David Simon • Hon. Melissa Mark-Viverito • Steve Phillips
David Simon is a Baltimore-based author, journalist and writer-producer of television.
Born in Washington, he came north to Baltimore after graduating from the University of Maryland to work as a police reporter at the Baltimore Sun. In 1988, after four years on the crime beat, he took a leave of absence from the newspaper to write Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.
Published in 1991, the Edgar-award winning account of a year inside the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit became the basis for NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street, which was broadcast from 1993 to 1999. Simon worked as a writer, and later as a producer on the award-winning drama.
In 1993, Simon took a second leave from the Baltimore Sun to research and write, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Published in 1997 and co-authored with Ed Burns, the true account of life in a West Baltimore community dominated by an open-air drug market was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.
Simon then co-wrote and produced The Corner as a six-hour miniseries for HBO. That production, which aired in 2000, won an Emmy as the year’s best miniseries. Simon and David Mills also won the Emmy for best writing in a movie or miniseries.
For his writing on NBC’s Homicide, Simon has won the WGA Award for best writing in an episodic drama, as well as the Humanitas Award in the same category.
Having left the Baltimore Sun in 1995, Simon continues to work as a freelance journalist and author, writing for publications as varied as the Washington Post, the New Republic and Details magazine.
He recently completed the fifth season of HBO’s The Wire, which has received and Edgar-Award in 2007 and the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting. It is the third time Simon has received a Peabody; his work on Homicide and The Corner were similarly honored.
Presently, Simon is completing post production on his new HBO miniseries Generation Kill.
Melissa Mark-Viverito was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico and attended Columbia College at Columbia University in New York City where she earned her B.A. majoring in Political Science in 1991. Melissa was selected to attend the National Urban Fellows Program and earned her Master of Public Administration from Baruch College, City University of New York in 1995.
Melissa is the first Puerto Rican woman and Latina elected to serve as Council Member for the 8th Councilmanic District. Prior to her election, Melissa worked at 1199 SEIU New York's Health Care Union. In her capacity as Strategic Organizer, Melissa assisted in shaping the union's home care strategy. Melissa also served as Director of the Hispanic Education and Legal Fund (HELF), a citywide non-partisan voter registration program. In 2000 Melissa worked for the Census Bureau and was responsible for managing all local census operations for one of its five Manhattan offices. From 1996 to 1999 she served as Deputy Director of ASPIRA of New York, a youth leadership development organization, and was responsible for administering the agency’s day-to-day operations.
In January of 2004 Melissa volunteered in Iowa working on behalf of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign and directed Latino outreach in Davenport, Iowa. From September to November 2004 Melissa took a leave of absence from her job at 1199 SEIU and was hired by the Democratic National Committee to work on behalf of the Kerry/Edwards campaign in Florida to coordinate field operations for the St. Petersburg regional office.
Besides her professional life, Melissa has been very active in community affairs. She is a
founding member of Women of El Barrio—an organization that promotes the development of women as leaders in the economic, political and social life of their community; served as Chair of the Violence Intervention Program—a community based domestic violence organization committed to ending violence in the lives of women and their children; and is a Board Member representing New York for the Boricua Initiative—a nationwide coalition of community activists committed to the political and economic empowerment of the Puerto Rican community.
Melissa is also a media activist having served as a producer and co-host for WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York for over ten years. More recently, Melissa was invited to serve on the Community Advisory Board of El Diario/La Prensa, New York City’s largest circulating Spanish language newspaper. In this capacity Melissa met with the editorial staff and the newspaper’s Publisher to advice on issues of concern to New York City’s Latino community.
Melissa has also served as a Board Member of Community Board 11 and Community Board 2 in Manhattan, and served as Treasurer of El Barrio Revolving Loan Fund. Melissa was a delegate to the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa in 2001, and the International Women’s Conference in China in 1995. As a community activist Melissa has been interviewed extensively on local and national issues.
Steve Phillips is an attorney and political organizer in San Francisco. He is the President and Founder of PowerPAC.org. Over the past twenty years, Steve has worked as an education reformer, attorney, and elected official.
In 1992, at the age of 28, Steve successfully ran for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Education, and he became the youngest elected official in the history of San Francisco. Steve attended Hastings College of the Law, and, in 1997, he opened the Law Offices of Steve Phillips where he practiced civil rights and employment discrimination law. As an attorney, Steve successfully litigated against a broad number of entities ranging from municipalities to multi-million dollar corporations.
Steve has written nearly 100 columns and essays that have been published in newspapers across the country. In 2003, Steve founded PowerPAC.org, a statewide social justice organization working with community organizations and activists to build political power in California.