Mustafa Ali, Senior Vice President of Climate, Environmental Justice & Community Revitalization at the Hip Hop Caucus, will join NDEL as a keynote speaker. Ali resigned from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last March, after working for 24 years to advance environmental justice in the agency.

“I knew I had to stand up,” Ali said, “because I didn’t see the values and priorities that I work for reflected in our new administration.”

Ali will speak about his long history advocating for environmental justice communities in honor of the NDEL 2018 theme “Centering Justice.”

Throughout his career Ali has worked with over 500 domestic and international communities to improve people’s lives by addressing environmental, health, and economic justice issues.

Mustafa Ali has been a Guest Lecturer at Harvard and Yale University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Spelman College, Albany Law School and Howard University School of Law. He is a former instructor at West Virginia University and Stanford University in Washington, and the former co-host of the “Spirit in Action” radio show which focused on social justice issues. Mustafa has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, VICE, Democracy NOW. He has also been featured in the Washington Post, GQ Magazine and cited in over 100 publications. Since resigning from the EPA in March of 2017, he has conducted over 150 interviews.