Angela Glover Blackwell: Founder & CEO of PolicyLink

Posted on 07. Dec, 2009 by Leshell Hatley in Scholarly Celebrations

Angela Glover Blackwell is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing economic and social equity by Lifting Up What Works.® PolicyLink was founded in 1999 and connects the work of people on the ground to the creation of sustainable communities of opportunity that allow everyone to participate and prosper. Such communities offer access to quality jobs, affordable housing, good schools, transportation, and the benefits of healthy food and physical activity. It is headquartered in California.

Career

A renowned community building activist and advocate, Blackwell served as senior vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation where she oversaw the Foundation’s Domestic and Cultural divisions. Blackwell also developed Rockefeller’s Building Democracy division, which focused on race and policy, and created the Next Generation Leadership program. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the Oakland (CA) Urban Strategies Council, where she pioneered new approaches to neighborhood revitalization. From 1977 to 1987, Blackwell was a partner at Public Advocates, a nationally known public interest law firm representing the underrepresented. She successfully litigated class action suits and developed innovative non-litigation strategies in the areas of employment, education, health and consumer affairs.

She is the co-author of Searching for the Uncommon Common Ground: New Dimensions on Race in America (W.W. Norton & Co., 2002), which is a discussion of the persistently divisive issues surrounding race in this country. The book is written around the themes of The black-white paradigm versus multiculturalism, diversity versus racial and social justice, universal versus particular strategies, and National versus local responsibility, and Structural factors versus individual initiative. She also contributed to Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream (The New Press, 2007), an anthology edited by John Edwards. Both books are featured below.

Blackwell has served on many boards, including the Urban Institute, The James Irvine Foundation, the Foundation for Child Development, and Common Cause. Currently, she serves the Children’s Defense Fund, Levi Strauss and Co., and the Corporation for Enterprise Development.

Education

Angela Glover Blackwell earned a bachelor’s degree from Howard University, and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

Below is a clip of her in action as she testifies on behalf of her role as co-chair of a task force on poverty for the Center for American Progress.

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Information obtained from wikipedia and PolicyLink.org

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