Today, the Human Rights Campaign announced the endorsement of Mondaire Jones in his bid for New York’s seventeenth Congressional district.

Born and raised in Spring Valley, Mondaire Jones has dedicated his life to empowering his community and bringing a voice to the voiceless. As a teen, Jones was elected Chair of a committee on the NAACP National Board of Directors, an achievement few of his age have achieved. As an employee in President Obama’s Justice Department and attorney in Westchester County’s Law Department, Jones has worked throughout his career to make our justice system more equitable, and more just. Jones, if elected, would become the first openly LGBTQ Black member of Congress.

“Mondaire Jones has used his life to make our nation a more equal and just place. Today, we’re proud to endorse him to bring his voice to the halls of Congress,” said Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “While this week marked a historic Supreme Court win for LGBTQ people and our rights, we must pass the Equality Act to ensure that LGBTQ people have full, federal equality. Jones will be a crucial member of the pro-equality majority to help ensure that every LGBTQ worker, child, parent and person has an equal opportunity to succeed and live their lives to the fullest. The Human Rights Campaign is proud to endorse Mondaire Jones for Congress.”

“This endorsement is deeply personal for me. I’ve been running this campaign unapologetically  proud of who I am from the start and I’m so honored to be supported by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group that fights tirelessly for the basic right of equality,” said NY-17 Democratic Congressional Candidate Mondaire Jones. “After the Supreme Court’s recent decision to protect LGBTQ workers from discrimination, this endorsement could not have come at a better time. This was definitely a win, but the fight for LGBTQ equality is far from over. I hope to take office as the first openly gay, black member of Congress and can’t wait to join HRC in this fight.”

In the 2018 midterms, HRC helped register more than 32,000 voters and recruited more than 4,200 volunteers, who worked over 8,500 shifts and clocked more than 30,000 volunteer hours. In the critical final four days of the campaign, HRC staff and volunteers in get-out-the-vote efforts alone knocked on more than 80,000 doors, and held 36,400 conversations with voters at their doors and by phone on behalf of our endorsed candidates. HRC's unprecedented grassroots mobilization worked to recruit volunteers, mobilize constituents, register voters and grow the organization's grassroots army in an all-out effort to pull the emergency brake on the hateful anti-LGBTQ agenda of the Trump-Pence administration and elect a Congress that would hold them accountable. In 2020, our engagement and mobilization efforts will only deepen.  HRC will have at least 45 full-time staff in seven priority states and an additional 20 staff focused on a second tier of states and districts.