Brenda L. Lawrence is this year’s recipient of the Summit for Civil Rights Shirley Chisholm Breakthrough Leader Award for her extraordinary and inspirational rise to power.

Ms. Lawrence is a breakthrough leader whose history and experience personifies the American Civil Rights Movement’s critical alliance of Organized Labor, and powerful Black Elected office holders.

Congresswoman Lawrence began career as a letter carrier with the U.S. Postal Service. A member of the powerful American Postal Workers Union (APWU), she rose to executive leadership in the Postal Service while rising to prominence in Southfield Michigan from School board to City Council President and eventually becoming the first African American and first female mayor of this important Detroit suburb.

As a Member of Congress, she represented her district and the American people. She was elected the Freshman Whip and later appointed Senior Whip. She was a Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on the Interior. She was also a member of the House Committee on Small Business and the powerful Committee on Appropriations.

Today, Congresswoman Lawrence is the Executive Director of Spill the Honey a national organization advancing and restoring the historic and powerful relationship between Black and Jewish communities and faith institutions and leaders during the American Civil Rights movement.

Religious leader Reverend Frederick Douglass Haynes, III was born on November 10, 1960 in Dallas, Texas to Reverend Frederick D. Haynes, Jr. and Lynetta Haynes-Oliver. He graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco, California. Haynes earned his B.A. degree in religion and English from Bishop College in Dallas, Texas in 1982, his M.Div. degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his D.Min. degree from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Mishawaka, Indiana in 2005. He also studied at Christ Church Oxford University in Oxford, England.

In 1983, Haynes accepted a position as senior pastor at Friendship-West Baptist Church. Under his leadership, the Friendship-West Baptist Church adopted churches in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. With a great amount of assistance from Friendship-West, the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Harare, Zimbabwe built a worship facility, school, and health clinic. In 2010, with the earthquake in Haiti, Haynes and Friendship-West adopted a village in Haiti and helped construct wells to provide the village with water. Haynes is also involved in the radio industry. He hosted Freddy Haynes Unscripted on Radio One’s 94.5 KSOUL, in addition to delivering the closing “Inspirational Vitamin on K104’s Skip Murphy Morning Show for seven years. He currently delivers the “Praise Break” message for the Rickey Smiley Morning Show.

Haynes helped organize the Faith Summit on Poverty, which consisted of Dallas community leaders and city officials who were dedicated to reducing domestic violence and poverty. Haynes has also used donations from Friendship-West to fund historically black colleges and universities with over $1 million, as well as scholarships to HBCU students to over $2 million. He serves as chairman of the board of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, board member of the Conference of National Black Churches and the National Action Network, and as a member of the Board of Trustees for Paul Quinn College.

Haynes authored two books, Healing Our Broken Village and Soul Fitness. He was named to Ebony magazines “Power 100 list of influential African Americans," and was inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame, both in 2012.

Congressman Donald Norcross is the recipient of the 2023 Steve LaTourette Unified America Award for Outstanding Bipartisan Leadership.

Born and raised in South Jersey, Congressman Norcross is an electrician by trade and a proud union member. In Congress, he is committed to improving the lives of working families by focusing on the issues that matter most to them: raising wages and strengthening our economy, ensuring affordable access to a high-quality education, and supporting the brave men and women that protect our nation and our neighborhoods.

Congressman Norcross began his career working for minimum wage, and his on-the-job experiences shape his work in Congress. Congressman Norcross has been a fierce advocate for raising wages for workers, leading the House of Representatives to pass legislation that would gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.

Congressman Norcross spent his career as an electrician connecting power to New Jersey businesses and industrial sites. He rose through the ranks and eventually became a business agent for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 351, as well as President of the Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO, where he advocated on behalf of thousands of hardworking men and women for nearly 20 years.

A graduate of both Camden County College and a Registered Apprenticeship program, Congressman Norcross knows we need to advance job-training programs in America, and he also understands the value of a good education that doesn’t break the bank. As a former apprentice himself, Congressman Norcross led the House in passing the National Apprenticeship Act, expanding access to skills training and connecting workers with stable, good-paying jobs. 

As a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Congressman Norcross is working to raise wages, protect the middle class, strengthen workplace protections and achieve equal pay and paid leave for those raising families. 

