Kaji Douša facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Kaji Spellman Douša
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| Nationality | American |
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| Occupation | Senior Pastor, activist |
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Kaji Spellman Douša (born August 22) is an American Christian minister and immigration rights activist who served as the chair of the New Sanctuary Coalition NYC.
Biography
Douša is the senior pastor of the Park Avenue Christian Church in Manhattan. From 2018-2020 Douša served as president of the alumni board for Yale Divinity School. Douša was born on August 22 in the United States to civil rights activists Karen and A.B. Spellman. She is the youngest of their two children and is half-sister to Malcolm Spellman. Douša is married and has one child.
Pastor Douša (pronounced “doe-sha”) is the first woman to serve as the Senior Pastor of her 212-year-old congregation, the Park Avenue Christian Church, in Manhattan.
In the summer of 2020, she helped to lead many of the rallies and marches organized in response to the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. In the midst of the uprisings, she and a group of mostly Black clergy women built a new, member-based organization called Daughters 4 Justice (D4J) to constructively work with and hold to account lawmakers and the NYPD in order to re-envision public safety in NYC. D4J’s basic premise is that a city structured around the safety of Black children will be safe for everyone.
She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of Yale Divinity School, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude and a Master of Divinity degree, respectively. She serves on Federation of America’s Clergy Advocacy Board, where she served on the 2020 U.S. Presidential endorsement committee for the Action Fund.
