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Fiesta de las Rosas 2025 Honorees!

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We are SO excited to announce our Fiesta de las Rosas 2025 Honorees!!


These folks deserve alllllllllllllllllllllllll the roses and we are honored to be able to present them with their roses on August 21st!


Drumroll please....



Here's a little more in depth info about our Honorees. Know them, love them, join us in giving them their much deserved roses.

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Marcus Shepherd is the Director of Organizing at the Chicago Federation of Labor. In that role he wears many hats but none more important than helping CFL affiliates in both internal and external strategic organizing. He works with community and faith-based groups to connect the dots between labor, faith, and community, while helping to change people’s paradigm of social and economic wellbeing. 


Marcus started his journey in labor with the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 7 in Milwaukee, WI in 2005 as a Drywall Finishing Apprentice. Marcus finished his Apprenticeship in 2008/9 at the top of the class as Apprentice of the Year. He would later be appointed as an organizer with DC 7 where he was in that position for three years. While in that role, Marcus became the first black president of Local 781 in Milwaukee, WI. 


While working as an OSHA Instructor, Marcus received his Associate’s Degree in Applied Science at MountWest Community & Technical College, followed by a Bachelor’s Degree in Union Leadership & Administration from The National Labor College, and finally a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from SUNY Empire State College. On Marcus’ journey, he spent five years with the International Union of Painters & Allied Trades as Assistant to the General President on the Organizing team. In that position, he traveled from coast to coast assisting with organizing campaigns and building long lasting relationships with community partners.


Marcus is also the Regional Representative for the Coalition of Black Trades Unionist (CBTU) which cover Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.


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Nichole Foster is a proud member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe from Southwest Colorado, raised by their mother from the Diné Nation. They identify as Two-Spirit and use all pronouns, honoring the fluidity and sacredness of their identity as part of their cultural and personal truth.


After spending some time in college, Nichole found their calling in the trades, graduating from trade school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2016, they moved to Denver and trained with both the Boilermaker and Carpenter Locals. During this time, Nichole remained a vocal advocate for the struggles of Indigenous people, while also navigating the layered challenges of being a Queer Woman of Color in a traditionally male-dominated and often exclusionary industry. These experiences ultimately led them to shift paths—still within the labor movement, but now with a focus on systemic change.


Nichole is now proud to be a part of Colorado Jobs With Justice (COJWJ), where they are excited and empowered to help create meaningful change in the building trades. Their advocacy is focused on uplifting the voices and needs of BIPOC queer women, fighting for equity, and pushing for structural transformation in spaces that have long excluded them.

Nichole currently leads the E.P.I.C. (Equitable Possibilities in Construction) program at Colorado Jobs with Justice (COJWJ), working at the intersection of worker rights, equity, and opportunity in the construction industry. She also serves on the Denver American Indian Commission, is Co-Chair of the Native Futures Collective, President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Pride at Work, and is one of many proud Co-Creators of the International Native Women in the Trades.


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In 1937, the NLG became the nation’s first racially integrated bar association, founded to unite lawyers, law students, legal workers & jailhouse lawyers to function as an effective force in the service of the people, to the end that human rights shall be regarded as more sacred than property interests. 

 

In Chicago, the Guild has been part of this long and proud history of challenging oppression, supporting activists and free speech, and advocating for fundamental social change and equality. In recent years, NLG Chicago has been busy defending the rights of activists in the streets & in the courts. During actions, we have dispatched Legal Observers for hundreds of protests across the city including the Black Lives Matter movement, protests against the Trump administration, and the Palestine solidarity movement. When activists are arrested, we have organized our members to represent hundreds of people who’ve been arrested at protests in recent years and in some instances, filed civil rights lawsuits on their behalf. Behind the scenes, we are working to advocate for policy changes and expanding Chicago’s community of movement lawyers. 


They're pretty great aren't they? Get your tickets and sponsorships today for our Fiesta de las Rosas 2025 and help us to celebrate our collective work, our solidarity, and our wonderful honorees!!



 
 
 

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