A native of Trenton, NJ, Jerell Blakeley is an alumnus of Howard University, where he earned a degree in History with a minor in Political Science. Presently, he is the inaugural Director of Government, Community, and Racial and Social Justice for Indiana's largest union, the Indiana State Teachers Association, and serves as a Lecturer at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations.
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Jerell is an alumnus of Rutgers University-New Brunswick's Graduate School of Education, where he earned an Ed.M. in the Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education as an Eagleton-Martin Fellow and NJ K-12 Teacher of Social Studies certification. He is presently pursuing an EdD in Educational Leadership from Indiana University-Bloomington.
A 2016 New Leaders Council-NJ Fellow, 2021 Lead NJ Fellow & 2022 Diversity in Leadership Fellow, Jerell is a member of the Governmental Affairs Society of Indiana, the Howard University Alumni Association, the NAACP, and is a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha and Prince Hall Masonic fraternities.
Formerly an active member of the NJEA and the United Steelworkers unions, Jerell is a member of the American Association of University Professors. He has been invited to share his counsel and insight to esteemed organizations, including Rutgers’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, Isles, the New Leaders Council, Lead NJ, the NJ Working Families Party, the NJ Black Issue Convention, Princeton University's Pace Center, Rider University, the National Council of Urban Education Associations, Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, Indiana Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, Indiana Black Expo, NJ State Democratic Party, Jack and Jill, Alpha Kappa Alpha and Omega Psi Phi. His writings and op-eds have been published by the HBCU Digest, NJEA Review, NJ Spotlight, & Star-Ledger.
Honored by the Trenton Council of Civic Associations and the Trenton branches of the NAACP and Zeta Phi Beta for his public and community service, Jerell currently serves on the boards of the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, Lead New Jersey, the Children’s Policy and Law Initiative of Indiana, and the National Association of Political and Legislative Specialists for Education.
A consummate public servant, Jerell served as an At-Large member of the Trenton, NJ City Council from 2018-2022. In 2020, Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes reappointed Jerell to his second 5-year term as a board member of the Mercer County Board of Social Services and also appointed Jerell to the Mercer County Workforce Investment Board.