Rev. Cassandra A. Henderson is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Children's Movement (ICM), a child advocacy organization whose mission is to build a multi-faith grassroots advocacy coalition that works to create a Georgia where all children thrive. Rev. Henderson's journey with ICM began in the fall of 2012 as a volunteer while in seminary. After a few years of faithful service, she was invited to serve on its board and did so for seven years. Rev. Henderson's dedication led to an invitation to be the Interim Executive Director in the spring of 2022. By the fall of that year, she was later elected as the Executive Director. Under her leadership, the organization has grown from having a single full-time staff person to a team of four in addition to nine contract, part-time, and seasonal hires. They have formalized, active, and collaborative partnerships with a combined total of 75 faith communities, denominations, and organizations in Georgia. In less than two years as Executive Director, Rev. Henderson has raised just under $1 million for the growing movement.

 

Additionally, Rev. Henderson is an active member of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's Pan African Koinonia (PAK) group and serves as a mentor the RISE Together Women of Color in Ministry National National Mentoring Network. During the fall semesters, Rev. Henderson is an Adjunct Instructor at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, assisting with the Introduction to Preaching course and a first-year seminar course, Learning Communities.

 

Previously, Rev. Henderson served as the Pastor for BTKids + Student Ministries at The Breakthrough Fellowship in Smyrna, GA, Conference Coordinator for The Ellipsis Teen Experience, Conference Coordinator for the RISE Together Mentorship Network for Women of Color Ministry Leaders, and served as the Assistant Pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church where she was the Pastor for Children’s & Youth Ministries (ages 1-18).

 

Rev. Henderson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama & Theatre from Spelman College, where she graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2004.  She went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree (MFA) in Film Production from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California in 2007. In 2015, she completed a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology with a concentration in Leadership in Church and Community and received a certificate in Black Church Studies. Rev. Henderson was ordained at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, the spiritual home of the late Civil Rights trailblazer Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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In 2010, Rev. Henderson was licensed in ministry at the McGee Avenue Baptist Church in Berkeley, California. While in California, she served faithfully in the church and her community.  Her ministry was not limited to the church, and through her combination of art and faith/theology, Rev. Henderson worked with the San Francisco General Hospital Trauma Unit regarding gang and gun violence through a touring piece she co-produced and directed called The Urban Healing Tour, which advocated against gun violence. Rev. Henderson regularly opened her home for women’s Bible studies, feeding the hungry in her community and providing a safe space for reconciliation, mediation, and intervention for at-risk, in-risk, and high-risk youth and young adults.  Her home became known as the “Urban Healing House.”  

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Rev. Henderson has a particular passion for serving society’s most marginalized populations, including the economically and socially oppressed. Since returning to the Metro-Atlanta area in 2011, Rev. Henderson has continued her ministry to the marginalized and served as a volunteer chaplain at Lee Arrendale State Prison in Alto, GA, and has previously volunteered in Juvenile Detention centers while living in California.  In 2013, Rev. Henderson spent 3 months in the Grand Canyon, where she co-led a team of 11 college students from around the US in leading nine worship services each week as part of an internship with A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (ACMNP).  During her stay in the canyon, Rev. Henderson launched a women’s Bible Study for residents and guests and spent time on the Navaho and Hopi reservations.

 

In 2014, Rev. Henderson co-founded the Community Speaks ATL, a platform created to provide spiritual and communal space in response to the death of Michael Brown.  The event received national attention and featured Civil Rights leaders and community activists of all age demographics and was attended by the then Attorney General Eric Holder. She has also led students in demonstrations and protests against racial, educational, economic, and social injustice. She has been a long-standing member of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (GFADP) and has advocated for the life of many death row inmates, including Troy Davis and, more recently, Kelly Gissendaner, whom Rev. Henderson knew personally.

 

Rev. Henderson's ministry is not bound to the United States, in the fall of 2015, Rev. Henderson traveled to the Middle East to study the intersection between the #BlackLivesMatter movement and Palestinian liberation and oppression. She made her second trip to the Holy Land in 2019 as part of a ministerial cohort to make an anthropological journey following the life and ministry of Jesus. In February 2020, Cassandra was part of an intercultural hybrid mission trip to Cuba.

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As an entrepreneur, Rev. Henderson has collaborated to not only create impactful creative work but also establish significant organizations and grow businesses, including being Co-Founder of the Hymns & Hip Hop Conference, The NEW Leadership Academy and Summer Camp, and Two Strand Productions, LLC. She is also the Founder and CEO of Why Not Dream, Inc. and Yardi Entertainment, Inc.

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Rev. Henderson has been the recipient of several awards, including Who’s Who in American Universities in 2004 and 2015, the John W. Rustin Award for preaching, the Berta & James T. Laney Award for ministry, The Peter Games Award for transformation leadership and service, Building & Broadening Horizons for Youth Award,  and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award.

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At the heart of it all, Rev. Henderson is deeply in love with God and God’s people. She is the caregiver to her mother, who is living with Alzheimer's Dementia. Rev. Henderson is the aunt, guardian, and godmother to her nephew Jabari whom she is honored to have raised, and has enjoyed being an aunt to her other five nephews and niece. She is committed to living a life that values all of creation, honors her gifts, God's Spirit, and her truest self. She believes wholeheartedly that with God, nothing is impossible!

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