Dianne Morales

Morales is Afro-Latina; her parents are from Puerto Rico.^[2][3] She was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, growing up on DeKalb Avenue, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan in New York City.^[4][5]

Morales then went on to attend Stony Brook University^[2] and earned a Master of Social Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Master of Education Administration from Columbia University.^[6][7][8]

While working at the New York City Department of Education, Morales helped open the Office of Youth Development and School-Community Services under Chancellor Joel Klein, and served as its Chief of Operations from 2002 to 2004.^[9][10] From 2004 to 2005, she served as a director of The Teaching Commission, a national task force that focuses on improving teaching quality in American schools.^[11] Morales was a founding member of Jumpstart, a national early childhood nonprofit organization.^[9][12] From 2005 to 2009, she served as executive director of The Door, a youth-development organization that serves over 11,000 young people every year.^[13][14]

Since 2010 Morales had been the executive director and CEO of Phipps Neighborhoods in the South Bronx, a Bronx social services organization that fights poverty, until she stepped down to run for mayor in 2019.^{[15][3][10][11]} She serves on the board of the NYC Human Services Council and the Community Schools Advisory Board.^[16][11]

In 2011, she founded the charter school Broome Street Academy.^[17]

In 2019, Morales announced her candidacy for Mayor of New York City in the 2021 election.^[1] In January 2020 she quit her job to campaign full time,^[18][19] in her first political campaign.^[18]

Her campaign-announced priorities include reforming the New York City Housing Authority, desegregating city schools, promoting equitable and affordable mass transit, creating green jobs, building affordable housing, a guaranteed minimum income, rent cancellation, cutting the New York Police Department budget, an elected police oversight body, and reforming the police.^{[20][21][22][9]} Morales also is looking to create a "community first responders department" to respond to non-criminal issues such as homelessness and mental health that are currently handled by the police.^[23] The New York Daily News in November 2020 described her as one of the most progressive candidates in the race.^[24] If elected, she would have become the city's first Afro-Latina mayor and its first female mayor.^[25][26]

In May 2021, senior staffers campaign manager Whitney Hu and senior adviser Ifeoma Ike resigned from the campaign.^[27] Four other women attempting to unionize remaining staffers were fired.^[17] The departures were preceded by allegations of racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and employee abuse.^[28] The New York Times reported on June 9, 2021: "At least four political groups, including the Working Families Party, have rescinded their endorsements, donations slowed to a crawl and her senior adviser has joined a rival campaign."^[27]

Morales finished in sixth place in the Democratic primary election held on June 22, 2021.

Morales is a single mother and lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant with her two children and her parents.^[4]