Patricia Rodgers Gordon grew up in Arkansas in the 1950s and ’60s, where despite Brown v. Board of Education (the 1954 Supreme Court decision declaring segregated public schools to be unconstitutional), African-Americans continued to live under conditions of racial separation. In 1965, her family migrated to South Central Los Angeles, and Patricia, a first-generation high school graduate, went on to earn her doctorate from USC. She is a retired California State University administrator and adjunct professor and the founder of Creative Solutions, where she provided strategic performance training for corporations and nonprofits.

She continues to dedicate her time to mentoring first-generation college students and fighting social injustice. She serves on the boards of several organizations that aid the economically disadvantaged, and she is active in numerous efforts dedicated to ensuring the civil rights of marginalized citizens worldwide.

She is working with the Equal Justice Initiative, the Southern Poverty Law Center and The Sentencing Project to stop mass incarceration of African-American citizens. Locally, she is active in Bend the Arc of San Luis Obispo and Yes We Can Peace Builders of Morro Bay.

And yet, like many others, she continues to be a victim of racially motivated verbal abuse and public bullying – right here on the Central Coast.

She is currently working to bring to San Luis Obispo County “Principled Policing” training. The program is certified by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards & Training to address unconscious racial bias is policing and to ensure procedural justice.

 

 

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