Cassandra Overton Welchlin

Cassandra Welchlin is the Executive Director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable that works to shift power at the voting booth and policy table. She’s an award-winning community organizer, social justice activist and licensed social worker who has spent her life championing working-class women’s rights to equal pay, affordable childcare and health care, among others, in her home state of Mississippi, the South and nationwide. In 2015, she co-founded the Mississippi Women’s Economic Security Initiative, which is rooted at the intersection of race, gender, and economic justice. It engages women, particularly low-income women of color, with deep connections to grassroots organizing to create a leadership infrastructure that will set the stage for long-term movement-building. Welchlin earned a Bachelor of Social Work from Jackson State University and a Master in Sustainable International Development from the Heller School of Social Policy at Brandies University.