Maria Gitin

Maria Gitin is a civil rights veteran, author and speaker on voting rights. She worked with SCLC and SNCC in rural Wilcox County Alabama, registering voters after the Selma to Montgomery march and before the passage of the 1965 Voring Rights Act, during the last large integrated freedom summer of the civil rights movement.

Atypical among white civil rights volunteers, Gitin came from a low-income rural family in Northern California. She has continued to register voters in diverse communities for four decades. For twenty-eight years, she was principal of Maria Gitin & Associates development consulting group. Gitin served on the Peter F. Drucker Foundation national training team, as coach for CompassPoint's Fundraising Academy for Communities of Color, led training for the WK Kellogg and Tides foundations, and presented at numerous national conferences including the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Among other projects, she founded a shelter for survivors of domestic violence and a public library foundation. She is a current member of Bay Area Civil Rights Veterans (www.crmvet.org), Temple Beth El, and the NAACP. She holds a B.A., from Antioch University (1979) and did undergrad work at San Francisco State College (1964-1967). Maria Gitin is married to retired attorney and active photographer, Samuel Torres Jr.

More about This Bright Light of Ours and Maria Gitin at: www.thisbrightlightofours.com