Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge is a committed public servant who brings a hard-working, problem-solving spirit to Congress and to the task of creating jobs, protecting safety net programs, and improving access to quality public education, health care and healthy foods. First elected in 2008, she represents the people of the 11th Congressional District of Ohio.

Congresswoman Fudge serves on the Committee on House Administration, House Committee on Agriculture and House Committee on Education and Labor. She is the Chair of the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Elections and Chair of the Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Nutrition, Oversight and Department Operations. She serves on the Subcommittees on Conservation and Forestry (Agriculture), Civil Rights and Human Services (Education & Labor) and Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions (Education & Labor).

In the 115th Congress, the Congresswoman served on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittees on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education and on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions. She also served as Ranking Member on the House Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation and Forestry and a member on the Subcommittee on Nutrition. She is a member of several Congressional Caucuses and past Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Congresswoman Fudge consistently fights for voter protection, equitable access to a quality education from preschool through post-secondary programs, child nutrition, food stamp (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients, access to locally grown, healthy foods, fair labor practices, and civil and human rights, among other issues. Additionally, she remains a steadfast advocate to strengthen and preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Congresswoman Fudge has served the people of Ohio for more than three decades, beginning with the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office. She was later elected as the first African American and first female mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, where she led the city in shoring up a sagging retail base and providing new residential construction.

Congresswoman Fudge earned her bachelor’s degree in business from The Ohio State University and law degree from the Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall School of Law. She is a Past National President of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and a member of its Greater Cleveland Alumnae Chapter.

Congresswoman Fudge’s work ethic, problem-solving approach, and ability to build collaborative relationships have earned her a reputation among her colleagues in Washington and at home as an insightful leader and knowledgeable legislator. As a dedicated public servant, she begins each morning with a firm promise “to do the people’s work.” It is this simple philosophy that defines Congresswoman Fudge as a Member of substance and character who always keeps her promise.

Congresswoman Gwen Moore was elected to represent Wisconsin’s 4th Congressional District in 2004, making her the first African American elected to Congress from the State of Wisconsin. She is a member of the esteemed House Ways and Means Committee, which is the oldest committee in the United States Congress and has jurisdiction over the Social Security system, Medicare, the Foster Care System, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Unemployment Insurance, and all taxation, tariffs, and revenue-raising measures. She serves on the Oversight, Select Revenue Measures, and Worker and Family Support Subcommittees.

On the Oversight Subcommittee, Congresswoman Moore works to guarantee that the laws within the jurisdiction of the Committee are being implemented and carried out efficiently and in accordance with Congressional intent. She is also a member of the Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee, working to create a more fair and progressive tax code that provides Americans greater opportunity and financial security. And she oversees a range of critical supports for workers, children, and families as a member of the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee.

She is an active member on the Congressional Progressive Caucus, LGBT Equality Caucus, the Great Lakes Caucus, and the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. She was also a former member of the Financial Services and Budget Committees and the former Regional Whip for the Democratic Caucus.

A strong advocate for measures that focus on improving the economic and employment conditions in low-income communities, she has fought to curb predatory lending in minority neighborhoods, led efforts to help small businesses grow and advance the creation of new jobs, pushed for affordable housing, and advocated for compliance with respect to the non-discriminatory hiring of minority-owned businesses for government contracts. She has been outspoken on behalf of low-wage workers, and in 2014, peacefully demonstrated for a living wage with fast food workers, leading to her arrest.

A champion for women, Congresswoman Moore served as the Democratic Co-Chair of the Congressional Women’s Caucus from 2011 to 2013. In this capacity and through her subsequent work, she has become a leader on issues like health insurance reform, women's health, maternal and infant mortality, and domestic violence – leading the charge to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act over the past two Congresses. She has also been an outspoken opponent of efforts to limit women’s reproductive freedom and care.

The Congresswoman has made it her mission to give voice to the voiceless, both domestically and abroad. As a member on the House Democracy Partnership, a commission of the U.S. House of Representatives, she collaborates with international partners and serves as a global presence to advocate for and implement the development of responsible democracies. In January of 2015, she received global recognition for assembling members of Congress to raise pencils in honor of free speech and the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine, during President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.

