Loretta Vaughan

Loretta Vaughan is a long-time activist from New York and a founding member of the Harriet Tubman-Fannie Lou Hamer Collective, which works on issues of racial justice.In Brooklyn, the collective started the African Peoples Farmers Market to provide fresh and affordable produce to low-income neighborhoods and Sistas' Place, a community coffee house which provides meeting space for community organizing and jazz for the soul.A recent campaign of the collective has pressured an independent investigation of the local child welfare agency, which was criticized in a BBC documentary for using African American and Latino kids as guinea pigs for testing HIV/AIDS drugs.Loretta is also a founder of the December 12th Movement, working on behalf of African people throughout the Diaspora.It is the main group that campaigned for over 10 years to convince the United Nations to hold the historic "World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance" in South Africa several years ago-and brought the largest contingent of any NGO to the conference.Loretta's professional career is as the director of a program at the College of New Rochelle that is designed to bring young women, primarily of color, into opportunities for higher education at the college.She also is trained in alternative health practices and plans to open a Wellness Center in the community in the next several years.