GAMECHANGER - ZEKE COHEN

City Councilman, educator, advocate

- Ron Cassie

THE SON OF A SOCIAL worker and psychiatrist, Councilman Zeke Cohen’s commitment to building community was inspired by his mother’s participation in civil rights marches and voter registrations during the Mississippi Freedom Summer. The Goucher graduate and 35-year-old father of two would go on to teach public school students in Sandtown and Curtis Bay before starting a youth-leadership nonprofit. Cohen introduced the Elijah Cummings Healing City Act, signed into law last February and launched recently, making Baltimore the first U.S. city to comprehensively legislate trauma-responsive care.