She has been an ardent supporter of initiatives that put low-income students on the path to educational success. The Congresswoman has consistently supported legislation to ensure low-income students have school access to three nutritious meals a day, year-round, as good nutrition has been proven to improve children’s attendance and attentiveness. Congresswoman Moore is an alumnus and strong advocate for the Federal TRIO programs, which are designed to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds and help them get to college. TRIO includes six outreach and support programs targeted to serve and assist low-income, first generation college students – and students with disabilities – to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to post baccalaureate programs.

Born in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1951, Congresswoman Moore was raised in Milwaukee. The eighth of nine children, Congresswoman Moore’s father was a union factory worker and her mother was a public school teacher. Congresswoman Moore attended North Division High School in Milwaukee, where she served as Student Council President. After graduation, she started college at Marquette University as a single, expectant mother on welfare who could only complete her education with the help of TRIO. Congresswoman Moore earned a B.A. in Political Science from Marquette, and went on to serve as a community leader spearheading the start-up of a community credit union as a VISTA volunteer for which she earned the national “VISTA Volunteer of the Decade” award from 1976-1986. She was also a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and Senate before serving in Congress.

She served in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1993-2004. Prior to her election to the Senate, Congresswoman Moore served two consecutive terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1989-1992. In 2000, Congresswoman Moore earned a Harvard University Certificate for Senior Executives in State and Local Government. As a state legislator, Congresswoman Moore was a champion for progressive and social issues and has continued to stand up as a voice for each and every constituent and region across the city. She applied her career expertise to help create jobs and build communities. She made a positive impact in critical issues related to welfare, education, and criminal justice. A tireless advocate for women's rights and civil rights, Congresswoman Moore led the fight against racial profiling, domestic abuse, and voting rights violations.

She is the mother of Jesselynne, Ade, and Sowande “Supreme” and is a proud great-grandmother.

She is author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, which won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book in 2016. She is also editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBQT nonfiction in 2018.

Her third book, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, published in 2019 by the University of North Carolina Press, has been longlisted for a National Book Award for nonfiction. This new book looks at the federal government's promotion of single-family homeownership in Black communities after the urban rebellions of the 1960s. Taylor develops the concept of "predatory inclusion" to examine the federal government's turn to market-based solutions in its low-income housing programs in the 1970s impacted Black neighborhoods, Black women on welfare, and emergent discourses on the urban “underclass”. Taylor is interested in the role of private sector forces, typically hidden in public policy making and execution, in the “urban crisis” of the 1970s.

Taylor’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Review, Paris Review, Guardian, The Nation, Jacobin, and Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society, among others.

Taylor is a widely sought public speaker and writer. In 2016, she was named one of the hundred most influential African Americans in the United States by The Root. She has been appointed as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians by the Organization of American Historians, and as the Charles H. McIlwain University Preceptor at Princeton University from 2018-2021.

Mr. Johnson formerly served as vice chairman of the NAACP National Board of Directors as well as state president for the Mississippi State Conference NAACP.

Born in Detroit, Mr. Johnson is a veteran activist who has dedicated his career to defending the rights and improving the lives of poor and working people. As State President of the NAACP Mississippi State Conference, he led critical campaigns for voting rights and equitable education. He successfully managed two bond referendum campaigns in Jackson, MS that brought $150 million in school building improvements and $65 million towards the construction of a new convention center, respectively. As a regional organizer at the Jackson-based non-profit, Southern Echo, Inc., Mr. Johnson provided legal, technical, and training support for communities across the South.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Johnson founded One Voice Inc. to improve the quality of life for African Americans through civic engagement training and initiatives. One Voice has spawned an annual Black Leadership Summit and the Mississippi Black Leadership Institute, a nine month training program for community leaders.

