Kamau Allen
Kamau Allen graduated from Howard University in 2017 and is currently a first year law student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. During his time as an undergraduate student he participated in Freedom-rides to Ferguson and Baltimore during the 2014-2015 period of civil resistance where he supported community-led efforts to address police brutality. Since then, he has dedicated his life to transforming our Nation’s criminal legal system.
Shortly after graduating from Howard, Kamau pursued his career as a professional community organizer where he has worked to help communities achieve police accountability and criminal legal reform. Through his work with Together Colorado, a faith based community organization, Kamau helped to lead a local organizing effort that began with the wrongful arrest of one of Together Colorado’s members. After nearly two years he was able to help secure that member’s freedom, organized public actions, and worked with legislators to sponsor a bill (HB-1142) that would address the identification procedure that was used to misidentify that member. At the end of the 2021 legislative session that bill was signed into law.
From his position as a Community Organizer in Together Colorado, Kamau led the steering committee of the 2018 ballot measure initiative that abolished the loophole for slavery and involuntary servitude from Colorado’s constitution. This grassroots effort was successful and made Colorado the first state in the nation to accomplish this. Shortly after, Kamau left Together Colorado to be a Co-Founder and Lead Organizer of the Abolish Slavery National Network (ASNN), a national organization whose mission is to abolish involuntary servitude from every state constitution and the constitution of the United States. Since 2020, ASNN supported local campaigns that abolished slavery from the Utah and Nebraska state constitutions. During the 2022 midterms, ASNN supported and partnered with organizers who successfully led similar campaigns in Oregon, Vermont, Alabama, and Tennessee.
Kamau’s passion for racial justice has also driven him to become an anti-racism trainer with the Equity Consulting Network (ECN). Founded by Annie Rodriguez in 2020, ECN offers training and resources to organizations, community based groups, and individuals who are passionate about anti-racism organizing.
Lastly, Kamau serves as the Director of Equity and Social Justice at the Institute for Racial Equity and Excellence (IREE). Through this position, Kamau is supporting IREE’s goal to end the preschool to prison pipeline by pursuing meaningful reform of school disciplinary methods.