CCC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Treasurer ( International Methodist Episcopal Church )
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of the California Council of Churches
Job Titles:
- Director of Public Policy
A long-time social justice advocate, Libby (often known around the Capitol as "The Church Lady") has worked on racial justice, women's rights, and labor rights issues for over 30 years. She taught for Cornell University's labor studies program in Western New York and from that experience led a worker buyout effort to save the Nabisco Milk Bone Dog Biscuit plant in Buffalo. While the action did not complete the buyout, it did prevent shutdown of the plant. She helped organize a community-owned supermarket movement on Buffalo's East Side, an major urban food desert abandoned by affordable stores. She worked with various unions as a technical advisor when they were on strike, and she counts one of her best contribution to them was making pots of soup for striking workers and holding the picket lines while they ate.
Realizing that whatever one may do as a justice activist can be entirely impacted by laws for good or for bad, she turned her attention to legislative advocacy in the late 1990s and brought those dual interests, activism and advocacy, to the Council and IMPACT starting in January 2002. She has traveled the state training activists on how to "speak truth to power" and updating congregations on policies from health care to political reform to death with dignity. She started with a very small set of core activists but now has built a base of over 250,000 people who speak energetically to their elected officials and public opinion makers on topics about which our members are passionate. In 2010 it led to California Church IMPACT being called "one of the most effective health advocacy organizations in the state" by then Senate President pro tem, Darrel Steinberg.
Strategic, goofy, opened mined and down to earth, Robert White has an eye for fashion and a heart of gold. Robert is the California Council of Churches office manger. He currently in school and very interested in the legal field. Robert enjoys all kind of art: music, singing, and dancing are some of his favorite pastime activities. Most importantly Robert is a Justice seeker!