The Summit for Civil Rights is paying tribute to Congressman Norcross for his support for working men and women and particularly for his recent efforts, with Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, to relaunch a Bipartisan Building Trades Caucus in the United States Congress. We look forward to working with him and other members to make that caucus more powerful and committed to inclusive living wage jobs.

Roland V. Anglin is Dean of the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. Dean Anglin is recognized for his scholarly and applied work in the area of economic and community development. Dean Anglin is a passionate advocate for public polices and community-based strategies that create social and economic opportunities for marginalized communities and people.

Prior to his appointment as Dean, Dr. Anglin was Senior Advisor to the Chancellor of Rutgers University-Newark and Director of the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, an applied research institute at the university. Dr. Anglin began his career at Rutgers University in 1987. He was recruited to the Ford Foundation in 1991, where he spent eight years. Dr. Anglin served first as the program officer responsible for community development and was promoted to Deputy Director for Community and Resource Development. After leaving the Ford Foundation in 1999, Dr. Anglin went to the Structured Employment Economic Development Corporation (Seedco), a community development financial intermediary. He is the author and co-author of four books and several peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Anglin sits on several public sector, nonprofit, and private sector boards. He received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, an MA from Northwestern University, and a BA from Brooklyn College (City University of New York).

John C. Brittain joined the faculty of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, in 2009, as a tenured professor of law, and served as Acting Dean from 2018 to 2019. Prior to joining UDC Law, he served as Dean of the Thurgood Marshall School of law at Texas Southern University in Houston, as a tenured law professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law for twenty-two years, and as Chief Counsel and Senior Deputy Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C., a public interest law organization founded by President John F. Kennedy to enlist private lawyers in taking pro bono cases in civil rights.

Professor Brittain writes and litigates on issues in civil and human rights, especially in education law. In 2015, the Mississippi Center for Justice honored him as a "pioneering civil rights leader and esteemed law professor who has inspired a generation of young attorneys." In 2013, he was named to the Charles Hamilton Houston Chair at North Carolina Central University School of Law, established to bring prominent civil rights law professors and litigators to the law school to teach constitutional and civil rights law for a year. Professor Brittain was one of the original counsel team in Sheff v. O’Neill, the landmark school desegregation case decided by the Connecticut Supreme Court in 1996, chronicled in Susan Eaton’s book, The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial, in which he is frequently mentioned. He was a part of a legal team representing private plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against the State of Maryland for denying Maryland’s historically black institutions of higher learning – Morgan, Coppin, Bowie and Maryland Eastern Shore Universities – comparable and competitive opportunities with traditional white universities

B.A., Howard University 1966; J.D., Howard University 1969

Michelle Burris is a senior policy associate at The Century Foundation, focusing on racial and socioeconomic integration in pre-K–12 settings. Prior to joining TCF, Michelle was a teacher at Truman High School in New York City working with African immigrant students. She also served in the United States Peace Corps in Rwanda, teaching English at a boarding school. Michelle participated in internships at the White House and was a congressional fellow in Congressman Jim Cooper’s office. She graduated summa cum laude from Spelman College with a BA in political science, and holds a MA in politics and education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Scott DiMauro, a high school social studies teacher from Worthington, was elected President of the OEA in 2019 after having served as vice president for six years. Over his 32-year career as an educator, Scott has worked to provide students the critical thinking and decision-making skills they need to be successful citizens in our democracy while advocating for students, educators, and strong public schools at all levels of his union.

Scott’s priorities as president have included strengthening local affiliates, enhancing professional supports for members, and elevating the voice of educators in public policy to ensure all students are given access to a high-quality education that inspires their creativity, imagination, and desire to learn. As OEA President, he helped lead a successful coalition effort that resulted in the historic passage of the Fair School Funding Plan along with an increase in the state minimum teacher’s salary as part of the most recent state budget bill.

Scott has facilitated OEA’s Board and leadership team in educating and organizing members to advocate for social, racial, and economic justice. That priority has framed OEA’s advocacy on school safety, resistance to attacks on educators’ freedom to teach and students’ freedom to learn an honest education, and a comprehensive strategy to attract and retain caring, qualified educators—both licensed and support professionals—in every community across Ohio.

As vice president, Scott was proud to guide the OEA Commission on Student Success to lay out a comprehensive vision for high-quality education for all students and lay the groundwork for positive implementation of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act in Ohio. He also led an initiative to increase student access to breakfast in high-poverty districts and served as national spokesperson for the Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom. At the national level, he currently serves as president of the National Council of State Education Associations.