Na’ilah Suad Nasir is the sixth President of the Spencer Foundation, which invests in education research that cultivates learning and transforms lives. From 2008-2019, she held a faculty appointment at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also served as Vice-Chancellor of Equity and Inclusion. Nasir earned her PhD in Education Psychology at UCLA and was a member of the faculty in the School of Education at Stanford University. Her work focuses on issues of race, culture, learning, and identity. She is the author of Racialized Identities: Race and Achievement for African-American Youth and has published numerous scholarly articles. Nasir is a member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). 

john a. powell is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties and a wide range of issues including race, structural racism, ethnicity, housing, poverty, and democracy. He is the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute (formerly Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society), which supports research to generate specific prescriptions for changes in policy and practice that address disparities related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and socioeconomics in California and nationwide. In addition, to being a Professor of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Professor powell holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion. He was recently the Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University and held the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the Moritz College of Law. Under his direction, the Kirwan Institute has emerged as a national leader on research and scholarship related to race, structural racism, racialized space and opportunity. He has been a leader in developing an “opportunity-based” housing model that provides a critical and creative framework for thinking about affordable housing, racialized space, and the many ways that housing influences other opportunity domains including education, health, health care, and employment.

Professor powell has written extensively on a number of issues including structural racism, racial justice and regionalism, concentrated poverty and urban sprawl, opportunity based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society. He is the author of several books, including his most recent work, Racing to Justice: Transforming our Concepts of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society.

Previously, Professor powell founded and directed the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. He also served as Director of Legal Services in Miami, Florida and was National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory.

Professor powell has worked and lived in Africa, where he was a consultant to the governments of Mozambique and South Africa. He has also lived and worked in India and done work in South America and Europe. He is one of the co-founders of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the board of several national organizations. Professor powell has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University.

Torres lives in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and is an activist with Teens Take Charge, a student-led group that advocates for integrating the city’s public schools, which are among the most segregated in the country. Torres has spoken to Mayor de Blasio twice on public radio call-in show to challenge his education record and presented about modern-day school segregation at The Atlantic Magazine’s 2019 Education Summit in D.C., and also TED Talks' Education segment. She helped lead and organize a 400-student demonstration for school integration on steps of NYC DOE headquarters in response to their inaction, along with several other direct public actions, such as weekly school strikes, a sit-in, and public testimonies.

Sheryll Cashin is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law, Civil Rights and Social Justice at the Georgetown University Law Center. She teaches Race and American Law, and a seminar about American segregation, among other subjects.

She is working on a new book about the role of residential segregation in producing racial inequality. Her book, Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy (Beacon, 2017), explores the history and future of interracial intimacy, how white supremacy was constructed and how “culturally dexterous” allies undermine it. Her book, Place Not Race (Beacon, 2014), recommended radical reforms of selective college admissions in order to promote robust diversity; it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction in 2015. Her book, The Failures of Integration (PublicAffairs, 2004) explored the persistence and consequences of race and class segregation. It was an Editors’ Choice in the New York Times Book Review. Cashin is also a three-time nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for non-fiction (2005, 2009, and 2018). She has published widely in academic journals and written commentaries for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Salon, The Root, and other media.

Cashin worked in the Clinton White House as an advisor on urban and economic policy, particularly concerning community development in inner-city neighborhoods. She is a former law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall, an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, Oxford, and Vanderbilt universities, and was born and raised in Huntsville, Alabama where her parents we civil rights activists.

Bishop Reginald Thomas Jackson is the presiding prelate of the Sixth Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church which encompasses over 500 churches in the state of Georgia. He was elected and consecrated the 132nd bishop of the A.M.E. Church in 2012 at the 49th Quadrennial Session of the General Conference held in Nashville, TN and was appointed to the Twentieth Episcopal District (Malawi, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Uganda) and as the Ecumenical and Urban Affairs Officer. He has served as the chairman of the Social Action Commission of the A.M.E. Church and is the current chairman of the Commission on Colleges, Universities and Seminaries.

