About the Author
Dayvon Love is the Director of Public Policy for Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle. For over a decade now, he has sharpened his oratory and political analysis skills. As a Forest Park High school student, he discovered the world of policy debate after slipping into a practice session for the Baltimore Urban Debate League team to keep warm before school began one day.
Dayvon was so skilled at policy debate as a high school student; it earned him a scholarship to Towson University. He then gained national attention when he and fellow debater, Deven Cooper, won the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) National Championship – the first time in history that an all-Black debate team won the tournament. Incorporating hip-hop, poetry and personal experiences, their debate arguments flipped the script as they underscored how the practice of the debate community purveys the kind of racial inequalities existent in society today.
In 2010, Dayvon co-founded Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, giving vision to the mission, signature programming, and infrastructure of the Black institution. Like other members of LBS, Dayvon believes that all groups and campaigns that endeavor to fix policies that harm predominantly African American communities must be led by African Americans. In Baltimore, that covers a bevy of issues, including affordable housing, economic development, education and criminal justice reform.
Dayvon Love is the co-author of The Black Book: Reflections from the Baltimore Grassroots, a collection of essays that describe important issues facing grassroots activists and organizers in Baltimore.