Expanding Our Roots: Maria Harmon

Expanding Our Roots: Global Conversations With 821 is an online interview series hosted by The 821 Project. The purpose of the series is to showcases the cultural diversity, global connections and social consciousness of the people of southeast Louisiana as well as those who work to expand southeast Louisiana’s roots to the world through works that promote social justice and global citizenship.

The series presents community organizers, community leaders and residents living in southeast Louisiana who come from different parts of the world or who work to promote global citizenship, multiculturalism and social justice in our regional community.

This interview is with Maria Harmon. Maria Harmon is from Lake Charles, LA. She has been organizing since the age of 16 with the Junior Daughters of the Knights of Peter Claver. She has a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Southern University A&M College of Baton Rouge, LA.

During her time at Southern, Maria built a network of over 2,000 students to become civically engaged while working with the Louisiana Democratic Party. She helped in starting up Democracy Prep Public School of Baton Rouge as a Community Organizer by helping enroll 192 students for their first school year 2015-2016. She has worked for the Micah Project, a federation of the PICO National Network/Faith In Action, in 2016 as a community organizer working in education and civic engagement.

Maria is now the Co-Founder and Co-Director of Step Up Louisiana a grassroots membership based organization that advocates for economic and education justice across the state of Louisiana.