A native of Dover, Delaware, he was born on April 26, 1954. After graduating from the Dover Public Schools, he enrolled and in 1976 graduated from Delaware State University in Dover, with a Bachelor’s Degree in History. In 1972 Bishop Jackson licensed to preach at MT. Zion AME Church, Dover under the pastorate of The Rev. Rudolph W. Coleman. Ordained an Itinerant Deacon in 1975 by Bishop Earnest Lawrence Hickman, he was assigned as the supply pastor of Graham AME Church, Greenwood, Delaware where he served for one year, before leaving to go to Atlanta, Georgia to attend Turner Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), Atlanta, Georgia. He was ordained an Itinerant Elder by Bishop Richard Allen Hildebrand in 1977. In 1978 while still in seminary, and assigned to serve as supply pastor, at St. John AME Church, Coleman St., Atlanta.

Upon graduating in 1979, he was appointed by Bishop Hildebrand to St. John AME Church, Jersey City, NJ where he served for two years. He was then appointed in 1981 by Bishop Hildebrand to St. Matthew AME Church, Orange, NJ. This was the beginning of a pastorate that would last 31 years. During his ministry at St. Matthew the congregation grew from about 75 to more than 2800 Disciples of Christ, engaged in ministry, mission and outreach. Included in this number were more than 300 children and youth, to whom he placed special emphasis and time.

St. Matthew accepted the motto as “the servant church of the Oranges” and instituted more than 30 ministries to meet the spiritual, emotional, educational, physical and financial needs of both church and community. The Neighborhood and Individual Development Association (NIDA), the church’s community development corporation was also founded. In addition a new church edifice was built in 1985 and because of continuous growth a second edifice was built in 2002. The doors of St. Matthew are open seven days a week and the church is a hub of activity for church and community. The church’s budget increased from $50,000 a year in 1981 to $2,000,000.00 annually.

Shortly after arriving in Orange, Pastor Jackson became involved in the life of the city, county and state, speaking out on issues and informing and organizing ministers and community to act in promoting God’s kingdom on earth and in their best interest. In addition to pastoring St. Matthew Church, Pastor Jackson served as the Executive Director of the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey (BMC), representing more than 600 Black churches in New Jersey from 1994-2012. He has been outspoken on every major issue in New Jersey, pressuring the state Supreme Court to order New Jersey to increase spending on poor school districts in the state, adequate funding for charity care, legislation to end predatory lending, ending the death penalty in New Jersey, needle exchange and most notably, legislation to end and make racial profiling a crime, the only state in the nation to pass such a law.

Dr. Stella M. Flores is Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity and Associate Professor of Higher Education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. She is also Director of Access and Equity at the Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy at NYU. Dr. Flores holds an EdD in administration, planning, and social policy from Harvard University, an EdM from Harvard University, an MPAff from The University of Texas at Austin, and a BA from Rice University.

In her research she employs quantitative methods to examine large-scale databases, grades K through 20, to investigate the effects of state and federal policies on college access and completion rates for low-income and underrepresented populations. Dr. Flores has written about demographic changes in U.S. education, the role of alternative admissions plans and financial aid programs in college admissions in the U.S and abroad, Minority Serving Institutions, Latino and immigrant students, English Language Learners, and community colleges. Her publications include various peer-reviewed articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Educational Researcher, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, American Journal of Education, The Review of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, The Journal of Mixed Methods, The Journal of College Admission, The Future of Children, and The Journal of Hispanics in Higher Education, as well as three co-edited volumes. Her coauthored work (with Catherine L. Horn) has been cited in the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court Gratz v. Bollinger decision (dissenting opinion) and in various amicus briefs submitted to the Supreme Court on affirmative action cases in higher education admissions. Professor Flores serves on the editorial boards of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, The Review of Higher Education, Sociology of Education, and the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness and AERA Open.

