35 Facts About Amara Enyia

Amarachuku C Enyia is an American strategist, politician, community organizer, and municipal consultant.

Amara Enyia is the policy and research coordinator for the Movement for Black Lives; the chairwoman of the International Civil Society Working Group of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent; and a senior advisor to the Institute On Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School.

Amara Enyia has worked as the director of Chicago's Austin Chamber of Commerce; the interim village manager of University Park, Illinois; and chief executive officer of ACE Municipal Partners, a municipal consulting firm.

Amara Enyia's parents were born in Nigeria and migrated to the United States in the 1970s.

Amara Enyia was born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in University Park, Illinois, where she attended Crete-Monee High School.

Amara Enyia's father was a professor at Governors State University.

Amara Enyia attended graduate school and law school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she received a Master of Education in 2008, a JD in 2009, and a PhD in Educational Policy Studies in 2010.

At the University of Illinois, Amara Enyia worked as a reporter, development editor, and editor-in-chief for Illini Media.

Amara Enyia founded ACE Municipal Partners, a consulting firm that works with municipal officials.

In 2013, Amara Enyia began working as the director of the Austin Chamber of Commerce.

Amara Enyia held this position until 2019, when she stepped down amid her second campaign for mayor of Chicago.

Amara Enyia worked as a policy director for the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association.

In May 2017, Amara Enyia took a job as the interim village manager of University Park, Illinois.

In September 2017, Amara Enyia began consulting work for Kids First Chicago, a significant school choice advocacy group.

Amara Enyia worked as a consultant on Chris Kennedy's 2018 Illinois gubernatorial campaign.

Amara Enyia founded the Institute for Cooperative Economics and Economic Innovation social lab in 2018, for which she partnered with the organization Blue1647.

In 2019, after her mayoral campaign, Amara Enyia joined the board of directors of the Chicago Community Loan Fund.

Amara Enyia has served chairwoman of the International Civil Society Working Group of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, and served as a strategist for the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing.

Amid the 2020 George Floyd protests and coinciding civil unrest, Amara Enyia helped organize local organizations and block clubs to protect local businesses in the Austin neighborhoods from vandalism and looting.

Amara Enyia penned an op-ed for Injustice Watch arguing that Chicago should "defund" its police department.

In March 2021, Amara Enyia gave her endorsement to an ordinance introduced by Byron Sigcho-Lopez that would see the city of Chicago spend $180 million in federal stimulus funding on creating new sites to distribute COVID-19 vaccines and increase the staffing at the city's health department.

Amara Enyia announced her candidacy for the 2015 mayoral election on February 25,2014.

Amara Enyia's campaign failed to register in preference polls, and as a candidate she didn't disclose many specific plans.

Amara Enyia withdrew from the race on December 9,2014 and endorsed Bob Fioretti the next day.

Amara Enyia expressed support for police reform, increasing budget transparency, investment in neighborhood development projects, and proposed the creation of a public bank and the use of Community Benefits Agreements for large development projects.

Amara Enyia replaced her departing communications director with Camonghne Felix.

Amara Enyia's campaign focused much of its efforts on the youth vote.

Additionally, Amara Enyia's campaign website was criticized for claims on her website and in past media appearances that she was an Ironman competitor, despite never having competed in an Ironman-branded event.

Amara Enyia opted against endorsing either Lori Lightfoot or Toni Preckwinkle in the runoff, arguing that neither of the two candidates were truly "progressive".

In July 2019, Amara Enyia's campaign was sued by 24 former campaign staffers alleging wage theft.

Amara Enyia's campaign responded by saying that the campaign was in debt, and that it planned to continue holding fundraisers to pay off the debt and unpaid wages.

Amara Enyia's campaign received significant coverage in the 2020 Steve James documentary series City So Real, which centers on the mayoral election.

At the time of 2019 mayoral candidacy, Amara Enyia was residing in the Garfield Park neighborhood in Chicago.

Amara Enyia describes herself as fluent in Igbo, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

In 2020, her cousin Chibuike Amara Enyia was elected to the village board of Oak Park, Illinois.