Mariah Cooley is a youth activist from Peoria, Illinois, and recent graduate of Howard University. After losing her cousin to gun violence in 2017, she began to organize within her community and across the nation to end the epidemic of gun violence. In the fall of 2019, she founded the March For Our Lives chapter at Howard University and proposed a national push to establish chapters at HBCUs through her role as a Board Member. Most honorably, in the fall of 2022 she interned with the Office of Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House. Now based in Chicago, Mariah works for Community Justice,the only national black-led gun violence prevention group, as the Midwest Advocacy Associate.