CLSJ Staff

Esmeralda Simmons is the founder and executive director of the Center for Law and Social Justice in Brooklyn, New York. The Center is a small but very effective community-based legal advocacy and research institution that is a unit of Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. Prior to founding the Center, Esmeralda had already had an accomplished career as: the First Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights for New York State, and as a Civil Rights Attorney for the US Department of Education, a New York State Assistant Attorney General, and a New York City Assistant Corporation Counsel. She had also served as a law clerk to a federal judge.

In addition, she has served on several major public boards in New York City government, e.g., the NYC Board of Education, and the NYC Districting Commission. Currently, Esmeralda also volunteers her skills by serving on the Board of Directors for the Applied Research Center, the Fund for Social Change and the Vallecitos Mountain Refuge, Inc., and as a selection committee member for several fellowships and grants for activists, parents, and youth.

An activist and a leader, she has been involved in the community empowerment movement in Central Brooklyn and in progressive political causes for over thirty-five years. As an attorney, she specializes in racial justice issues, such as quality public education for students of color, voting rights, and cultural rights. She chooses to work locally with community organizations using advocacy, community education, coalition–building, and organizing methods, as well as civil rights and human rights legal tools. Esmeralda is a deeply spiritual woman who is grounded in African culture. She finds constant inspiration in the vision of her ancestors, her belief in peace, and her respect for life and cultural diversity.

Gwen Riddick is a mediator an activist and administrator. Ms. Riddick, specializes in human resources management, labor relations and finance management for non-profit organizations. As the Deputy Director at the Center for Law and Social Justice she is responsible for finance and administration of the organization. During her career she has served as Executive Assistant to the Regional Director at U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights and in a number of public interest positions. She has more than 20 years experience working in the areas of civil rights, human rights and education advocacy on behalf of the disenfranchised and people of color for various community based-organizations and political action clubs.

Gwen Riddick received her Masters of Science Degree from Baruch College, City University of New York in Industrial Labor Relations and Human Resource Management and her undergraduate degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is both a member of the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution and the Society of Human Resource Management.

Joan P. Gibbs, Esq. is the General Counsel for the Center for Law and Social Justice as well as the Project Director of the MEC Immigration Center. She received her JD from the Rutgers School of Law in Newark, New Jersey in 1985 and is a member of the bars of the states of New York and New Jersey. Prior to joining the staff of CLSJ, Ms. Gibbs was a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, the ACLU Women's Rights Project and the Marvin Karpatkin Fellow in the American Civil Liberties in the national office of the ACLU.

Ms. Gibbs was born in Harlem but spent her growing years in Swan Quarter, North Carolina, a small town on the eastern shore where she witnessed the violence and segregation that accompanied Jim Crowism. Ms. Gibbs first became involved in the movement for racial justice as a high school student in the late 1960s. She is currently a member of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the Jericho Movement for Recognition and Amnesty for U.S. Political Prisoners and the May 1st Coalition. Ms. Gibbs is also a writer and a poet. Her articles, stories and poems have appeared in number of publications, among them the Iowa Review, Social Policy, Journal of Community Advocacy and Activism, Our Times Press, AZALEA and The Final Call.

Oseye Mchawi is the administrative assistant for the Immigration Center, one of the funded projects of the Center for Law and Social Justice. In that capacity, she coordinates the schedules of the attorneys and sets appointments with clients. Her duties include handling the clerical responsibilities for the Immigration Center, as well as, the Center for Law and Social Justice. She manages a very active phone service; handles the incoming and outgoing correspondences; creates flyers for the Immigration Center, and events sponsored by CLSJ. She also has coordinated workshops and seminars for CLSJ during Black History Month and Women's History Month at Medgar Evers College.

Oseye Mchawi, is a long-time resident and community activist of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. She has been a Yoruba priestess for more than 30 years. It was her involvement, in the EAST organization, and, Uhuru Sasa Shule (Freedom Now School), during the early 1970s that led to her advocacy in the fight against social, economic, and religious injustices.

Oseye Mchawi, is intricately involved with several African traditional religious organizations: Ile Ase, Inc. where she is executive director. Ile Ase, Inc. is one of the largest African spiritual groups in New York. She is a founding member and executive director of the Omo Obatala Egbe, Inc; and, founder and President of the Yoruba Society of Brooklyn, Inc.

Ruth Lateefah Carter is the Assistant Project Associate of the Creating Justice Project, which works to inform people who were formerly incarcerated about their right to vote and to educate community residents about police brutality and their rights. She maintains the Center's link with the community nationally as well as internationally through forums and conferences.. Lateefah creates, produces many of the Center's flyers and brochures as well as being the editor and producer of the Center's newsletter.

Lateefah is a political activist. Jim Crow was at its peak during her days in high school in Charleston, South Carolina. Open racism compelled her to get involved. She participated in many demonstrations that desegregated "colored only" water fountains, lunch counters, entrances, and other places of racial divide.

While away from the Center, Lateefah can be found at Sistas' Place and the African People's Farmers Market - the December 12th Movement's cultural institutions that promote self-determination in the Black community. As a member of the December 12th Movement, a Black human rights organization based in Brooklyn, NY, she helped to organize over 400 grassroots Black people to go to the 2001 United Nations World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa and helped to organize for the National Reparation rally in Washington, DC in 2002 which drew over 40,000.

