About Marquis

"We are ready to continue the fight for a Lower East Side that works for all of us". - Marquis Jenkins 

Marquis is a community activist with deep roots on the Lower East Side. He was introduced to organizing at the age of seventeen, when he ran for resident association president at Mariana Bracetti Plaza, the NYCHA development where he grew up. Later he was an organizer with Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), where he worked to educate and empower public housing residents. He has partnered with NYCHA tenant associations from across New York City to form Residents to Preserve Public Housing, a growing coalition of public housing resident leaders.

Marquis recently worked as Director of Organizing at Common Justice, a nonprofit that develops and advances solutions to violence, transforming the lives of people who been harmed and fostering racial equity by addressing our society’s  overreliance have on incarceration. Earlier he worked on these issues at Freedom Agenda as Deputy Director of Campaigns. He has also worked as Director of Organizing at WE ACT, addressing issues of environmental justice. Before that, Marquis worked as a senior community organizer at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, traveling around the country to support communities of color addressing criminal justice issues. Marquis a bachelor’s degree from Touro College, where has he double-majored in education and psychology.