Rebecca Kaplan was born in Ontario, Canada and grew up living with a universal healthcare system, in a family and community which encouraged her to fight for the rights of workers.  Stories about the history of worker abuses and the fight for worker rights, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, as well as people giving their lives for social justice, such as the murder of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner were part of Rebecca's upbringing and inform her values.

Rebecca attended MIT as an undergraduate, where she was actively involved in organizing for women’s rights and reproductive freedom, LGBT equality, and part of the successful effort to get her campus to divest from apartheid-era South Africa.  She volunteered on the re-election campaign of Senator Kennedy and worked for the City of Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women. Rebecca obtained her law degree from Stanford Law School, where she had the opportunity to learn from teachers like Michelle Alexander (author of The New Jim Crow) and became involved in advocacy for prisoner rights and against mass incarceration.  She worked in Oakland as a tenant’s rights attorney and advocate and helped pass “Just Cause for Eviction” on the ballot.  She served for over seven years on the AC Transit Board of Directors, an elected position, and expanded late night bus service, opposed outsourcing, expanded bike-transit connections, solar power, and sustainable fuel initiatives.

Rebecca now serves as Oakland’s citywide elected Councilmember, elected November 2008, and was unanimously selected by her colleagues to be President of the Oakland City Council in January 2019.  Rebecca serves on the Alameda County Transportation Commission, which represents all the local government agencies and transit providers in the Bay Area.  She led her colleagues in successfully passing the 2019-2021 budget with increased investments to combat the homeless crisis, create and preserve affordable housing, maintain Oakland's parks, and tackle illegal blight remediation.  The budget also restored cuts to Parks Maintenance positions and increased funding around police accountability and workforce development. Kaplan is Oakland's first openly-LGBT elected official and has successfully fought for support for LGBT youth programs, to end discriminatory laws, and to support community leadership in boards, commissions, and community-based organizations.

This unique moment in Oakland demands a different kind of leader, who knows firsthand the struggles of our community’s most vulnerable, who has a proven ability to transform lives for those who need it most, and who’s ready to help lead Oakland’s recovery and then tackle the many challenges that have faced our community for too long. The leader who was made for this moment is Derreck Johnson.

Son of Oakland: Third generation Oaklander raised in the Acorn projects by a single mom. Growing up, Derreck saw people rise in the most inspiring ways and fall most tragically. Thanks to his strong extended family and community, Derreck would go on to high school, then Fisk University, a historic black college in the south, where he was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, which promoted brotherhood, service, and community advocacy. After graduation, he came home determined to serve the community that made him who he is. Today, he’s a successful entrepreneur making an incredible difference for Oakland.

Building a Pillar of Community and Transforming Lives: In 2004, Derreck opened Home of Chicken and Waffles in Jack London Square. The restaurant would become a pillar of this community, a way to help Oaklanders who hadn’t been as lucky as Derreck had. While over the years, Derreck has created hundreds of jobs, he’s most proud of the fact that 70 percent of his employees are formerly incarcerated people, folks who nobody would give a second chance until Derreck did. Derreck finds nothing more inspiring than helping turn someone’s life around, and seeing them get that first paycheck, that first apartment, or even that college degree. During the COVID-19 crisis, the restaurant has provided free meals to hospital workers and kitchen space to help feed the community. For Derreck, this crisis is personal, because he knows just how much employees depend on a functioning economy and a paycheck

In the Community, Putting in Work, Making a Difference: Derreck has served Oakland from many perspectives, helping nonprofits, foundations, and City programs make a difference in Oakland. He’s worked to reduce violence through Khadafy Washington Foundation for Non-Violence and oversaw violence prevention funding on the City’s Measure Y Committee. He’s overseen critical employment and job training programs that create opportunity for Oaklanders through his work on the City’s Workforce Development Board. And he’s provided scholarships to low-income youth through the Summit Bank Foundation