About AISHA

Aisha Mills (pronounced I-ee-sha) has spent over twenty years advocating for underserved, under-represented and under-resourced communities. She has fought and won campaigns from the front lines of some of the most consequential movements of our time and was the first Black woman appointed to lead a national LGBTQ rights organization.

Aisha led the marriage equality campaign to victory in Washington, DC, crafted federal policy during the Obama Administration, helped to elect hundreds of people of color, LGBTQ+ people and women across the United States, and recently ran for Congress in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Her advocacy platform extends beyond the campaign trail to media and academia. You can catch her regularly on MSNBC & CNN discussing social justice and progressive politics and she hosted a daily prime-time current affairs show on the Black News Channel.

Aisha was also a resident fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics and is invited back frequently to host seminars on identity politics, diversity, equity and inclusion. She continues to drive social impact and policy change through her consulting practice.

Aisha is a proud Terp (Let’s Go Maryland!) and is a trustee of The Century Foundation and serves on the City of Newburgh’s Strategic Economic Development Advisory Council. The most southern Jersey girl you’ll ever meet, she was raised in New Jersey by her grandparents who left South Carolina in the 1950s as part of the great migration of African Americans fleeing the Jim Crow south.