Lee A. Walker currently is a Member of the Editorial Board and a Columnist for the Chicago Defender. He also is a Senior Fellow for The Heartland Institute -- A Chicago based national nonprofit research and education organization founded in 1984. He also is President and Founder of The New Coalition For Economic and Social Change -- A Chicago-based public policy think tank founded in 1993 to help nonwhite Americans formulate strategies to address many social and economic issues that disproportionately affect nonwhite Americans.
Mr. Walker was a National Distribution and Inventory Executive for Sears, Roebuck and Co., until 1994 when he left to become a Monthly Columnist for Crain's Chicago Business – a position he held for ten years, until 2004.
Mr. Walker currently is a Member of the Board of Directors of The Black United Fund of Illinois, a Board Member of the Gidwitz Center for Urban Policy-National Louis University-Chicago, and a Member of the Community Development Board of the University of Chicago's Office of Special Programs. He previously was a Member of the White House Council for Presidential Rank Awards for Senior Executive Service; Chairman of the Merit Advisors Board for the Office of the Secretary of State of Illinois, Department of Personnel; First Vice President, Board of Directors of the Heartland Institute; Chairman of the American Fund of the University of the Orange Free State Bloemfontein, South Africa; Member of the Illinois Regulatory Review Commission (Appointed by Governor Jim Edgar); Member of the Board of Trustees of the University of the Orange Free State Foundation Bloemfontein, South Africa; Member of the Chicago State University Foundation Board of Directors; Commissioner, Member Illinois Community College Board; and Member, Illinois Board of Higher Education.
He also served on the White House Citizen's Committee to confirm Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and served as Vice President of the Brooklyn, New York chapter of the NAACP.
Mr. Walker received his Bachelor's Degree from Fordham University, New York, in 1976 and attended the University Of Chicago Graduate School Of Political Science as a Graduate Student-at-Large in 1991
Illinois Transatlantic Slave Trade Commission