Sharlyn Grace
Executive Director - Chicago Community Bond Fund
Sharlyn Grace is a founding member of Chicago Community Bond Fund (CCBF) and currently serving as the executive director.
She is a lifelong organizer who went to law school with the goal of using her legal skills, credentials, and access in support of grassroots movements for social change. In the eight years she has been doing justice work, she was the senior criminal justice policy analyst at Chicago Appleseed, managed a school-based restorative justice program in Back of the Yards, and coordinated the Juvenile Expungement Help Desk at the Cook County Juvenile Center. Having long been interested in racial and economic justice, she has steadily focused on changing the criminal legal system. Beginning in late 2015, Sharlyn was part of conversations about forming a policy change initiative that would eventually become the Coalition to End Money Bond. Since CCBF and the Coalition formed, the number of people in Cook County Jail has decreased from over 8,500 people per day to around 4,500 today. The use of money bonds has decreased by nearly 50 percent in Cook County thanks to pressure from litigation and community organizing led by CCBF and the Coalition under Sharlyn’s leadership. In 2020, Governor JB Pritzker announced his intention to end money bond, which is a testament to the efficacy of public education work done by CCBF and their partners. The movement to end money bail has shifted the politics of this issue such that it is not only safe but politically advantageous for the governor to announce this goal.
Sharlyn brings organizing experience and values into her role as a leader, building strong partnerships and coalitions and engaging individuals in both community organizing and policy change. She pushes CCBF forward by acknowledging that all the wins, both policy and on the ground, are not won alone. In the justice field, it is also essential that legal system reforms are addressed in a way that takes into account the US’s distinct histories of racial oppression and exclusion, particularly anti-Blackness, and seeks to highlight and move on root causes and not merely tangential or easy issues.
