DeAngelo Bester

DeAngelo Bester is the Executive Director of the Workers Center For Racial Justice. He has worked as both a community and labor organizer for nearly 15 years. He has organized and helped developed a diverse set of leaders, from nurses in rural Wisconsin to public housing residents in New York. DeAngelo has led local, state, and national organizing campaigns that advanced racial justice around issues such as educational equity, preservation and expansion of affordable housing, re-entry, and increasing access to living wage jobs for Black workers.

In 2012 DeAngelo started the Workers Center For Racial Justice (WCRJ), which focuses on organizing unemployed, low-wage and formerly incarcerated Black workers. In 2014 after just two and half years in existence, under DeAngelo's leadership, WCRJ achieved a major victory by getting statewide Ban the Box legislation passed and signed into law that covers both public and private sectors employers. And in 2016 DeAngelo led the field effort for WCRJ and its sister 501 c4 organization, the Center for Racial and Gender Equity that helped get former police Superintendent McCarthy fired and State's Attorney Alvarez voted out of office.