During much of the past fifteen years of my career as an attorney, I worked in the non-profit public interest law sector to provide legal services to North Carolina’s financially distressed and limited resource property owners seeking to preserve their homes, land, farms, and rural livelihood. I've also worked briefly at a small private law firm representing clients in personal injury and business litigation cases.
I was raised in the West End community of Mebane – my father’s hometown and a historical black community founded by former slaves after the Civil War in Alamance County. During the past several years, the West End Revitalization Association (WERA), a nonprofit community improvement organization founded by my parents and other concerned neighbors, has led the effort to provide basic amenities to the community such as adequate water and sewer services, the paving of roads, and the repair and clean-up of failing septic systems. This lack of basic amenities contributed to a serious decline in the environmental integrity and public health of the residents. Since my high school years, I've worked with WERA to help provide healthy and sustainable solutions for the people in the West End community and other communities like it.
Deeply inspired by the efforts of my parents and neighbors to save our community, I earned my law degree from Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio. I also graduated from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, with a degree in General Psychology.
In addition to my work as an attorney, I serve on the Leadership Team of the NC Climate Justice Collective, and I'm a current member of Audubon North Carolina's Advisory Board of Directors. I have a passion for physical fitness, so I became a licensed Zumba instructor in July 2018, offering Zumba and group dance fitness classes with my brother Ayo as TwinZIN.
