Meizhu Lui, director of Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, talks to the Women's Economic Forum at Simmons College about her new book, The Color of Wealth. This lecture is sponsored by Our Public Spirit (OPS), a project of the Boston Women’s Fund in collaboration with Haymarket People’s Fund and the Women’s Theological Center (WTC). OPS recognizes and honors the giving traditions of women of color, while promoting social justice philanthropy within communities of color. Through OPS, Boston Women’s Fund works to continue diversifying the base of donors who fund social and economic justice efforts.
Meizhu Lui is the Executive Director of United for a Fair Economy, a national non-profit organization that helps build social movements for greater equality. Her articles have appeared in the Wealth Inequality Reader, Inequality Matters, and in Yes!, Orion, and Social Policy magazines, as well as in Black Commentator. Meizhu Lui was a hospital food service worker and AFSCME activist for 20 years, and became the first Asian President of a local union in Massachusetts. Meizhu Lui serves on the Center for American Progress National Initiative to End Poverty. She is a Trustee of the Hyams Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts and a long-time member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Her work in Boston has been honored by the YWCA, the Immigrant Workers' Resource Center, Mass Senior Action Council, the Boston Women's Fund, the Big Sisters Association, and Labor Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.