Welcome to the 2020 Seneca Falls Revisited Virtual Conference on-demand

Gale A. Brewer is the 27th Borough President of Manhattan.

Since she took office in 2014, she has successfully passed legislation to reform the deed restriction process, add ‘caregivers’ to the city’s anti-discrimination law, remove criminal history questions from initial employment applications (the “Fair Chance Act”), and enforce requirements for street numbers on buildings in Manhattan (to aid emergency workers). She has also spearheaded community planning initiatives at the South Street Seaport, in East Midtown, and in other neighborhoods to address development and zoning issues.

Brewer previously served on the City Council for 12 years, serving as the founding chair of the Technology Committee and leading the Government Operations Committee. There, the Council passed her legislation guaranteeing paid sick leave for most hourly employees, requiring all City data be published online, and protecting domestic workers from abusive practices. 

Prior to that, she served as Chief of Staff to Council Member Ruth Messinger, NYC Deputy Public Advocate, Director of the city’s Federal Office, and Executive Director of the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Brewer has an MPA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and did her undergraduate work at Columbia University and Bennington College.

Kenneth descends from two of the most influential names in American history: he is the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass and the great-great-grandson of Booker T. Washington. His mother, Nettie Washington Douglass, is the daughter of Nettie Hancock Washington (granddaughter of Booker T. Washington), and Dr. Frederick Douglass III (great-grandson of Frederick Douglass). Ken’s life until the year 2007 could be described as distinguished yet decisively disengaged from his lineage until Providence called. Ken continues his family’s legacy of anti-slavery and educational work as co-founder and president of the Atlanta-based nonprofit Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives (FDFI). His career and life path are driven by a clear focus on FDFI’s mission“[t]o Advance Freedom through Knowledge and Strategic Action.” He could not have predicted that one day he would so fully embrace and be defined by the characteristics that so closely defined his famous ancestors.

Michele Jones Galvin is a Great, Great, Great Grandniece of Harriet Tubman. Ms. Jones Galvin and her mother, Joyce Stokes Jones, have co-authored Beyond the Underground:Aunt Harriet, Moses of Her People. As Descendant Biographers, they have penned the creative nonfiction based on genealogical and historical research about Harriet Ross Tubman Davis, Greatest Conductor of the Underground Railroad, and celebrated Civil War Captain.  It chronicles the family lineage from the survival of the Middle Passage to slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland to freedom in Canada, and then settling in Upstate New York.  Beyond the Underground: Aunt Harriet, Moses of Her People is an intricate mix of memoir, family lore and historical reconstruction.

Newly retired, in her professional career Ms. Jones Galvin specialized in program design, implementation and evaluation in Human Services Administration.  Areas of expertise included coordination and collaboration of government and community initiatives, communications and strategic planning.   Ms. Jones Galvin is a certified Bridges Out of Poverty facilitator, and a certified National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) trainer.

Before relocating to Syracuse, Ms. Jones Galvin was awarded a Master’s Degree in Psychology from the New School for Social Research, New York City.  She received a Bachelor’s Degree with a double concentration in Psychology and African American Studies from Fordham University, New York City.