Darius Kemp
Executive Director Common Cause

Darius Kemp is the new Executive Director of California Common Cause, and he has deep and long roots in the state. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, his mother moved to Venice Beach in the 1970s, where his sister spent her early years. As a child, I often visited family in California and have called the San Francisco Bay Area home since 2009.  

Darius brings over two decades of experience in civil rights, community organizing, and advocacy to Common Cause. His background includes serving as an international organizer for SEIU, a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica focusing on gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS education, Director of Organizing and Communications for the UC Student Association, Southern Regional Director for Working America (the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO), and Head of Equity and Community for Eaze Technologies, where I developed the nation's first social equity small business supply chain model here in California. He is also a proud graduate of the HBCU, Alabama A&M University, with a B.A. in Political Science, an M.A. in International Relations and Human Rights from the University of Birmingham, England, and an MPA from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy. One of Darius’ favorite quotes comes from James Baldwin, who wrote, “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”