Taj James is the Executive Director of the Movement Strategy Center (MSC), a new national intermediary that engages youth and adults across issues and regions, through a collective visioning and mapping process that encourages collaboration and joint strategizing in order to develop stronger, more effective movements for democracy, equity and social change. Most recently Taj was the Director of Youth Policy and Development at Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth. At Coleman, Taj worked with Youth Making a Change (Y-MAC), a diverse group of High School students who work as community organizers and public policy advocates working to make San Francisco a better place for children and youth. Some of Y-MAC's recent accomplishments include a successful campaign to obtain $1.4 million annually for the creation of school based health centers. Taj also works to support the youth movement through training and capacity building for other groups.
Taj was on the PAC Steering Committee to defeat Proposition 21, a California ballot initiative that would spend billions to incarcerate thousands of youth with adults. Before going to Coleman, Taj worked as the Western Regional Field Organizer for the Black Student Leadership Network (BSLN), a project of the Children's Defense Fund, connecting college students to community based organizations and conducting community organizing and popular education trainings for young people. Taj also co-founded an educational non-profit think tank, Institute N.H.I., which explores the relationships between education and contemporary social crises. Taj also helped to create a national network of youth workers and organizer called BLOC, Building Leadership Organizing Communities.