Nkechi Taifa

Nkechi Taifa is President and CEO of The Taifa Group LLC and Executive Director of the Reparation Education Project, Inc. She is an appointed board member to the Corrections Information Council and serves as Senior Fellow for the Center for Justice at Columbia University. Taifa is convener emeritus of the Justice Roundtable coalition, and past Chairperson of the DC Commission on Human Rights.

Over the course of her career, she has worked for the Open Society Foundations, ACLU, Women’s Legal Defense Fund, Howard University School of Law, National Prison Project, and Washington Office on Africa. She has taught popular seminars on Law, Race, and Justice and has litigated high-profile civil and criminal cases as a private practitioner in DC and federal court. A passionate and visionary professional, Taifa enjoys decades of experience as an accomplished justice system reform strategist as well as a reparations advocate. She excels at advancing creative, cutting-edge approaches that encourage out-of-the-box thinking and action.

The wealth of her experiences has allowed her to pursue justice from different vantage points – as a litigator, lobbyist, scholar, advocate, policy analyst, community organizer, convener, executive director and grant-maker. She received her BA from Howard University, and Juris Doctor from George Washington University Law School.

Taifa is the author of five best-seller books, including “Reparations on Fire: How and Why it’s Spreading Across America,” her memoir “Black Power Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice,” as well as two books for young people banned in 2020 by the Central York, PA school district, “Shining Legacy: Story-poems for the Young So Black Heroes and Heroines Forever will be Sung,” and “Three Tales of Wisdom.” She is also the author of a children’s book primer, the “Adventures of Kojo and Ama.”