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IAJE Board
Maria Zamora
Jeremy Jong
Daniel Chavez-Yenter
Daniel (he/his/him) is a doctoral candidate at the University of Utah in the Department of Communication and a research assistant at Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah. Daniel has lived and worked in the Deep South for the past 6 years working within the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health, School of Medicine, and most recently My Brother's Keeper, Inc. in Mississippi. Daniel has worked on chronic disease prevention programs, HIV/AIDS, and teen pregnancy prevention among underserved, primarily, African American, Latinx and other minority, populations throughout the state of Mississippi, and subgroups, such as those in rural areas, and African American men who have sex with men (MSM). Daniel has over 8 years of public health and behavioral science experience in the areas of research and evaluation, management, leadership development, and grant development, which includes monitoring the activities and performance of partners, collecting and analyzing data to assess program progress, using data to make continuous quality improvements, and conducting implementation evaluation.
Rukia Lumumba
A legal professional, transformative justice strategist, Rukia Lumumba is founding director of the People’s Advocacy Institute, and co-director of the Electoral Justice Project of the Movement
of Black Lives,
Rukia works at the intersections of criminal and electoral justice engaging communities in
community-led governance, community-driven public safety & an intentional grassroots process for cultivating ideas and developing solutions to violence, punitive legal systems and social injustice facing far too many communities. Her work is centered on the belief that community
agency is what architects robust systems change and is what is needed to build new institutional
power that paves the way for a more just system rooted in restoration, resilience and self-determination.
Named a "New Activist" by Essence magazine and an "Emerging Leader" by the Congressional
Black Caucus, the daughter of community justice icon the late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and
Nubia Lumumba, Rukia continues the Lumumba family's rich history of advancing issues and
initiatives that elevate the legal, economical, health and educational rights of individuals,
families and communities.
For more than 18 years, she has worked within and outside the system to foster justice for all,
especially as it relates to criminal justice disparities for people of color. She has served as
director of two of New York state’s largest criminal justice nonprofits, CASES (the Center for Alternatives Sentencing and Employment Services) and the Center for Community Alternatives,
providing visionary leadership and building community and system partnerships to help break the prison pipeline. During her leadership tenure, more than 4,200 youths received
supportive community-based services including housing, education, job, and health and well-being services, in lieu of incarceration. She also served as co-chair of the Anti-Violence and Criminal Justice Working Group and steering committee member of the first Young Women’s Initiative in the United States dedicated to developing gender equitable policies in New York City, particularly for young women of color. Her work contributed to the development of She Will Be, a 144-page report of recommendations from
stakeholders across New York City, including but not limited to community-based organizations,
advocates, policy experts, and young women themselves.
A graduate of Howard University School of Law, Rukia clerked for the Juvenile Rights Division
of the Washington, DC, Public Defender Service where she represented children and collected
data on human rights violations at the former Oak Hill Youth Detention Center, one of the
nation’s worst juvenile facilities. The data was included in a report that contributed to the
closing of the facility. She was program director of Parents Watch, Inc., a Washington-based
nonprofit that assists parents in advocating for their detained child's release. During her tenure, she helped launch the first parent resource center housed within a detention facility. She served on the board of directors of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, an association of
lawyers, activists and legal workers who defend human rights and expose the criminal justice disparities for people of color. She served as national coordinator of the Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement, a membership-based organization dedicated to promoting human rights and
self-determination. She co-founded Katrina on the Ground, an initiative that organized over 700
college students to participate in post-Katrina relief efforts in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. She launched the Community Aid and Development Day Camp, an education and cultural enrichment program for over 200 children ages 6-16 in Jackson, Mississippi.
Rukia currently serves on the boards of Operation Shoestring, a Mississippi based early childcare
non-profit, the Edward W. Hazen Foundation dedicated to youth-of-color leadership
development, Black Voters Matter which is committed to increasing political power in Black
communities, and the Abolition Law Center dedicated to providing free legal support to people serving life sentences. She was selected as one of the brightest and most promising women of
color by New York University Wagner School of Public Service and she is a 2011 Youth for Justice Leadership Fellow for the National Juvenile Justice Network.
