Celeste Hodge Growden, president of the Alaska Black Caucus

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In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, our guest is Celeste Hodge Growden who discusses the brutal racism she experienced as an Anchorage municipal employee during the 1980s and '90s. The discrimination she faced inspired her to civil rights work, and she was elected president of the Anchorage branch of the NAACP in 1993, an office she would hold longer than anyone else before stepping down in 2001 prior to being named by Mayor Mark Begich as Deputy Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity, later becoming the Director. In 2019, she revived the Alaska Black Caucus, and currently serves as that organization's president and CEO.