Education

Marleny Franco

Marleny Franco has been a Horticulturist helping people grow food for over thirty-five years.  She holds a Master’s degree in Plant Physiology from Rutgers University and worked as an Agricultural County Agent and professor at Rutgers University for eleven years before moving on to establish and run an environmental horticultural non-profit organization called: Greater Newark Conservancy. 
Through her work with the Greater Newark Conservancy she was successful in encouraging thousands of individuals to garden across the state and other locations within the US.  After twelve years...

Burley Tuggle

 Burley Tuggle completed her Masters in Urban Policy Analysis and Management in 1997 and officially began her professional career.  She has nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of Public Policy and Financial Management.  Over this period, Ms. Tuggle has held research, lobbying and fiscal management positions in private, government and not-for-profit organizations.  In her former position as a Budget Analyst with the New York City Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Ms. Tuggle worked on the team in charge of planning and monitoring the $1 billion expense budget for the New York City...

Jerri Mitchell-Lee

 Reverend Jerri Mitchell-Lee is a native of Brooklyn, New York. As the daughter of a Career Army Officer she has lived all across the United States and has been a long time resident of New Jersey. Reverend Lee has a passion for serving and continues to do so as a health educator, mental health counselor, and workshop trainer within and outside of Unity Fellowship Church Movement. She received her education at Sterling College, University of Kansas, Rutgers, University of Medicine and Dentistry, Newark, N.J., Howard School of Theology (Sat. Program) and Newark School of Theology. Reverend Lee...

Bryan Epps

 Bryan Matthew Charles Epps is a policy wonk and community lover. He has worked for Mayor’s Cory A. Booker and Michael Bloomberg conducting outreach and training to the not-for-profit sector and performance management for city departments. Currently Epps directs a historical human rights based nonprofit and operates a beverage startup. As a Newark native Epps has dedicated himself to helping to build community as founding board chair of People's Prep high-school and First Advisory board chair of HMI:NJ and a former President of the James Street Neighborhood Association. He studied Urban Policy...

Rejean (Tornado) Veal

 Rejean “Tornado” Veal was born and raised in Newark, NJ. During his sophomore year in high school at Malcolm X Shabazz, he ventured into the world of voguing. Since then, he has built a career as a professional dancer and has become active on the ballroom scene. Veal has performed in a number of venues in the United States, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Drawing Center in New York City. He has also toured abroad in countries like France, Russia, and China. Veal is a member of the House of Revlon.

Louie Crew Clay

 Louie Crew Clay is a pioneering activist who founded the gay Episcopal group Integrity USA in 1974 and co-founded the LGBT caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English in 1975, among numerous other achievements. In this interview, we focus on his life in Newark, where he moved in 1989 to teach English at Rutgers University-Newark. You can read more about his life and work in his most recent book, Letters from Samaria (2015), and his Wikipedia page, from which we take the following biography. See also Louie’s richly-documented website, as well as his online photo album, with an...

June Dowell-Burton

 June Dowell-Burton is the founder and an executive board member of Newark Gay Pride, Inc., a LGBT community-based, volunteer run organization that works to enhance LGBTQ life by producing an annual Gay Pride Week and facilitating programming in Newark, New Jersey. The organization was recognized by the White House in 2012 and recently celebrated its Decennial anniversary in 2015. June became an Essex County LGBTQ advisor in 2011, working primarily on identifying issues, providing recommendations and guiding strategy for the County Executive. In 2010, June was vetted and hired as 1 of 23...

Miriam Frank

 Miriam Frank grew up in Newark during the 1950s. She retired from fulltime teaching at NYU in 2014 where she is currently Adjunct Professor of Humanities. She has also taught Labor History in union education programs in New York City and in Detroit, where she was a founder of Women’s Studies at Wayne County Community College.   Miriam Frank's July 2015 interview by Steven Dansky is on OUTSPOKEN: Oral History from LGBTQ Pioneers.  

Arnie Kantrowitz

 Arnold (Arnie) Kantrowitz, a 1961 B.A. alum of Rutgers University-Newark, was a pioneering activist for LGBT equality in the United States. He served as vice president of New York City's influential Gay Activists Alliance, founded in 1970 in the wake of the Stonewall uprising, and in 1985 co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in response to antigay coverage of the AIDS crisis by New York City tabloids. GLAAD, still today the leading advocate for fair and accurate representation of LGBT people in the media, counts among its early successes an effort to persuade New York...

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