Rukia holds her family very dear and is most proud of being a wonderful mother to her son Qadir. She was instrumental in the successful and revolutionary mayoral campaigns of her father,
the late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and brother, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. Her assistance in their campaigns aided in uniting people across generations and cities, moving as brilliantly
among the grassroots as it did among the grasstops.
Rukia holds a bachelor's degree in political science with an emphasis in international
relations from Tougaloo College in Mississippi. She holds a Juris Doctorate from Howard
University School of Law in Washington, D.C. and has studied law and politics in South Africa
at the University of Forte Hare and the University of the Western Cape.
of Black Lives,
Rukia works at the intersections of criminal and electoral justice engaging communities in
community-led governance, community-driven public safety & an intentional grassroots process for cultivating ideas and developing solutions to violence, punitive legal systems and social injustice facing far too many communities. Her work is centered on the belief that community
agency is what architects robust systems change and is what is needed to build new institutional
power that paves the way for a more just system rooted in restoration, resilience and self-determination.
Named a "New Activist" by Essence magazine and an "Emerging Leader" by the Congressional
Black Caucus, the daughter of community justice icon the late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and
Nubia Lumumba, Rukia continues the Lumumba family's rich history of advancing issues and
initiatives that elevate the legal, economical, health and educational rights of individuals,
families and communities.
For more than 18 years, she has worked within and outside the system to foster justice for all,
especially as it relates to criminal justice disparities for people of color. She has served as
director of two of New York state’s largest criminal justice nonprofits, CASES (the Center for Alternatives Sentencing and Employment Services) and the Center for Community Alternatives,
providing visionary leadership and building community and system partnerships to help break the prison pipeline. During her leadership tenure, more than 4,200 youths received
supportive community-based services including housing, education, job, and health and well-being services, in lieu of incarceration. She also served as co-chair of the Anti-Violence and Criminal Justice Working Group and steering committee member of the first Young Women’s Initiative in the United States dedicated to developing gender equitable policies in New York City, particularly for young women of color. Her work contributed to the development of She Will Be, a 144-page report of recommendations from
stakeholders across New York City, including but not limited to community-based organizations,
advocates, policy experts, and young women themselves.
A graduate of Howard University School of Law, Rukia clerked for the Juvenile Rights Division
of the Washington, DC, Public Defender Service where she represented children and collected
data on human rights violations at the former Oak Hill Youth Detention Center, one of the
nation’s worst juvenile facilities. The data was included in a report that contributed to the
closing of the facility. She was program director of Parents Watch, Inc., a Washington-based
nonprofit that assists parents in advocating for their detained child's release. During her tenure, she helped launch the first parent resource center housed within a detention facility. She served on the board of directors of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, an association of
lawyers, activists and legal workers who defend human rights and expose the criminal justice disparities for people of color. She served as national coordinator of the Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement, a membership-based organization dedicated to promoting human rights and
self-determination. She co-founded Katrina on the Ground, an initiative that organized over 700
college students to participate in post-Katrina relief efforts in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. She launched the Community Aid and Development Day Camp, an education and cultural enrichment program for over 200 children ages 6-16 in Jackson, Mississippi.
Rukia currently serves on the boards of Operation Shoestring, a Mississippi based early childcare
non-profit, the Edward W. Hazen Foundation dedicated to youth-of-color leadership
development, Black Voters Matter which is committed to increasing political power in Black
communities, and the Abolition Law Center dedicated to providing free legal support to people serving life sentences. She was selected as one of the brightest and most promising women of
color by New York University Wagner School of Public Service and she is a 2011 Youth for Justice Leadership Fellow for the National Juvenile Justice Network.
Rukia holds her family very dear and is most proud of being a wonderful mother to her son Qadir. She was instrumental in the successful and revolutionary mayoral campaigns of her father,
the late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and brother, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. Her assistance in their campaigns aided in uniting people across generations and cities, moving as brilliantly
among the grassroots as it did among the grasstops.
Rukia holds a bachelor's degree in political science with an emphasis in international
relations from Tougaloo College in Mississippi. She holds a Juris Doctorate from Howard
University School of Law in Washington, D.C. and has studied law and politics in South Africa
at the University of Forte Hare and the University of the Western Cape.
Rommel Sandino
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