In 2017 she was named “One of the Top 25 Women in Higher Education and Beyond” by Diverse Issues Magazine and has also been recognized as one of the top 200 scholars in Education Week’s RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings from 2015-2017 as well as a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow in 2010. She currently serves as a member of the Committee on Developing Indicators of Educational Equity from The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, a board member of The Institute for Higher Education Policy and the American Association for Hispanics in Higher Education, and was recently elected as an at-large member of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Her research has been funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Academy of Education, the Spencer Foundation and the Educational Testing Service. Prior appointments before NYU include Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University as well as positions as a program evaluator for the U.S. General Accountability Office and a program specialist for the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

Carmen Berkley is an award winning political strategist, entrepreneur, radio host, and DJ striving to change the world through politics, social impact, creative expression, and culture. Carmen has focused her career on intersecting the issues of Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and women into initiatives and programs that have improved the lives of millions of people.

She currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer for Dancing Hearts Consulting, a Black women-led social and political impact firm that brings on the ground experience to build power for communities and expand a reflective and responsive democracy.

Carmen is a co-host and producer for one of the nation's longest-running women's radio shows, Sophie's Parlor on WPFW 89.3 FM, where she works with a team of incredible women to deliver music and politics to their listeners. On the weekends, you can also find her spinning on the ones and twos at clubs, parties, and family events as CarmenSpindiego.

Carmen's nearly 15 years of experience in advocacy, communications and trainings has allowed her to serve as the President of the United States Student Association, Field Director at NAACP and URGE (formerly Choice USA), Executive Director at the Generational Alliance, Director of Civil, Human and Women's Rights at the AFL-CIO, and most recently, Managing Director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She serves as a co-founder of the social impact group Can’t Stop! Won’t Stop! Consulting, where she has developed strategic plans, equity strategies and advocacy trainings for businesses and non-profit organizations. Carmen has developed thousands of people as a political campaigns and organizational development trainer for re:Power (formerly Wellstone Action) and Midwest Academy. 

Named Essence Magazines Woke 100 and Washington Life Magazines top 40 under 40, Carmen has been recognized many times for her work by her peers in the movement. Carmen has been featured in the Washington Post,Huffington Post, Coveteur Magazine. and New York Times. She currently serves as an equity advisor for Sephora, board chair for re:Power, board member for Advocates for Youth, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She proudly serves on the steering committee of Black Womxn For, and is a a founding member of BYP100. She’s lives in Maryland where she loves to eat crab legs and attend concerts with her brilliant husband, LeeSingsRNB.

James is a native of Riverdale, Georgia and an alumnus of Georgia Southern University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in Religious Studies. He also is an 8-year veteran of the U.S. Army Reserve, having served as an Intelligence Analyst.
​He ran for State Representative in 2016 and also served on the State Committee of the Democratic Party of Georgia and State Vice President of the Georgia Clients Council. He also served as the Deputy Campaign Manager for Francys Johnson for Congress [GA12] and has served as the legislative aide to State Representative Miriam Paris [HD142-Macon] for three years in the Georgia General Assembly.
Major is a Silver-Life member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He has served as its State President of the Georgia Youth & College Division, Vice President of its Bulloch County Branch and State Chairman of the Young Adults Committee. He graduated in December 2018 as an inaugural member of the Next Gen Program, a national NAACP leadership co-hort. He currently serves as the State President of the Georgia NAACP.Woodall is a minister of the gospel. He is currently enrolled at the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) pursuing a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) through the Morehouse School of Religion. He is an Associate Minister at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia where Rev. Sammie J. Dow is the Pastor.Rev. James Woodall is a public theologian, an activist, a student, but most importantly, a prisoner of hope. He is guided by the words of the prophet in Zechariah 9:12, “Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope. Today I declare that I will restore double to you.” And in these days of challenge and adversity, he believes in the beauty of this moment to make America a better nation.

Stefan Lallinger is a fellow at the Century Foundation and the Director of TCF’s Bridges Collaborative. He focuses on issues of racial and socioeconomic integration, equity, school governance, and district-charter relationships.

