Ricki Draper

Ricki Draper is a queer anti-Zionist Jewish organizer and licensed acupuncturist from the piedmont of North Carolina. Since 2011, Ricki has worked with a variety of grassroots organizations in Central Appalachia organizing for social and environmental justice. They supported community-led efforts to secure clean and affordable drinking water in Eastern Kentucky; managed grantmaking for a community-controlled social change fund based in east Tennessee; worked in abortion care and reproductive justice; and directed a successful campaign against a top funder of mountaintop removal coal mining. They are a graduate of Justice Funder’s Harmony Initiative Class of 2024-2025 and University of Kentucky’s Community Leadership Institute; and a former Highlander Center Appalachian Transition Fellow. 

Ricki is the co-author of various scholarly and community-based publications including: 

• Drinking Water Affordability in Kentucky | Appalachian Citizens Law Center
• Spatial and seasonal variation in disinfection byproducts concentrations in a rural public drinking water system: A case study of Martin County, Kentucky, USA | PLOS Water
• Making It Home: Solidarity and Belonging in the #NoDAPL/Standing Rock Encampments | Project MUSE
• Land Reform in the Navajo Nation: possibilities of renewal for our people | Diné Policy Institute

At Texas Jail Project, Ricki supports research and data collection/analysis, development, and communications and media work. They publish reports on non-compliant Texas county jails; track and analyze media reporting on bail reform, deaths in custody, the intersection of public health and incarceration, and conditions of confinement; and produce monthly reports on Texas deaths in custody for use in communications and advocacy. 

In their free time, Ricki enjoys hiking with their little dog, Fiddle; spending time with their nibblings; and reading all the books.