James Gee has been around politics for most of his life. He began his career as an intern to then-Assembly Appropriations Chairman John S. Watson while still a student in high school. While attending Morehouse College in Atlanta Georgia, Mr. Gee worked in the Georgia Senate, quickly distinguishing himself as a skilled political operative. In 1997, Mr. Gee’s career came full-circle when, after managing the unsuccessful congressional campaign of Georgia State Senator Ron Slotin, he returned to New Jersey and joined the campaign that elected Bonnie Watson Coleman, the daughter of his beloved mentor John Watson.

During the 2001 gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Gee became the statewide political director of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee. Following the election, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor James E. McGreevy, serving as the governor’s liaison to the Legislature.

During the 2004 presidential campaign, Mr. Gee served as the national political director for celebrity Sean "P.Diddy" Comb’s Vote or Die campaign, which was designed to inspire a new generation to become part of the political process.

In 2005, Mr. Gee served as the statewide political director for then-Senator Jon S. Corzine's campaign for governor and recently served as Deputy Campaign Manager of Jon Corzine’s unsuccessful re-election campaign.

During the 2008, Presidential Campaign Mr. Gee moved to the Washington, D.C. area to serve as one of five Regional Political Directors on the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign. During the hotly contested Democratic Primary James traveled to 10 different
states. Mr. Gee was lead Political Director in Texas and Pennsylvania where Senator Clinton won very close primary victories.

From 2006 to 2010, Mr. Gee worked in the New Jersey State Legislature as the Associate Director.

In 2014, Mr. Gee was the Campaign Manager for Bonnie Watson Coleman in her historic run in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District. Mr. Gee currently serves as Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman's Chief of Staff.

Mike Kruglik is Board President of Building One America. Mr. Kruglik is a graduate of Princeton University (1964) and was Adjunct Professor of History at Northwestern and Roosevelt Universities in the early 1970’s. He has been developing grass-roots citizens’ power organizations since 1973 with the Industrial Areas Foundation, the Gamaliel Foundation and Building One America. In 1986 Mr. Kruglik was co-founder of the Gamaliel Foundation and from 1999-2009 served as its Director of Metropolitan Equity. 

Mike is probably best known for having hired, trained, and mentored Barack Obama as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side in the mid to late 1980s.

Tiffany Miller serves as the Director of Federal Policy for the Learning Policy Institute, where she works to bring evidence-based research to policymakers to advance policies that provide equitable learning opportunities for every child.

Prior to joining LPI, Miller was Vice President of Policy at Communities In Schools (CIS), where she developed and led a comprehensive government relations strategy and actively engaged with federal policymaking bodies to advocate for policies that empower youth to succeed in school and in life. She also led the development and implementation of state and local advocacy strategies that supported both the CIS network and built the field of integrated student supports. Miller also served as Director of Education Policy at the Center for American Progress, where her work focused on all aspects of school improvement. Previously, she served as a senior research associate at Policy Studies Associates, Inc., and worked as a political fundraiser.

Miller is also an Adjunct Professor at American University where she teaches Education and Public Policy as part of the School of Education’s Education Policy and Leadership Program. She holds a Master of Public Policy from American University and a B.A. in Political Science from Kent State University.

Reginald Oh brings to the law school nine years of teaching experience and a lengthy roster of publications and presentations in this country and abroad. Professor Oh is a prolific scholar whose work is most often a careful examination of distributive justice, including the ways in which justice succeeds or fails when gender and race are involved.

History, politics, linguistic analysis, and race and gender studies inform articles such as "Interracial Marriage in the Shadows of Jim Crow: Racial Segregation as Racial and Gender Subordination" in the University of California Davis Law Review (2006) and "Discrimination and Distrust: A Critical Linguistic Analysis of the Discrimination Concept" in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (2005). "Regulating White Desire," which examines the gendered nature of racial segregation, was published in the Wisconsin Law Review in 2007. "Fear of a Multiracial Planet: Loving’s Children and the Genocide of the White Race" was published in the Fordham Law Review in 2018.

