Khalid Pitts

Khalid Pitts is a Principal at the consulting firm Democracy Partners with more than twenty years of leadership in the progressive community. He has helped lead political and legislative campaigns at a number of national organizations, including serving as the national political director at the Sierra Club, director of strategic campaigns at the Service Employees International Union and the president of USAction. He is serves on the board of a number of national advocacy groups, including America Votes, Americans United for Change and People's Action. He was co-founder and executive board co-chair for Health Care for America Now (HCAN) – the national coalition formed to pass the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and serves as the secretary-treasurer of the executive board of the Washington, D.C. Health Exchange. Previously, he worked in the field of gun violence prevention, as the state director at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence where he led the organization's state policy and national political work. In addition, he was a senior health analyst at Washington, DC's Central Detention Facility, where he led research efforts around gun interdiction and violence prevention and edited the Newsletter of the Homicide Research Working Group. His publications include the book Building Violence: How America's Rush to Incarcerate Increases Violence and the journal articles "Medical Care Solicitation by Criminals with Gunshot Wound Injuries" published in the Journal of Trauma and "Stop the Shooting: Calling Foundations to Arms" published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Mr. Pitts earned his undergraduate degree in history from The College of The Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and has a Masters in Public Health from the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences.