Meet the Inaugural UNUM Fellows
UNUM Fellows’ first cohort includes a diverse set of Southern elected leaders, from rural mayors to suburban school board members to county commissioners and big-city mayors. This select group will embark on a year-long journey to address inequitable and discriminatory policies and practices within their communities. Uniquely positioned to redesign broken systems, they begin this signature program amidst a renewed national movement towards racial and economic justice.
Wardine T. Alexander
City Councilor, Council President Pro Tempore, Birmingham, AL
Byron Gipson
Solicitor of the Fifth Circuit, Richland and Kershaw Counties, SC
Dorothy L. Heffron
School Board Member and Vice-Chair, Chesterfield County School Board, Chesterfield County, VA
Bettina Umstead
School Board Member and Board Chair, Durham Public Schools Board of Education, Durham, NC
Learn more about Bettina
Virgil Watkins, Jr.
County Commissioner, Macon-Bibb County Board of Commission, Macon-Bibb County, GA
Learn more about Virgil
About the Unum Fellows Program
As part of E Pluribus Unum’s foundational research journey in 2018, we found that people place a great deal of hope in their local political leadership and better embrace the concept of racial equity when local leadership actively seeks to advance it. Through UNUM Fellows, a signature program of E Pluribus Unum, elected leaders will gain or expand upon their understanding of how to address racial and economic equity within communities. Each UNUM Fellow will learn from nationally-recognized experts, consult with peers across the South, and design and implement an equity-based project that will create sustainable, meaningful change.
While success will look different in each community, Fellows will leave the program equipped to:
- Foster meaningful participation among key community partners and leaders to drive the advancement of equity goals and projects;
- Advance initiatives—beginning with their Fellowship project—that address racial and economic disparities in communities;
- Cultivate long-term visions for equity within their communities that outlive any single term or administration;
- Talk about racial and economic equity in ways that advance discourse, with a common language and understanding; and
- Act with urgency with the support of a strong peer network and community.
Program Partners Include
- Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program;
- Center for American Progress (CAP);
- The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP);
- FrameWorks Institute;
- Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a project of Race Forward;
- Hope Policy Institute;
- National League of Cities University (NLCU);
- PolicyLink; and
- What Works Cities