Angela Glover Blackwell is Founder in Residence at PolicyLink, the organization she started in 1999 to advance racial and economic equity for all. Under Angela’s leadership, PolicyLink gained national prominence in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, and infrastructure. Her Radical Imagination podcast debuted in September 2019, and introduces listeners to a world of talented, creative, progressive thinkers whose vision and determination are challenging the status quo to create the change we need.

Prior to founding PolicyLink, Angela served as Senior Vice President at The Rockefeller Foundation. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the UrbanStrategies Council. From 1977 to 1987, Angela was a partner at Public Advocates. Angela is the co-author of Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future, and she authoredThe Curb Cut Effect, published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review in 2017.

As a leading voice in the movement for equity in America, Angela serves on numerous boards. She advised the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve as one of 15 members of its inaugural Community Advisory Council, and in 2020 was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to the state Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery. She is the 2018 recipient of the John W. GardnerLeadership Award, presented by the Independent Sector, and in 2017, she received the Peter E. Haas Public Service Award from the University of California, Berkeley.

Andre M. Perry is a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings, a scholar-in-residence at American University, and a columnist for the Hechinger Report. He is the author of the new book Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities, which is currently available wherever books are sold. A nationally known and respected commentator on race, structural inequality, and education, Perry is a regular contributor to MSNBC and has been published by The New York Times, The Nation, The Washington Post, TheRoot.com and CNN.com. Perry has also made appearances on CNN, PBS, National Public Radio, NBC, and ABC. His research focuses on race and structural inequality, education, and economic inclusion. Perry’s recent scholarship at Brookings has analyzed Black-majority cities and institutions in America, focusing on valuable assets worthy of increased investment. 

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Perry has documented the underlying causes for the outsized number of coronavirus-related deaths in Black communities. His Brookings research has illuminated how certain forms of social distancing historically accelerated economic and social disparities between Black people and the rest of the country. Perry also mapped racial inequities in housing, income, and health to underscore how policy discrimination makes Black Americans more vulnerable to COVID-19. 

His research has spotlighted the struggles of Black businesses—including artists and art institutions, restaurants, and barbershops and beauty salons—as they await federal relief from COVID-19’s economic impact. In education, he explained how college campus closings put housing-insecure students at risk during the pandemic. He's also written on the unrealized value of teachers’ work that’s been made apparent by COVID-19, and has commented on the potential loss of Black teachers as a result of an impending recession. 

Prior to his work at Brookings, Perry has been a founding dean, professor, award-winning journalist, and activist in the field of education. In 2015, Perry served on Louisiana Governor-elect John Bel Edwards’ K-12 education transition committee, as well as on New Orleans Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu’s transition team as its co-chair for education in 2010. In 2013, Perry founded the College of Urban Education at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, Mich. Preceding his stint in Michigan, he was an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of New Orleans and served as CEO of the Capital One-University of New Orleans Charter Network. 

Perry’s academic writings have concentrated on race, structural inequality, and urban schools. Perry co-authored the Brookings Institution report “The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods” and has presented its findings across the country, including to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. For the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Perry co-authored “School by School: The Transformation of New Orleans Public Education” in Resilience and Opportunity: Lessons from the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita, published by Brookings Institution Press. Perry also co-authored "The Transformation of New Orleans Public Schools: Addressing System-Level Problems Without a System," published by the Data Center of New Orleans. He also co-authored a chapter in Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform published by Harvard Education Press. Along with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Perry co-authored the report “Place Matters for Health in Orleans Parish: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All.” 

A native of Pittsburgh, Pa., Perry earned his Ph.D. in education policy and leadership from the University of Maryland College Park. 
 
 

Danyelle Solomon is the vice president of Race and Ethnicity Policy at American Progress where she leads the organizations racial justice policy work. More specifically, her team focuses on closing the racial wealth gap, ensuring core civil rights protections and moving the policy conversations beyond diversity and instead focused on equity and inclusion. Prior to joining CAP, she served as policy counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Washington, D.C., office, where she focused primarily on criminal justice issues, including sentencing reform, policing reform, and racial disparities in the justice system. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Solomon served as legislative counsel at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy within the Office of Legislative Affairs, where she focused on federal drug policy. Solomon also served as counsel to Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee, where she was responsible for a wide array of policy issues, including sentencing reform, juvenile justice reform, and executive branch nominations. She served as the principal counsel to Sen. Cardin during the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Danyelle’s work has been published in The NY times, Time Magazine, Washington Post and many other outlets. Solomon obtained her J.D. from the Pennsylvania State University and graduated from the University of Miami with a B.A. in political science.

Nathaniel Smith serves as Founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE), which advances policies and institutional actions that promote racial equity and shared prosperity for all in the growth of metropolitan Atlanta and the American South. Among PSE’s notable accomplishments was the creation the American South’s first equity mapping and framing tool, the Metro Atlanta Equity Atlas, and co-authoring numerous reports including: “Growing the Future: The Case for Economic Inclusion in Metropolitan Atlanta”, and “Employment Equity: Putting Georgia on the Path to Inclusive Prosperity”. PSE also led a coalition of diverse stakeholders to support a $13 million transit referendum that expanded Atlanta’s metropolitan transit system into a new county for the first time in 45 years. 
Smith’s advocacy activities were instrumental in the ratification of a 15 percent set aside of Atlanta Beltline Tax Allocation District (TAD) dollars for the development and maintenance of affordable workforce housing within the Atlanta BeltLine Planning Area - $250 million dollars over the 25-year lifespan of the Atlanta BeltLine TAD. 
A child of Civil Rights Movement and Atlanta native, Smith holds a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Morehouse College and a Master of Science from the New School.   
Among his many accomplishments, The Huffington Post honored Nathaniel as one of the eight “Up and Coming Black Leaders in the Climate Movement” in 2017. Nathaniel was also named to the Grist 50 by Grist Magazine in 2018 and the Atlanta 500 by Atlanta Magazine in 2019 and 2020, and designated one of the 100 “Most Influential Georgians” by Georgia Trend magazine in 2018, 2019 and 2020. His work was also featured in the U.S. News and World Report, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nonprofit Quarterly, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Voice and others.