Good God Project

Faithful Dissent: What Would an Upstander Do? with Lee Michaels

Lee Michaels was already helping families outside the Dallas ICE field office with hugs, diapers, and rent checks when she decided to reactivate her law license. After years away from practice, she began filing habeas petitions for detained immigrants, only to watch the law change four times in a single case.

In this conversation, she and George Mason talk about what she has witnessed at the weekly vigil and the respite tent, why immigration courts are failing to deliver due process, and how a video call between a detained father and his daughter felt like ministry. Lee also explains how the Holocaust museum’s call to be an upstander became her moral compass, and why she believes anyone can be one, including parents who want their children to learn it.

Lee Michaels is a retired Dallas corporate attorney and former board chair of the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. She now handles immigration habeas cases and volunteers at the respite tent behind the Dallas ICE field office, supporting the work led by La Colectiva.

advocacy, equality, Faith, Immigration, Social justiceGood God ProjectOctober 15, 2026Dissent, Human Rights

Faithful Dissent: Hadi Jawad on Dignity, Human Rights, and the Death Penalty

Hadi Jawad's path into activism began with a phone call. In the late 1990s, his sister in Pakistan told him that relatives from Iraq had shown up at her door, having walked the distance to escape the suffering caused by US and UN sanctions. That call set him on a path that led him to the old Dallas Peace Center and eventually to co-founding Human Rights Dallas, an organization built around a simple conviction: dignity is the foundation everything else rests on.

In this conversation, Hadi and George Mason talk about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the long push to get Dallas designated a Human Rights City, and why Hadi believes denying people basic rights is ultimately a judgment on their humanity. The conversation turns to the death penalty in Texas, where Hadi lays out the statistics on executions and racial disparities on death row, and closes with a reminder that one person, like Rosa Parks, can shift the world.

Hadi Jawad is a Dallas-based human rights activist and community leader with decades of experience advancing peace and justice. He co-founded the Crawford Peace House during the Iraq War and helped establish the North Texas Civil Rights Project, now part of the Texas Civil Rights Project. He is the co-founder and president of Human Rights Dallas.

advocacy, equality, Faith, Immigration, Social justiceGood God ProjectOctober 8, 2026Dissent, Human Rights

Faithful Dissent: Robin Lederer on the Fight for Fair Elections in Texas

Robin Lederer's path into voting rights work started with a letter. When her husband received notice from county elections claiming he'd moved, and he hadn't, Robin realized how little she understood about how voter rolls are actually managed, despite years of voting herself. That discovery led her to co-found the National Coalition for Voting Rights with Dr. Andrea Barrero, a gerrymandering researcher at Southern Methodist University, focused on the overlooked mechanics of "voter list maintenance."

In this conversation, Robin walks George Mason through how voters end up in "suspense" status, how to check your registration before the October 5th deadline, and why Texas has ranked at or near the bottom of the Cost of Voting Index for decades. They discuss the data on voter fraud, which Robin's research puts at just 150 cases out of 127 million ballots over 20 years, the mid-decade congressional redistricting that cut Dallas-Tarrant County representation from six seats to three, and what voters should know heading into early voting on October 19th.

Robin Lederer is a Dallas-based executive, consultant, and civic advocate. She co-founded the National Coalition for Voter Rights in September 2023 and currently serves as CEO of UniBeacon Group LLC.

advocacy, America, politics, votingGood God ProjectOctober 1, 2026Dissent, voting, elections, de

Faithful Dissent: Kim Verriere on Prayer, Protest, and Showing Up

Every Monday morning, Kim Verriere shows up outside the Dallas ICE field office to pray and organize a public vigil, a role she never expected to play. In this conversation, she and George Mason talk about how her conviction that love of neighbor must extend to the marginalized led her from first-time attendee to central organizer, and how prayer and action work together rather than as substitutes for each other. The conversation turns to Kim's work as a spiritual director, where she describes her role as following the movement of the spirit rather than offering advice, and closes with her encouragement to take one small step outside your comfort zone.

Kim Verriere holds an English degree with a minor in religion from Auburn University and a certificate in spiritual direction from SMU Perkins School of Theology. Based in Richardson, Texas, she serves on the board of Spiritual Ministries Institute and the advisory board of Retreat House Spirituality Center, and she founded and led Greater Love Collective, an organization for women, for nine years before stepping away to focus on spiritual direction and retreat leading.

advocacy, equality, Faith, Immigration, Social justiceGood God ProjectSeptember 24, 2026Dissent, Prayer