Dr. Lallinger previously worked as a Special Assistant to Chancellor Richard Carranza in the New York City Department of Education working on agency policy and strategy. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University, where he studied integration and school district leadership. At Harvard, he received a fellowship with the Reimagining Integration: Diverse and Equitable Schools (RIDES) Project, coordinated the Education Redesign Lab’s By All Means Initiative in Providence, RI, and facilitated professional learning for some of the nation’s largest districts with the Public Education Leadership Project (PELP) held at Harvard Business School.

Prior to graduate school, Dr. Lallinger led Langston Hughes Academy, a Pre-K through 8th grade open-enrollment school in the Recovery School District, in post-Katrina New Orleans, where he served as principal, assistant principal and teacher for nine years. Before moving to New Orleans, he coordinated a boys mentoring program in Providence, RI. Inspired by his grandfather Louis Redding, a civil rights lawyer, Stefan has been a fierce advocate for integration and equity throughout his career.

He holds BAs in Political Science and Development Studies from Brown University, an MA in History from the University of New Orleans and a doctorate in Education Leadership from Harvard 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.

Mark Gaston Pearce is the Executive Director of the Workers Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Pearce is a former Board Member and Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board who served for two terms, concluding in August 2018. Prior to assuming his position at Georgetown, he was a visiting senior scholar and Lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York Mr. Pearce is a graduate of Cornell University and State University of New York at Buffalo Law School. He was a founding partner at Creighton, Pearce, Johnsen & Giroux and began his 40 year career first as a Field Attorney and later, District Trial Specialist with Region 3 of the National Labor Relations Board. After entering private practice Mr. Pearce served by appointment of the Governor of New York State to the NYS Industrial Board of Appeals as well as several state committees and commissions. He is currently arbitrator and also served as a certified mediator for the United States District Court, Western District of New York. Mr. Pearce is a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and has lectured and given continuing legal education presentations before state and national bar associations, labor management organizations and educational institutions throughout the country.

Mr. Pearce has served on the Committee on Character and fitness for the Fourth Department of the New York State Supreme Court; the Board of Directors of the Lawyers Coordinating Committee of the AFL-CIO; the Coalition for Economic Justice; the Workers Rights Board and the Advisory Board of the Labor and Employment Research Association of Western New York.

His community activities include prior service as president of the Volunteer Lawyers Project Inc., the Minority Bar Association of Western New York, and Housing Opportunities Made Equal. Additionally he served on the Council of the Burchfield-Penney Art Center and the WNY Workforce Investment Board. He is a Silver Life Member of the Buffalo Chapter of the NAACP and is a class of 2000 graduate of Leadership Buffalo.

Mr. Pearce’s many honors and statements of recognition from labor and community organizations include special recognition from the Lawyers Coordinating Committee of the AFL-CIO; Honor Roll of the National Employment Law Project; the Leadership Award from the Western New York Council on Occupational Safety and Health and the Workplace Justice Champion Award from the Employment Justice Center of Washington, D.C. 

Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author of The Future of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity as an Education Reform Strategy.

Richard D. Kahlenberg is director of K–12 equity and senior fellow at The Century Foundation. The author or editor of seventeen books, he has expertise in education, civil rights, and equal opportunity. Kahlenberg has been called “the intellectual father of the economic integration movement” in K–12 schooling and “arguably the nation’s chief proponent of class-based affirmative action in higher education admissions.” He is also an authority on teachers’ unions, private school vouchers, charter schools, community colleges, housing segregation, and labor organizing.

Rev. Dr. Timothy Tee Boddie is the immediate past General Secretary and Chief Administrative Officer of the Progressive National Baptist Convention in Washington, DC. Prior to his pastoral ministry, Dr. Boddie served for 11 years as University Chaplain and Pastor of the Memorial Church at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. In 2007, Chaplain Boddie was elected to a one-year term as president of the National Association of College and University Chaplains, becoming the first African-American from a historically Black university to serve this capacity in the organization’s then 60-year history. Born in Raleigh, NC, Dr. Boddie was reared in Newport News, VA, and is the product of its public schools. Dr. Boddie majored in English at Morehouse College and also holds a master’s degree from Stanford University. He has done further study at New York University, and he earned his doctorate degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA.