Jessica L. Carter was born and raised in Philadelphia, MS. She graduated from the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in 2005. Jessica then became the first person in her family and hometown to attend an Ivy League university when she graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York with a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations.
Jessica began a career in organizing as an Organizer with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and has continued to organize and advocate for marginalized and underrepresented communities. She has worked to end the school-to-prison pipeline with the Southern Poverty Law Center, then prison reform with the Innocence Project while a law student. She has represented inmates in parole hearings while in law school, as a part of the Parole and Reentry Clinic, then receiving a Juris Doctor/Doctor of Comparative Law in 2015 from the Paul M Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA.
Jessica has since begun to organize for change politically, by first working with the Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign as a Campaign Coordinator. Then, joining the political action committee Democracy for America as a National Organizing Manager. As DFA staff, Jessica had the opportunity to support candidates such as Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Stacey Abrams, and Andrew Gillum during their campaigns. Jessica then served as Executive Director of Ours ToChange MS, an education advocacy organization focused on achieving full funding for public education and increasing civic engagement in Mississippi.
Jessica then worked with the 2020 Elizabeth Warren Presidential Campaign as the MS Organizing Director, organizing and educating voters statewide. Jessica has consulted on campaigns such as Census 2020 with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Alabama A&M University’s labor rights survey project.
Jessica lives in Jackson, MS while working with national organizations, and has continued to advocate for the southwest region at every opportunity. Naral Pro Choice (now Reproductive Freedom For All), Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy (now Tapoot Earth), and People’s Action, are all organizations Jessica had the opportunity to learn and organize with on reproductive justice, climate justice, and a host of other social justice issues.
Jessica is committed to public service and organizing, and will continue with that focus in every endeavor. Jessica resides in Jackson, Mississippi with her daughter, Lyndsey Lee and German Shepherd, Samson.
