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Pelosi names Wilder School Alumna Sesha Joi Moon to House Diversity Office
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced the appointment of Sesha Joi Moon as the new director of the House of Representatives Office of Diversity and Inclusion on Monday. Congress established the nonpartisan, independent office Moon will head in 2019 to improve the recruitment, retention and development of a diverse House workforce, to act as a resource for House offices, and to increase awareness of diversity issues among House staff. She holds a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, a master’s from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at VCU, and a Ph.D. in Public Administration and Policy from Old Dominion University.
Moon, who served most recently as the chief diversity officer and director of diversity, equity and inclusion at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is the co-creator of The JXN Project with her sister, Enjoli Moon. They created the nonprofit to contextualize the origin story of Jackson Ward, a National Historic Landmark District and early hub of African American entrepreneurship after the Emancipation. The project seeks to leverage historic preservation “through restorative truth-telling and redemptive storytelling in order to excavate, elevate, and educate.”
Moon told the Richmond Times Dispatch’s Michael Paul Williams that she sees her latest DEIA position as an extension of her work with The JXN Project, which is not only engaged in research and historic preservation, “but is also a DEIA project ... a nonprofit creating more space for more Black architects, more Black archaeologists, more Black historic preservationists” and more Black researchers, just to name a few.”