Ms. Virginia Craft Lee graduated from Howard University in 1969 with a B.A. in History and Political Science. She had the aspiration of doing something that would make a positive difference in my community. Much of her life after graduation has been spent battling the chronic disease, Systematic Lupus. Diagnosed in 1992, she has managed in spite of and because of this dhallenge, to live a productive life. To paraphrase the old Timex ad, “She took a licking and keeps on ticking”.

In addition to her degree from Howard she also participated in an Executive Management Program, AMP, HBS in 1983. She had a twenty-year career in customer service with Bell Atlantic, retired as District Manager in Marketing in 1989 and served as an Organizational Effectiveness Consultant with Senn- Delaney Associates from 1990-92. Her community involvement has included being a member of Federal City Alumnae Chapter, D.S.T., Inc, initiated in 1976, focus on social action and education development. She served on the Board of the Howard Country Center of African American Culture from 1990-2003. She has been a Founding Board Member of ONE DC since 1997. For the last 15 years she has volunteered with Literary Volunteers of America, Experience Corp and Reading Partners to help raise the literacy level for adults and children in D.C.She is also an active member of the historic Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.

Ms. Lee resides in historic Shaw community in Washington, D.C. She is the proud mother
of two children, Garrett and Deidre Lee, and blessed with two granddaughters Montana and Makaylah. She enjoys time with my family and friends who have been a sustaining influence in her life. Her pastime favorites include reading and writing, occasional water aerobics, museum visits, concerts, word puzzles and theater outings.

Ms. Jalisa Whitley is the Program Officer of the Beckner Advancement Fund and Founder and Principal Consultant of Unbound Impact, a boutique consulting agency that helps nonprofits and philanthropic entities create spaces, processes and programs that advance equity and amplify their impact. Ms. Whitley has been active in the nonprofit community as a professional, volunteer, and board member for 10 years. Her work has included large, small and volunteer-run nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies in a wide array of mission areas including education, human services, and health. These organizations have included but are not limited to the National Institutes of Health, the Greater Washington Community Foundation, the National Collaborative for Health Equity, and the United Way of the National Capital Area. Jalisa is passionate about connecting communities to opportunities to elevate their impact, co-create solutions, and implement sustainable change through strategic philanthropic investments and data-driven programmatic initiatives.

A native of Geneva, New York, Jalisa received a Bachelor’s of Arts in Sociology and Public Policy from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and a Masters of Public Policy in Nonprofit Management and Leadership from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Rosemary Ndubuizu is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Ndubuizu is an interdisciplinary scholar who studies how housing policies are shaped by race, gender, political economy, and ideology. Her untitled manuscript-in-progress historically and ethnographically traces how low-income black women have been affected by post-1970s changes in public and affordable housing policies and advocacy. Her research project also examines the contemporary landscape of affordable housing policy and politics to better understand why low-income black women remain vulnerable to eviction, displacement, and housing insecurity in cities like the District of Columbia. Additionally, her work presents the organizing challenges low-income black women tenant activists in D.C. face as they organize to combat the city’s reduction and privatization of affordable housing. 

Originally from Inglewood, CA, Rosemary relocated to Washington, D.C. in 2006 after she completed her undergraduate studies. After a brief stint as an after-school coordinator for an all-black girls youth program in Washington, D.C, Rosemary became a ONE DC community organizer from 2007 to 2010. Coordinating ONE DC’s Right to Housing Campaigns, Rosemary worked with long-time DC residents to demand greater public investments in truly affordable housing. Additionally, Rosemary supported residents’ campaigns to extend affordability covenants on multi-family housing. After she enrolled in graduate school at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in 2010, Rosemary returned to ONE DC to join the Shared Leadership Team in 2011-2012. Since then, Rosemary has served on various SLT committees and she continues to support and facilitate ONE DC’s community learning and community organizing efforts.

Ms. Jourgette Reid-Sillah, (Ms. J), is retired from 30 years in the hospitality industry and has been a member of ONE DC for three years. The majority of her organizing experience comes from being a member of Unite HERE Local 25 serving as shop steward for many years. She returned to school after a cancer diagnosis and graduated from the University of the District of Columbia (2017) with a BA in Sociology. That allowed her to intern in focus groups in Public Housing, Breast Cancer initiatives in Wards 7&8 with Smith Center for Healing and the Arts and Howard University. She participated in Revisiting Tally’s Corner (Elliott Liebow) involving the changes within DC due to gentrification. She is currently a member of ONE DC’s SLT as an apprentice and is a member of both the Transition team and Resource Committee.

Ka Flewellen has over 20 years of experience as a social change organizer and activist in the Washington, DC area.  In 2000, she earned a Master’s Degree in Organization Development from American University’s School of Public Affairs.  She has devoted her work to nonprofit social change organizations in building their infrastructure, strategic planning, board development and coaching leaders. While serving on the Board of Directors of the Peace Development Fund in 2002, she led the foundation’s Building Action for Sustainable Environments (BASE) which supported people of color communities impacted by the production and storage of nuclear and chemical weapons. In 2004, while serving as Assistant Director for Strategy at a small think-tank, The Preamble Center, she helped incubate and launch the National Black Environmental and Economic Justice Network (NBEEJN) which bought together over 100 black community environmental organizations to fight the impact on their communities of toxic industries, municipal landfills and decommissioned military bases serving as storage sites for nuclear and chemical weapons. In 2009, she co-founded the International Black Women’s Public Policy Institute (IBWPPI) bringing together black women internationally to provide pathways for women seeking to work in the public policy arena and carry out special programs of support for girls, and communities challenged by poverty and recovering from disasters.  

Ka was introduced to ONE DC in 2009 as a consultant to assist with strategic planning and supporting the development of the Shared Leadership Team.  She has stayed a member and played a number of roles from working in development to assisting displaced residents return to a new 8 story high-rise built on the grounds of their former homes at Kelsey Gardens.  As a regional member of ONE DC, she serves on the Shared Leadership Team. She currently serves on the Coordinating Team of ONE DC’s period of internal reflection, training and infrastructure development, Creative Reconstruction and as a member of the Transition Committee overseeing the transition from Dominic Moulden, one of the founding members of ONE DC from a strategic staff role to an active member.