Who We Are

Staff

Sonia Silbert, Director
Sonia Silbert is originally from New York City and has been living in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of DC since 2006. She has been an organizer and activist on peace and justice issues for many years. Most recently she has worked for No War, No Warming, CODEPINK: Women for Peace and organized with Common Ground Collective in post-Katrina New Orleans. She joined the Washington Peace Center as Co-Coordinator in May, 2008.

Chioma Oruh, Organizing Fellow
Chioma Oruh is an African woman born in Nigeria and raised primarily in Washington, DC. She has committed her life to organizing and educating to bring about justice to the poor and disenfranchised masses of African and other oppressed people through poetry, performance, scholarship and service. She has worked on many campaigns and mobilizations including anti-globalization, militarism, racism, environmental, gender and economic justice issues. She has written and made presentations extensively on US Foreign Policy to Africa, particluarly on AFRICOM and the domestic assault on black communities within US borders in the form of police brutality and prisons. She is also currently a PhD student at Howard University.

Washington Peace Center Coordinating Board

Alexis Baden-Mayer
Alexis Baden-Mayer is a lawyer working in Washington, DC, for the Organic Consumers Association, a fiscal sponsor of No War, No Warming, and the Grassroots Netroots Alliance. She's on the board of Vote Hemp and teaches dance classes at Joy of Motion.

Chantelle Bateman
Chantelle is Field Organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War. She is a former JROTC commander and currently a Corporal in the Marine Reserve. She served in Iraq from August 2004-March 2005 and is happy to be back home in her native DC.

Pedro Cruz
Pedro Cruz is an experienced organizer who has worked for years with DC day laborers both independently and with Jobs with Justice. They have recently formed Trabajadores de Washington DC and are fighting to create a day laborer center. In 2005 he was key in the student and worker living wage victory at Georgetown University. He is originally from the Dominican Republic and is currently a graduate student at Georgetown.

Bette Hoover
Bette Rainbow Hoover has been an activist, organizer and nonviolence trainer for many decades. While directing the DC office of the American Friends Service Committee she frequently collaborated with WPC on issues of justice and peace. Currently she works with Just Peace Circles in the arena of restorative practices.

Virginia Leavell
Virginia Leavell grew up on a farm in central Virginia and has lived in and around DC since 1997. She was a founding member of the Georgetown Living Wage Campaign and the Living Wage Action Coalition. After working two years in Northeast Thailand for a grassroots study abroad program, Virginia returned to DC to work for immigrant justice and the Washington Peace Center. She was Co-Coordinator of the Peace Center in 2009 and currently works with Change to Win.

Paul Magno
Paul Magno has been actively involved in the Washington Peace Center since 2004 as a coordinator and a board member. He is currently on staff of Witness for Peace, an organization of people of faith and conscience engaged in supporting peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas. He spent 20 months in federal prison for nonviolent resistance to the nuclear arms race following a Plowshares action in Florida in 1984. He has been associated with the Catholic Worker movement for nearly three decades and operates the Catholic Worker Bookstore, specializing in titles that promote peace, social justice, spirituality and the Catholic Worker Movement.

David Thurston
David Thurston is a native of Washington D.C. who is deeply involved in the movement for immigrant rights in the metropolitan area. David helped to found both the DC Alliance for Immigrant Justice and the Metro D.C. Interfaith Sanctuary Network. Currently, David works as Anti-Racism Organizer and Educator for CASA de Maryland, the largest advocate for low-income immigrants in the state, where his focus is finding campaigns that bring African American and immigrant community leaders together. David joined the Washington Peace Center Board in February 2008 and is deeply committed to building movements against war and U.S. imperialism.

Jane Zara
Jane Zara has a JD and a PhD in biochemistry/molecular biology. She is a former ANC Commissioner in Mt. Pleasant, co-founder of DC Metro Science for the People, and a member of the People’s Property Campaign of Empower DC. She is presently involved in local struggles to institute a moratorium on the massive giveaways of public property to developers in DC, and in developing an ANC community grants program for the underserved in and around Mt. Pleasant. She is also involved in programs to highlight the massive profits of corporations for producing the toxic effects of the poisons of war, including the aerial bombardment of depleted uranium and widespread aerial spraying of toxins on populations in the so-called “War on Drugs.”

Washington Peace Center Advisory Council

Brian Anders, Empower DC

Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK: Women for Peace

Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

Nadine Bloch, activist/artist/educator, Washington Action Group (WAG)

Ruth Castel-Blanco, Jobs with Justice DC

Adam Eidinger, Mintwood Media Collective

Lisa Fithian, Alliance of Community Trainers, former Peace Center Coordinator

Graylan Hagler, Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice

Anise Jenkins, Stand up! for Democracy in DC (Free DC)

Andy Shallal, Busboys and Poets, Iraqi Voices for Peace

B Wardlaw, Peace Center supporter