Marqueece Harris-Dawson grew up in South Central Los Angeles during the 1980s and 1990s, when disinvestment and the crack epidemic tested entire communities. For many, those years were a breaking point, for Marqueece, they became his calling.

A descendant of families who came west during the Great Migration, he carried their belief in something better. After graduating from Morehouse College, where the language of liberation shaped his worldview, he returned home to turn conviction into change.

He spent the next two decades at Community Coalition, the South Los Angeles nonprofit founded by now Mayor Karen Bass and run by Black and Brown Angelenos fighting for justice. As President and CEO, he helped make it a national model for grassroots power, securing billions for public schools, making college-prep coursework a civil right, and advancing restorative justice long before it was mainstream.

Elected to City Council in 2015, Marqueece brought that same community-first vision to City Hall. He co-authored Proposition HHH, a $1.2 billion bond creating the largest investment in homelessness in U.S. history, and redefined community safety by partnering with local interventionists to drive violent crime to historic lows.

Now, as Council President and the highest-ranking Black legislative leader of any major U.S. city, he continues to shape Los Angeles’s future. From chairing the Ad Hoc Committee on the 2028 Olympics & Paralympics games to leading Destination Crenshaw, a transformative, open-air cultural corridor celebrating Black creativity, Marqueece is redefining what equitable city-building looks like.

And beyond the council chambers, he’s a culture maven, a DJ, and lifelong hip-hop head who knows Black Los Angeles didn’t just survive here, it defined the city’s soul.

South Central raised him. Every day, he’s working to return the favor.