For Choquette Peterson, Liberation Starts Early
Long before founding the RISE Center for Liberation in Early Childhood Education, Dr. Choquette Peterson saw in her own home how profoundly a child’s earliest learning experiences can shape the way they understand themselves.
That moment broke me open. If this could happen in my household — where Blackness is celebrated — it was happening everywhere.”
"My four-year-old son came home after ten days of preschool and told me he didn't want to be Black anymore. Years of affirmations undone in two weeks." For Choquette, the experience raised questions that went beyond access to affordable, high-quality childcare. "That moment broke me open. If this could happen in my household — where Blackness is celebrated — it was happening everywhere.” What were Black children encountering once they entered their early childhood education? Who was shaping their earliest understanding of themselves? And what would it take to create something different?
The answer wasn’t very far from home.
Building an Ecosystem
Founded by Choquette in 2018, RISE Center strengthens early childhood education by investing in the people and systems surrounding young Black children: educators, families, and communities.
With roots in Greater Central Texas and Chicagoland, RISE also reaches educators and administrators across the country through its learning and thought leadership programs. Its work connects three areas:
Transforming practices in the classroom
Becoming an Anti-Racist Practitioner in Early Childhood Education Learning Series equips educators, administrators, and family engagement staff with tools to deepen racial literacy and create culturally affirming classrooms.
Creating pathways into the early education workforce
EmpowerED, RISE’s Department of Labor Registered Apprenticeship Program, offers paid, mentored pathways to credentials and long-term careers in early childhood education, with a focus on Black women and women of color.
Expanding access to community-based care
Through RootED, RISE provides flexible, culturally affirming child care while employing Black women from the community as care educators. Participants receive coaching and connections to early childhood education career pathways.
Together, these efforts reflect RISE’s approach: strengthening early childhood education by supporting children, the people who care for them, and the systems that shape their experiences.
Choquette & RISE are Ready for More
The $1 million Luminary Award meets Choquette and RISE at an important point in their impact, creating room to imagine what comes next and build toward it. That journey starts with taking stock of where they are today. Through the application and Luminary experience, leaders and their organizations examine their strengths, challenges, and needs, then use that insight to plan for the long haul.
Over three years, Luminaries receive organizational and leadership assessments, personalized coaching, wellness and sustainability support, and opportunities to learn alongside and from a community of leaders. They bring their own experiences and expertise into a community where leaders can learn from one another, across generations and stages of leadership.
For Choquette, that means bringing a practice rooted in co-creation, community feedback, and shared leadership, along with expertise on the earliest years of child development. As she furthers the impact of RISE and her own leadership, she will also contribute to the broader Network.
Together, this relationship creates the conditions for leaders and their teams to imagine boldly, build with intention, and carry their work forward for generations to come.
The 2026 Luminaries
Five leaders and organizations building across the educational continuum, from early childhood through adulthood.
