Ms. Brenda Richardson was born in 1957 in El Paso, Texas. Growing up near the border of Mexico, Ms. Richardson and her family frequently travelled across the border to get Mexican food and household items for cheaper prices. The Richardson family was one of three Black families in their neighborhood (the rest were Mexican), and Ms. Richardson learned fluent Spanish out of necessity. Ms. Richardson has three sisters and one brother, and she is the eldest of her four siblings. Ms. Richardson and her family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1969. Her dad, who was a negotiator for the AFL-CIO, had two job offers: one in DC, and one in Hawaii. Ms. Richardson’s mother decided that the family would move to Washington, DC. Ms. Richardson claims that part of the reason that her mom elected to move the family to Washington was that it was important for her kids to have “the Black experience. The Richardson family drove to D.C. from El Paso in one car, a three-day journey. They arrived in D.C. at three o'clock in the morning. Ms. Richardson was immediately surprised by the lights of the city at 3AM. During the journey to DC, Ms. Richardson recalled that white people would call them the N word. Ms. Richardson will always remember that her parents said to her and her sibling: “No matter what anyone calls you, know that we are always proud of who you are.” Though she was one of few Black students in Texas, Ms. Richardson never felt negatively affected by her race in El Paso. However, Washington, DC, was much more diverse, and Ms. Richardson felt as though she was “slapped in the face” by racism when she arrived in the city. Ms. Richardson attended Ballou High School, and she and her siblings were terribly bullied because for being different than the other students. However, Ms. Richardson’s parents raised her to be very respectful and to honor other people's character. Her mother told her and her siblings to stand tall and never fight, even though students were violent toward them. Ms. Richardson's parents had never gone to college, and they wanted all of their children to get a college education. After graduating from Ballou, Ms. Richardson went to the University of Michigan. While studying at Michigan, she lived in a co-op with 30 other people. A college counselor helped Ms. Richardson think about career choices, and, knowing she was really good at public service, her counselor suggested she become a social worker. Ms. Richardson then got a full ride to University of Maryland for graduate school. Ms. Richardson feels that she became a social worker because she was called to do it. Most of her career has been here in DC. While her first job was mostly paperwork, she then got a new job helping ex-offenders coming out of prison. Ms. Richardson excelled at her job, and her boss asked her to run a department focused on people with a dual diagnosis of substance abuse and mental illness. She then went on to become the executive director of the Anacostia-Congress Heights Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness. Later on in Ms. Richardson's career, she came to focus on environmental justice issues as well and joined the movement to clean up the Anacostia River. "