Allison Rosenberg, Esq. joined the MEC Immigration Center as a staff attorney in January 2005. She received her JD from the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in 1995 and is a member of the New York state bar. She has more than ten years of experience in the field of immigration law and advocating on behalf of low income immigrants from all over the world. Prior to joining the CLSJ staff Ms. Rosenberg worked at the Immigration Project of the Union of Needletrades and Textile Employees (UNITE, now UNITE-HERE) first as a staff attorney and later as the director of immigration legal services. Ms. Rosenberg is fluent in Spanish and has conducted workshops on immigration law both in English and Spanish.

A self taught painter and Senegalese artist recently debuted one of his collections at the MOCADA art gallery in Brooklyn, dedicated his piece "Barsax" to Senegalese migrant grape pickers in Spain. Diokhane said Senegalese men are "the new victims of the economic war in Senegal, which creates refugees." "When 20 men make it, that means 50 died in the ocean," Diokhane stated. "These guys are really heroes to survive coming from Africa."

Bara received his Bachelor of Philosophy, Lycee Van Vollenhoven, Dakar, Senegal Law Degree. University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Senegal. From 2003-2005 he was the Curator-Archivist & Photographer at 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Inc. Brooklyn, New York. 1999-2001 he was the Legal Adviser at United Nations Development Program. New York City. He was in private practice from 1996-1999.

Mr. Diokhane was admitted by the First Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. 1980- 1995 Attorney at Law. Senegalese Bar Association. Dakar, Senegal. He is fluent in English, French & Wolof and German. Bara is an author of numerous publications, videography and numerous exhibitions and has received awards around human rights issues.

Olevia Senior, became the Immigration Coordinator, in January of 2007, at the Center for Law and Social Justice, for East New York area, which services New Lots, Starret City, Brownsville and Canarsie. As a non bilingual, she attended Tilden High School where she enrolled in 3 ESL classes along with her siblings, where she successfully completed the classes, dominating the English language within 3 months. With a passion for people and the business world, she attended Katharine Gibbs School, pursuing (BAM) Business Administration Marketing, in 1996.

In her free time, Olevia enjoys doing voluntary work for the church, elderly and feeding the homeless. She currently resides in Brooklyn New York.

As Outreach Coordinator, he has been in charge of broadening and deepening CLSJ's family ties to the Brooklyn community including Crown Heights by promoting the many free program and services CLSJ offers, including forums on various topics from knowing your rights as an immigrant as a worker to Police Brutality.

Arturo J. Pérez Saad, visual artist and anti-war, anti-colonial, labor and immigrant rights activist, was adopted into the family of the Center for Law and Social Justice.

Arturo was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico where he spent his formative years; he migrated to the U.S. in 1978, with his mother, father, sister and two brothers.

Vera Elsie Weekes was born at St John’s, North on the island of Montserrat in the Eastern Caribbean. She migrated to England in 1962, returned back to Montserrat in 1973 to assist with developing Business Studies for the island and subsequently migrated to the United States in 1989. As of May 1, 2007, she was transferred to the Center for Law and Social Justice as Education Director at the Immigration Center. She was the Assistant Director, at the Caribbean Research Center (CRC), Medgar Evers College, (CUNY) where she has been employed since 1990. She has also worked as an adjunct professor. She holds a BSc in Management & Accounting from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus and an MS.Ed in Business Education from Baruch College (CUNY). She also obtained a Certificate in Immigration Law from the Graduate Center (CUNY). She is a Certified Christian Counselor in Creation Therapy and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and is a Notary Public.

Active with many community, civic organizations, and an executive member of the Professional Staff Congress (CUNY), her union, Mrs Weekes is involved in community outreach to prisons, senior citizens and shut-ins. She is liberal with her time, as well as her finances. She likes to help people. Her personal efforts in disaster relief developed into the collaboration of MPS-NY, Inc, and CRC to form the Adopt-a-Family Project (1996) – a project designed solely to provide financial assistance to families affected by the ongoing volcanic activity on Montserrat. Mrs Weekes has served in many leadership roles in churches in England, the Caribbean and now, the Bronx. She was instrumental in assisting the Montserratians who had relocated to the USA due to volcanic eruption (still active today) in 1995 and who were granted temporary protected status (TPS) to access and understand the difficult and complex processes of the Immigration System.

In 2000 after she realized that the volcano had no intentions of abating, she approached several members of congress to introduce a bill that would give the Montserratians permanent residence. Finally in May 2001, her request was put into motion and a bill was introduced in the House by Congressman Major Owens of the 11th Congresional District in Brooklyn. She spent the next few months lobbying the 438 members to support the bill. This was a lonely and very grueling task, however, the response was very positive from most of the congressional members and it is her belief that had it not been for 9-11, we would have succeeded. The Bill was renewed again for another 2 years in 2003. When TPS was terminated in February 27, 2005 she undauntingly worked tirelessly and fiercely to have this rescinded. This act by DHS shows in Mrs Weekes’ opinion, how racism, and injustice is still rampant in the US. The American public , and the wider world are still in awe that this sort of inhumanity exists today. She also had resolutions passed to support the Bill from the Professional Staff Congress of CUNY, The New York State Union of Teachers (NYSUT) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Her indomitable and charitable spirit has not gone unnoticed and Mrs Weekes is the recipient of several community awards at home and overseas – Montserrat Certificate and Badge of Honor (M’rat) Humanitarian Award, Outstanding & Dedicated Service Award, Distinguished Leadership Award, to name a few.