Speaking & Press
This page gathers Florence’s formal bio, speaking and facilitation areas, documentary work, and selected public-record references.
Formal Bio
Florence Knights is a community leader, speaker, and writer based in New York City. Born and partly raised in Guyana, she migrated with her family to Brooklyn in the late 1980s. As a parent leader, she served as PTA President at Bushwick Leaders High School and helped organize around needed school repairs with East Brooklyn Congregations, a Metro IAF affiliate. She is featured, alongside her daughter Gabrielle Smith, in the documentary Organized. Her work has been covered by Chalkbeat and included in a Churchill Fellowship report. In July 2026, she completed Metro IAF’s seven-day leadership and community-organizing training in Chicago.
Her writing returns to memory, faith, and evidence, and asks how much of who we are was chosen and how much was handed down. Florence also spent more than twenty years working in beauty and works as an independent luxury travel advisor with E.E.F.Y Travel.
Organized
Florence Knights is featured in the documentary Organized alongside her daughter, Gabrielle Smith. The film follows the school-repair organizing fight and broader EBC work around housing and community power.
Press / Public Record
Churchill Fellowship Case Study
Florence and her daughter Gabrielle are part of a case study in Jimmy Pickering’s Churchill Fellowship report on parent and carer organizing. Their experience comes up throughout the report in discussions of leadership, accountability, relationships, and school-repair organizing.
Chalkbeat New York
NYC launches ‘campus revival’ program to upgrade neglected school buildings
Chalkbeat New York reported on the Bushwick school-repair campaign, including Gabrielle’s account of the conditions that led Florence to get more deeply involved in organizing with East Brooklyn Congregations and push for long-overdue repairs.
Speaking
Florence speaks and facilitates around:
- Parent leadership
- Youth voice
- Relationship-centered organizing
For speaking, facilitation, media, or collaboration inquiries:
Contact Florence