Children, women and families have an advocate in Julie Schwam Harris.
She concentrated for years on addressing economic and environmental concerns, as well as racial injustice. She is spending “a lot of time keeping people informed on a wide range of issues and actions.”
Economic security is a major focal point.
“I have focused for a long time on aspects of economic security,” she said, citing for examples, trying to pass a meaningful law to enforce equal pay by stopping retaliation for talking about wages and raise the minimum wage statewide [in Louisiana].
She has recently spent more time on the push to get state and local investment in childcare and early education for “the multiple benefits it brings to children, families and society as a whole,” Harris says.
“I have also been focused on educating people about the benefits of establishing a statewide paid family and medical leave program through employer/employee contributions,” she adds.
Another focus is state-level politics overall and how it affects New Orleans.
“Grassroots advocacy at the state level is a crucial part of functioning democracy,” she says.
“The more we can get people aware of what is happening at the state legislative level and to participate, the more people can get what surveys show they want.”
Harris says the basis of democracy is an informed electorate that participates in choosing leaders and working with them to make good decisions for the benefit of all.
“Many of the things I work on are supported by the majority of people when polled, but gerrymandering and an imbalance of money spent to protect the interests of certain powerful people have skewed the policies we live under.”
We have many troubles and challenges but I still have hope that our diversity may one day get us to a better place.”
Harris notes Louisiana and a few other states have particularly bad outcomes for the majority of its people.
“If I know this, I have a responsibility to act on it,” she says.
Through the years Harris tackled a number of issues, among them raising the minimum wage for New Orleans city employees and contractors; funding childcare seats that help to lower the waiting list of qualified families that need help; and trying to make the criminal justice system less racist and more about prevention and safety.
“But New Orleans has to free itself from state constraints that pre-empt its power to make structural changes for itself,” says Harris.
Harris is currently a part-time advisor/consultant to a philanthropic foundation from out of state. She listed a few key coalitions that include organizations she supports financially and gives time to as a volunteer advocate.
“The problems in Louisiana are so big, keeping us at the bottom of good lists and top of bad. These lists contain a broad spectrum of organizations and dynamic leaders tackling many of the structural problems.”
These groups are:
- The Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedom (LCRF) works on reproductive justice. The fight for reproductive health is personal for Harris, and she says that Terri Bartlett, the founder and first director of Planned Parenthood in Louisiana, was an early mentor.
- Maternal and Child Health Coalition is trying to save lives of mothers and children, as Louisiana has among the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the country with access to quality, respectful care.
- Geaux Far is a new coalition working on equitable access to childcare and early education so parents (women particularly) can work, children experience enriched environments and the business owners/workers/teachers of these young children get the respect and earnings they deserve to thrive themselves.
- Power Coalition for Equity and Justice works on community and civic engagement.
Harris also helped organize the Legislative Agenda for Women coalition and Gov. John Bel Edwards appointed her the Louisiana Women’s Policy and Research Commission. She is a founding board member of Ellevate Louisiana, which connects and educates women leaders in the state on its challenges and the goal to develop date-driven, non-partisan solutions.
Harris worked for the city for 16 years, five post-Hurricane Katrina, with one of her bosses the former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, who she says was the “consummate political and moral leader.”
While working for Morial, he had her staff a task force on domestic violence in partnership with then Assistant City Attorney Terri Love (later a judge).
“Sadly, Louisiana is still one of the most dangerous states for women in terms of violence and homicide. There is much work still to do on the structural economic and gender underpinnings to that ranking and to establish more rational policies about access to guns,” she says.
This native of New Orleans — a valedictorian of Alcee Fortier High School, summa cum laude graduate of Newcomb College at Tulane University and recipient of a teaching certificate from University of New Orleans — loves the city, and in particular her family, “I have two wonderful sons with my husband of 46 years,” she says, as well as a beloved grandchild.
Harris also noted that she has an affinity for “Gumbo, figuratively and literally!”
“When I worked for Mayor Marc Morial, he talked often about the gumbo of people in the city – our diversity. We have many troubles and challenges but I still have hope that our diversity may one day get us to a better place,” she says.
“I adore edible gumbo too — particularly my sister’s seafood gumbo and my husband’s chicken and andouille gumbo. That African-derived stew symbolizes our diversity and tastes so good!”
