50 State Strategy Success Story: Organizers in Mississippi

Thanks to you, our 50 State Strategy is hiring organizers to lay the groundwork now for victories in upcoming elections. Here are some people already hard at work in Mississippi.

Keelan Sanders- Executive Director
Keelan Sanders and his wife Kim have five children. Keelan says he has the best of both worlds, an education from Tougaloo College and a degree in Business Administration from Belhaven College. He began working for the Mississippi Democratic Party in 1999 as an office assistant. Keelan gradually progressed with the Party, going from office assistant to office manager to being appointed in 2004 to his present position as the Executive Director of the Mississippi Democratic Party. This is truly a milestone for Keelan and the Mississippi Democratic Party with the appointment of its first African American Executive Director. To add to Keelan's growing list of achievements, he was elected on April 9 in Little Rock, Arkansas, as Southern Regional Representative of the Association of State Democratic Executive Directors, an arm of the Democratic National Committee.

Rita Royals
Rita Royals holds a Master's degree from the University of Southern Mississippi. She worked as a full-time volunteer with Women for Kerry in the 2004 Kerry presidential campaign. Prior to that she served as Executive Director of MS Coalition Against Sexual Assault, an organization of Mississippi's rape crisis centers where she was in charge of state-wide training and program administration. She served as Conference Planner for MS Attorneys for Constitutional Justice. She lives in Jackson with her husband, Tom, and daughter, Kathryn, 17.

De'Miktric Biggs
DeMiktric M. Biggs, a senior majoring in business administration at Jackson State University, has been working in politics for the past 10 years beginning at the municipal level in the city of Moss Point. DeMiktric is very active locally in the Democratic Party serving as President of the Jackson State University College Democrats and the Secretary of the Mississippi Young Democrats, as well as an Executive Committee member for the Hinds County Democratic Executive Committee. He is a Democrat because he believes the values and principles of the Democratic Party make it the party that seeks to protect the fundamental rights that make us American. Furthermore, the Democratic Party is the party of civil rights, voting rights, woman's rights, and basic human rights. DeMiktric is proud to be a Democrat and looks forward to helping strengthen the Mississippi Democratic Party through his new position.