Niki Okuk
Niki Okuk founded RCO Tires in 2012. The Compton, California-based company has recycled more than 300 million pounds of rubber, diverting 70 million gallons of oil from landfills, and provides stable jobs for Black and Latino residents who struggle to find employment because of past criminal convictions or legal status. Okuk’s talk explored the way systemic class oppression operates to make and keep people poor, and the toll this can take.