|
| Affiliation | Democratic |
|
| |
2009-01-01 |
|
|
| Name | Joe Leonard Jr. |
| Address |
Washington, District of Columbia , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
June 16, 1966
(57 years)
|
| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Modifed | Scott³
Apr 05, 2009 01:48pm |
| Tags |
|
| Info | Leonard’s great-great-great-grandfather fought at the Alamo. He was a slave fluent in both English and Spanish, and shortly after he survived the battle at the Alamo, he escaped from slavery. “That agency of his always struck me,” Leonard said. “He had the wherewithal and the strength to escape. That got me interested in civil rights.” He got a bachelor’s and a master’s in history and then earned a PhD from Howard University for his dissertation, “We're catching hell down here: The struggle for public accommodations and voter franchisement in Louisiana from 1960 to 1965.”
Leonard was born in Austin, Texas in 1966, and his father ran as a Republican for county judge in 1972. He lost, but Leonard said he was always impressed with his father’s unsuccessful run for elected office just seven years after he was given the right to vote. He was the first black man to run for that county judge position since Reconstruction. A couple years later, his father switched parties. “Something that you don't hear very often is that blacks are LBJ Democrats. You certainly don't hear that. It took courage for [President Lyndon Johnson], a native Texan, to sign the Voting Rights Act. This election you're seeing the impact 33 years later.”
Leonard worked as the Washington bureau chief of the Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition for four years before becoming the Executive Director of the Black Leadership Forum in June 2004. In both of those previous jobs, he worked closely with Rep. Kilpatrick on issues related to Hurricane Katrina and the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006.
When the opportunity arose to work with Kilpatrick more closely, Leonard jumped on it. He had already worked closely with many other CBC members on a variety of issues through his work at Rainbow/PUSH and the Black Leadership Forum, and he said the increased power of the CBC in the 110th Congress also drew him to the job.
The CBC is a tight-knit group and stands up for its own; many of its members cried foul when then-Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) was removed from the House Ways and Means Committee in May 2006 after the FBI raided his Congressional offices. Jefferson has been indicted and is standing trial on charges of bribery and corruption, but he remained a member of the CBC through his loss in the 2008 elections and received campaign donations from the group in 2008.
As the CBC executive director, Leonard described his job as building consensus among the caucus’ 40-plus members from all over the country. He says before coming to Washington, every politician should read Marcus Aurelius’ “The Meditations.” “D.C. is filled with every homecoming queen and captain of a football team, and they've all read ‘The Prince.’ Meditations is an extraordinary book on leadership whereas Machiavelli is about seizing power,” Leonard said.
After Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) took over for Kilpatrick as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Leonard stepped down as executive director for the caucus. He worked as an assistant to Kilpatrick until he was nominated by President Obama to be assistant secretary for civil rights for the Department of Agriculture.
|
 | BOOKS |
 |
|
| Title |
Purchase |
Contributor |
|
| Start Date |
End Date |
Type |
Title |
Contributor |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
| INFORMATION LINKS |
|
|
|
