About me
Francesca Menes is the Deputy Organizing Director at Local Progress, a movement of local elected officials advancing a racial and economic justice agenda. Francesca is a political educator, legislative and policy strategist, entrepreneur and former television host committed to creating spaces to educate, inform and engage our people on the issues that are important in their daily lives; helping them to understand the personal is political and democratizing knowledge. She is the daughter of working-class Haitian immigrants raised in Miami’s Little Haiti community and mother of Joie.
For over 15 years, Francesca has led coalition building, legislative, policy and advocacy campaigns with undocumented families, immigrants, refugees, students, Black and communities of color with a focus on policy-making process. In these spaces, she successfully led organizing efforts to draft, introduce and pass local, state, federal resolutions, policies and laws on the issues of education, immigration, housing, wage protections and job security. In 2021, Francesca was the catalyst for the litigation challenging HB 1, sounding the alarm about the criminalization of protest and the efforts to control local police budgets. Other key issues for advocacy: preemption/state interference and local democracy/governance.
