Terry L. Watson

Terry Watson is an accomplished professional speaker, trainer, and award-winning author who promotes disability equity in education, racial justice, and community healing. He is the Associate Director for Student Disability Services and the Interim Director for Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity at Penn State World Campus. Mr. Watson is also the founder of Strategies for Justice, BWMP LLC.

As the Associate Director and the Interim Director for Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity, Mr. Watson collaborates closely with faculty, designers, administrators, and student-facing units to create an inclusive environment for individuals with disabilities. He helps develop strategies, procedures, and policies to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to higher education. Since 2011, Mr. Watson has been a valuable resource for college students living with disabilities. His dedication and passion were recognized by his institution, Penn State University, with the Robison Equal Opportunity Award 2024. His interest in advocacy began with his work with children on the autism spectrum in 2001. Mr. Watson has presented on disability equity and justice in higher education at various conferences, including the Association on Higher Education and Disability (AHEAD), the Disability Symposium at UPENN, the Postsecondary Disability Training Institute (PTI), NACADA, and the HighEdWeb Association.


Mr. Watson went on to establish Strategies For Justice (SFJ), a speaking and training bureau that believes unveiling untold narratives of injustice can lead to change. SFJ seeks to help communities build strategies for justice by utilizing the power of stories as a foundation for reform. We look to work with communities, organizations, and institutions of higher education with the mission to engage in civil yet meaningful dialogue.

Mr. Watson is the descendant of the first African American police officers in New York City, Moses P. Cobb and Samuel J. Battle. Although other African American men were hired as patrolmen in New York, Cobb and Battle were known for breaking the racial barrier (in 1892 and 1921, respectively).
Their story became the foundation of training, presenting, and engaging in dialogue around inequities inside and outside law enforcement. From the initial creation of the Battle with Moses People (BWMP), a public benefit corporation, Strategies for Justice was established in 2019 to create a meaningful and effective push for justice within law enforcement.


Working from the foundation set by BWMP, Strategies for Justice now recruits and collaborates with others who are willing to tell their narratives, intersecting race, ability, and gender with law enforcement. These stories come from those currently working in or are retired from law enforcement or who have had a positive, progressive impact on identifying, breaking down, and eliminating injustices and inequalities.
In 2022, Mr. Watson authored his first book, Welcome to the Sick Mind of a Sane Person: Deconstructing Racism and White Supremacy, which won the International Impact Book Award for Personal Growth and Development on Racism and Discrimination, the Literacy Global Book Award for African American Non-Fiction and DEI, and the Regal Summitt Book award for Non-Fiction, Poetry award from the Black Author Association, and as a finalist for poetry at the 21st Annual Best Book Awards.

In addition, Mr. Watson has interviewed law enforcement officers around the country to document their narratives in a book called Racial Lines, Blue Lines: An Urgent Dialogue on Race and Law Enforcement (pending publication). Mr. Watson also hosts the Moses’ People Speak: Race, Conversations, and Law Enforcement web series.