Brooklyn Williams is a third generation California native raised primarily in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the daughter of a Mexican-American mother and African-American father, and is one of seven siblings. At the age of 14, Brooklyn lost her older sister who was murdered during a home invasion. The loss of her sister, along with the historic trauma her family experienced during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, influenced Brooklyn to support families who have experienced trauma, and work towards violence prevention and social justice. She is also the mother of adolescent twin sons and they are her ultimate gift and motivation.
Brooklyn has 30 years of experience leading transformational education and community safety initiatives in schools, community based organizations, and government agencies. She is a dedicated and highly effective leader who holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Welfare and a Master’s Degree in Education, both from UC Berkeley. She most recently served as Chief of Education & Community Safety for the City of Oakland, where she assembled and led the team that achieved a fifty percent reduction in violent crime within two years. She was previously Senior Advisor to the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, where she focused on chronic absenteeism and supporting the state-wide roll out of community schools.
During the span of her 30 year career, Brooklyn has supported alternative schools in Oakland and Alameda County. While on the frontlines, she helped establish innovative school-based initiatives such as social emotional learning standards, restorative justice, expanded learning, student leadership, city-wide career pathways through Measures N and H, and community schools. She also directed transformative programs for youth impacted by the juvenile justice system. This includes serving as Program Director for Project Re-Connect, one of Alameda County Probation Department’s first family counseling partners, and directing the Freedom School at Camp Wilmont Sweeney.
In 2018, in partnership with several youth development organizations, the Oakland Youth Commission, the Mayor’s Office, the Public Safety Committee, and the Oakland Police Department, Brooklyn co-founded the Oakland Public Safety Youth Leadership Council. The council is an ongoing space where young people partner with public safety leaders in the City of Oakland to address important issues by centering and valuing youth voices and perspectives.
In 2020, as a member of the City of Oakland’s Reimagining Public Safety Task Force, Brooklyn advocated for increased social investments in youth and families, and supported the task force’s Youth Advisory Board. Most notably, she authored the recommendation for a school-based violence intervention and prevention model, and went on to support the VIP model’s implementation in the Oakland Unified School District.
As the East Bay Program Director for New Door Ventures, Brooklyn led a program expansion effort to bring additional employment readiness services to transition-aged youth living in poverty and facing significant employment barriers. As families continued to be priced out of their neighborhoods, Brooklyn recruited, trained, and managed an Oakland based team that equipped transition-aged youth with 21st century transferable skills, which allowed them to contribute to their households’ ability to make ends meet. This work was especially urgent during the height of the financial fall out that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brooklyn’s wide range of experience in education, community safety, youth development, leadership development, and workforce development, allows her to approach her work from a holistic perspective. Her deep understanding of the different systems that impact the quality of life for the most vulnerable, allows her to be adept at leading through changing environments and dynamic working conditions, while maintaining a high degree of professionalism and camaraderie. She currently works as a consultant supporting government agencies and community-based organizations in Alameda County. Brooklyn takes pride in her ability to lead high impact direct service efforts, as well as successful policy development and implementation.
QUOTE FROM SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:
“You can be free wherever you are!”
~Brooklyn Williams, Camp Sweeney Freedom School Director
EXCERPT FROM SAN LEANDRO TIMES ARTICLE:
“A lot of times a kid’s trouble started with money, and not wanting to be a financial burden to their family, said Brooklyn Williams, the director of the Freedom School program at the detention center.
So one of the classrooms this summer has a financial theme, another classroom’s theme is sports. There are lots of jobs in sports besides being an athlete – sports photography, nutritionist, equipment manager, said Williams.
At the heart of the Freedom School program is changing your self-image. Williams points out the students’ art work on the classroom walls, including the drawings students made of themselves.
The assignment was to make one side how society sees you, and the other how you see yourself, Williams explains. There’s a remarkable difference between the two sides of the papers the teens drew on – on one side are adjectives like thug and no good and drawings in the same vein, and on the other side the way the youths see themselves is good-hearted and somebody who wants to contribute to society.
“It’s about first changing yourself,” said Williams. “And then it’s family, community, country and the world. You might not be able to change your family but you can change the way your own children grow up.”