At Cleveland-Marshall, Professor Oh teaches Civil Procedure, a Constitutional Law Seminar on the Fourteenth Amendment, and a seminar on Legal Issues in Education. Professor Oh is also a widely sought and widely traveled lecturer; in a two-year span he spoke at more than 30 national and international conferences. In July 2007, he presented "Race, Racism and Belonging" at the International Congress for Law and Mental Health in Padua, Italy; in March 2007 he lectured on "Reading Brown through Loving: Racial Segregation and the Promotion of White Supremacy" at the University of Iowa College of Law, and "Racial Segregation and the Thirteenth Amendment" at the Tenth Annual Conference for the Association of the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities at Georgetown University.

Davida Russell is the newly elected Councilwoman for the city of Cleveland Heights. Elected November 2019 receiving the 2nd highest vote of all the candidates while making history for her 1st time running for a public office.

Davida Russell is also the State President of the Coalition of labor Union Women, a Vice President of the Ohio AFL-CIO, State Executive Board Member and President of the Northeast Ohio District of the Ohio Association of Public-School Employees OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4/AFL-CIO), Executive Secretary/Treasurer of the North Coast Area Labor Federation, and Trustee of the Cleveland North Shore Federation of Labor AFL-CIO,  In these positions, Davida represents more than 180,000 members across Ohio and 11,000 just in Northeast Ohio.

Davida is a Commission Member of the Cuyahoga County Charter Review Commission appointed by Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish and Executive Board Member of the Gateway Economic Development Corporation of Greater Cleveland one of two single appointment of Mayor Frank Jackson.

Davida served as president of the Ohio Association of Public-School Employees OAPSE/AFSCME Local 744 for 20 consecutive years, representing Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities (CCBDD) Transportation workers until her retirement. Davida was appointed by Governor, Ted Strickland to the Board of Commission of MR/DD to serve on the Futures Study Committee for the state of Ohio. Davida also served as the Vice Chair of the first historic Cuyahoga County Charter Review Commission appointed by Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald and served on the Cleveland Heights Reaching Heights Board. Davida served nationally on President Clinton’s Women’s Round Table of Greater Cleveland and has been invited to the White House on three separate occasions. Davida represented public employees in Sao Paulo Brazil where she received an award from the Ambassador of Italy;

Davida also served as State Vice President of the Ohio Association of Public-School Employees (OAPSE/AFSCME Local 4/AFL-CIO) for over 10 years until her resignation in 2015 to focus more of her time in Northeast Ohio.

Well known for her dedication to working people, she has been in the forefront of organizing, educating, training, increasing political awareness among workers, campaigning for pro-labor politicians and issues and operating and managing the largest canvassing operation in the state of Ohio since 2002. Every few months Davida continues to be featured on America’s Work Force Radio WERE 1490 the only daily labor-radio program in America. Davida been entered in several editions of Who’s Who including the 2019 edition as One of The Most Influential Black Women in Cleveland Celebrating African American Achievement. She has also been a co-host on a local television show located on cable public access station called “Another Look.”  Davida has been featured in union sponsored radio commercials She have wrote, produced and directed a union play called “We May Be Getting Old… But We Ain’t Dead Yet”! The play was presented in Cleveland’s downtown Music Hall for the OAPSE/AFSCME Convention.

She’s the author of the book “The Birth of a Union: The Legacy of Noridean McDonald” published in 2007. She is a graduate of Cleveland State Labor-Management Relations Center Program a graduate of Leadership Cleveland Class 2004.

Davida graduated from the George Meany National Labor College with a double major Bachelor’s in Labor Studies and in Union Leadership and Administration.

Mungu Sanchez, Deputy Political Director for the Northeast
Regional Council Council of Carpenters, started his career in politics
in his early 20’s working as a staffer for the Pennsylvania House of
Representatives. During his time there, he quickly realized his
political potential and passion for rallying behind important social
issues to improve the quality of life for people within his community.
He also quickly discovered the saliency of organizing people to
effectively open the doors to better opportunities and how politics
should always be used as a catalyst for positive change. Mungu
soon became a part of the solution, working closely with
communities affected by various socioeconomic issues and as a key
player in local government. He has decades of experience with
activism and political organization and has had a strong impact in
his hometown of Philadelphia, PA.

KaRon Waites Jr. as UAW Local 1050. KaRon is the Financial Secretary for UAW Local 1050 and has worked for Alcoa Arconic Howmet since 1994. He first got involved in his union in 2001, when he was elected Chief Steward. Since then he has held numerous positions in his UAW chapter and has volunteered with nearly every event the UAW has organized. KaRon Waites, Jr. is the Vice President of the A. Philip Randolph Institute Ohio Chapter