#195 Kimberly Perry

If we want to speak honestly about the state of our nation, we must look first at how our children are doing. For Kimberly Perry, executive director of DC Action, this requires facing the fact that 1/3 of Washington DC's children live in poverty, data that has barely shifted since the organization's founding 30 years ago. An expert teacher, organizer and policy advocate, Kimberly is leading a movement to challenge this unacceptable status quo with unimpeachable data, solutions shaped by children and families and the investment of local and federal policy makers. As Kimberly explains in this episode of Power Station, it is the ongoing global pandemic and a racial reckoning that has exposed and exacerbated long-lived fissures in our public health, housing, education and criminal justice systems. The racial inequities that undergird these systems are the focus of DC Action's bold, ambitious agenda for change. And that change is happening now, through programs that touch families from birth to early childhood to young adulthood and policy advocacy that has generated historical levels of investment in Black and Brown children. Kimberly is a change maker to watch, support and learn from.