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Introducing our 2023-2024 Autry Fellow, Simon Palmore!

Simon Palmore, 2023-24 Autry Fellow

We’re thrilled to announce that Simon Palmore was selected as the 2023-2024 Autry Fellow. He will be joining the MDC team on August 1st, following his graduation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May.  Simon brings first-hand experience with systems change work in the Chapel Hill community and looks forward to engaging in policy work at MDC that will help shape his future civil rights law career.

Simon grew up in Washington, DC, before attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) as a Morehead-Cain Scholar. At UNC, he studies History and Hispanic Literature & Cultures, and his senior honors thesis is a short story collection written through the Creative Writing Program.

At UNC, Simon is the president of the Mixed Asian Students’ Heritage Club, a student organization devoted to creating community among multiracial and Asian students. He is also the Chair of the UNC Board of Elections, the group tasked with administering student government elections and promoting student civic engagement. Off-campus, Simon serves as the Chair of the Town of Chapel Hill’s Community Policing Advisory Committee, and in this role, he has the opportunity to provide recommendations to the Town and the Chapel Hill Police Department for making Chapel Hill a safer, more just, and more equitable place to live and work. He also works for NEXT Chapel Hill-Carrboro—a local non-profit that promotes affordable housing, public transit, and racial equity in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community—and works on local political campaigns.

Previously, Simon interned for the Attorney General of Rhode Island and the UNC Center for Civil Rights, where he worked under Professor Ted Shaw on the Planning Boards Inclusion Project, a long-term research project relating to the racial and gender demographics of county planning boards across North Carolina. Simon is thrilled to join the MDC team as the 2023-2024 Autry Fellow and learn more about place-based work and equity in the American South.