of “insulting Islam” and sentenced to 30 months prison in early September 2025. The Moroccan atheist, feminist activist and clinical psychologist and psychotherapist was detained after an image of her wearing a t-shirt in London deemed blasphemous was posted on social media. Lachgar (pronounced “Lash-gar”) has specialized in victimology and criminology, graduating in 2000 from the University of Paris V. Living between Rabat, Morocco, and Paris, she is an activist in The Alternative Movement for Individual Liberties (MALI, which means “What’s different about me?” in dialectal Arabic), which she co-founded in 2009. Through MALI she campaigns for human rights, freedom of conscience and worship, LGBT and reproductive rights, among other issues.
Drew McCoy
Drew McCoy is the creator of the Genetically Modified Skeptic YouTube channel, with over 850,000 subscribers. On his channel, you can learn “How to Go to Hell in Every Religion,” why the religious right benefits from debating atheists regardless of who “wins,” and much more. Drew was raised as an Independent Fundamental Baptist, but left religion in 2016 and has been a full-time atheist content creator and activist for the past eight years.
Jim Obergefell
FFRF’s 2026 Forward Award and statuette will go to Jim Obergefell, of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that resulted in victory for marriage equality. With Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Debbie Cenziper, Jim co-authored the book “Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality.” He’s an executive producer on the multimedia “JustMarried” project to save and share the stories of couples, activists and allies who helped make marriage equality a reality legally, legislatively, and culturally over the span of seven decades and a dedicated civil rights activist.
Ron Reagan
Ron Reagan, the “unabashed atheist, not afraid of burning in hell,” who kindly recorded a recent much-censored TV commercial for FFRF, is the liberal son of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. He dropped out of Yale to become a ballet dancer, joining Joffrey Ballet Company. He is an actor and TV and radio personality. He does commentary, including for MSNBC and “Both Sides Now,” and is the author of “My Father at 100.” He serves as an honorary director of FFRF. He has previously received FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award and addressed the convention in Seattle in 2009 and in Madison, Wis. in 2015.
Forrest Valkai
Forrest Valkai is a biologist and a science communicator known for his infectious enthusiasm and boundless love for life. He holds master’s degrees in biomedical sciences and anthropology, four undergraduate degrees in biology and education, and is currently a Ph.D. student studying biochemistry and molecular biology. You can find him on YouTube and TikTok, hosting shows such as “SkepTalk” and “The Atheist Experience”, or by visiting his website at valkailabs.com.
Jennifer Welch
FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Awardee will be Jennifer Welch, open atheist and co-creator and co-host of the hit podcast “I’ve Had It,” a podcast now reaching over 3 million listeners a month. Its YouTube channel generates 150 million-plus monthly views. Since launching the show in 2022 with Angie “Pumps” Sullivan, Welch has helped build a franchise that consistently ranks among Apple’s top Society & Culture podcasts. Welch has interviewed guests ranging from President Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris to comedians Nikki Glaser and Billy Eichner and drag icons Trixie Mattel and Katya. Journalist Mehdi Hasan recently described her as “perhaps the most influential woman in the Democratic Party right now.” Welch also co-hosts the daily news series IHIP News and is the co-author of “Life Is a Lazy Susan of Sh*t Sandwiches.”
Maya Wiley
Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund, will receive a Champion of Civil Rights award. A nationally respected civil rights attorney, she has been a litigator, program creator and policy advocate in philanthropy, nonprofits, government and higher education. She ran for mayor of New York in 2021, garnering the second highest number of first choice votes in a rank choice vote election. In 2014, she became the first Black woman to be counsel to a New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, and worked to protect and expand civil rights. She was senior vice president for social justice at the New School University, where she founded the Digital Equity Laboratory. Wiley has been a litigator at the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc., and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Wiley has received numerous awards, and has been a public voice for rights, justice and democracy. Wiley is the author of the memoir, “Remember You Are A Wiley.”
Randi Weingarten
Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, a union of 1.8 million individuals, will be speaking and signing copies of her new book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers.” Prior to her election as AFT president in 2008, Weingarten served for 11 years as president of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2, worked as a lawyer on Wall Street and taught history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn. Weingarten was included in Washingtonian’s 2022 Washington’s Most Influential People. Weingarten holds degrees from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Cardozo School of Law.
