Advisory Council

Free DC’s Advisory Council helps guide our work and holds the campaign accountable to our goals.

Kelsye Adams
Director, DC Vote and
Executive Director,
Long Live GoGo
Free DC Co-Founder + Council Chair
Ward 1

About the Council

Kelsye Adams is the Director of DC Vote and the Executive Director of Long Live GoGo. She served as Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s The Way Ahead PAC Finance Director and also serves on the U Street Neighborhood Association. She is a board member for The Live Movement National/Howard Chapter. Kelsye completed the Nonprofit Management Certificate Program at Georgetown University in 2021 and is a co-founder of Free DC. She lives in Ward 1.

Gustavo Andrade is a community organizer, trainer, strategist and advocate for full rights for all people. He has served as the Executive Director of CHEJ and as a labor organizer with UNITE HERE! and the Change To Win coalition, leading successful campaigns in Northern Virginia, Los Angeles and Toronto. In 2009, he became the Organizing Director at CASA, the DC region’s largest Immigrant Rights organization and led countless efforts that improved people’s lives.A native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Mr. Andrade holds a Bachelor’s degree from Goucher College and is fluent in four languages. He lives in Ward 4.

Dara Baldwin is a debut author and the President of DMadrina, LLC a consultant firm working with organizations around the world to incorporate Intersectional policy agendas with an emphasis on disability justice. She is also an adjunct professor at McCourt School of Public Policy and McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. She held senior level positions in federal policy at multiple organizations, such as Senior Policy Analyst at National Disability Rights Network (NDRN). She worked on multiple federal bills passed in congress and signed by Presidents from Clinton to Biden. She works on housing, transportation, transformative justice, environmental justice and other issues. Her work centers disability justice with an intersectional lens to intentionally end systems of oppression and racism in trauma free environments. She recently completed three terms (9yrs) on the National Low Income Housing Coalition Board of Directors and currently serves on the SPAN Parent Advocacy Network Board of Trustees as Treasurer and Equality Labs advisory board. She also advises multiple international and national nonprofits boards. She is a long time leader in the fight for #DCStatehood and a member of Neighbors United for DCStatehood. Her debut nonfiction book is To Be a Problem: A Black Woman’s Survival in the Racist Disability Rights Movement. Dara has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Rutgers University, Newark, NJ and is an honors graduate with a Masters of Public Administration from Rutgers University the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Newark, NJ. She lives in Ward 5.

Darrell Gaston
Darrell Gaston is the owner and chef at Kitchen Savages Restaurant. He has been involved in Ward 8 as a candidate for the D.C. Council and the state board of education position and has served as an advisory neighborhood commissioner and anti-violence community activist. He lives in Ward 8.

Rev Delonte Gholston is a native Washingtonian whose parents moved to the city to escape racial terrorism in South Carolina and Georgia. He is faithfully and joyfully married to Claire Wiggins Gholston. Together they have two daughters, Evyn (7), Olive (4), and one son, Shepherd (infant). They live in Ward 7 where Pastor Delonte shepherds Peace Fellowship Church and organizes PeaceWalksDC, a coalition of churches, community organizations, survivors and advocates committed to ending police and community violence. He is a public theologian, a songwriter and musician who loves singing about the change we want to see. He is a proud alumnae of DC public schools, Swarthmore College and Fuller Theological Seminary. He lives in Ward 7.

Connie Razza is a native of DC, where she attended public schools (including Duke Ellington School of the Arts) and Georgetown University. She is the Executive Director of Future Currents, a movement utility that provides movement leaders space to plan along a longer time horizon that they otherwise are able to, to prepare to meet conditions beyond our control, and to practice responding to crisis and opportunity across organizational lines. Before joining Future Currents, Connie built the strategic research department and served as chief of campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy. She also served as the vice president of policy and research at Demos, a senior policy analyst for health issues at the New York City Council, and a union organizer and strategic research campaigner. She now lives in Connecticut.

Gail Sullivan was born and raised in Washington, DC, where she attended public schools, including Western High School. She holds an AA from PGCC, a BS from Trinity, and a Masters from American University. She is retired from Verizon, where she was a union member of the Communication Workers of America. She serves on the Community Outreach committee in ANC6A, on the OSSE Community School board as a parent, and is a Transportation Planning Board Community Advisory Committee. She lives in Ward 6.