DaMareo Cooper

DaMareo Cooper is the Co-Executive Director at Popular Democracy. He is a longtime grassroots organizer who previously served as Director of Place-Based Power at CPD. For fifteen years, he developed and implemented statewide electoral and grassroots organizing campaigns, ranging from housing and healthcare to criminal justice reform and economic opportunity access.

DaMareo was formerly the National Organizing Director of BlackPAC, a political action committee dedicated to engaging and mobilizing Black voters across the country. Before that, he served as the Executive Director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC) and Stand Up for Ohio, statewide organizations dedicated to improving everyday Ohioans’ lives through base building, policy advocacy, civic engagement, and registering hundreds of thousands of new voters.

A deep passion for building power with people closest to the negative impacts of racist exploitative economic and criminal justice policies has guided his career, primarily in communities of color. He has focused his energy on creating effective campaigns that make structural changes at the intersection of race and economic inequity. DaMareo holds a Bachelor of Arts and Science from Kent State University, focusing on Pan-African Studies and Anthropology. DaMareo resides in Akron, Ohio.