Gerald L. Taylor
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Gerald L. Taylor is an experienced and highly successful organizer as a member of the National Staff of an international network of citizen organizers, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). Gerald currently directs work in the Southeastern region of the IAF in the United States. He has worked for the IAF for 28 years. In the 1960’s, Gerald was a national youth leader in the American civil rights movement and served as the New York State President of the NAACP Youth and College Division. -
He also served on the National Board of Directors for the National Urban League where he worked with Whitney Young. As a Fellow in the Metropolitan Applied Research Center organized by Dr. Kenneth Clark, he worked on strategies and research for cutting edge civil rights issues. During the 1970’s, he taught at the Harlem Preparatory School, a national model for subsequent independent public schools. He is an internationally known community organizer, with a track record of overseeing a wide range of community campaigns and efforts, from school reform in Baltimore, to housing, living wage legislation, and economic development in Memphis, Charlotte, Durham, and other areas.
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Taylor served as international auditor for the Lessons project’s roundtable on Building Citizen Capacity in June 2004, and also returned for the roundtable on Land Reform in August 2004. After Hurricane Katrina, Gerald began an organizing effort in the African-American communities along the Mississippi Gulf coast to rebuild historic African-American communities. He has been involved in the formation and development of policy to assist displaced households, churches and small businesses recover in the wake of the storm.