Lawyer, arts advocate and consultant Melody Barnes will speak at the fifth annual TEDxRVA June 23. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Melody Barnes is a complex woman with a jampacked schedule — “although I’m not as busy as I used to be,” she says with a laugh on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon, dashing between a conference call and a hair appointment and, later, a drive to Charlottesville. “My husband says I have a distorted sense of what normal looks like.”
After anyone works in the White House, a normal day defies definition. Barnes, who was appointed director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council by President Barack Obama, moved back to Richmond at the end of 2014 to chart a new course for herself in her hometown. She’ll address the theme "Change" at TEDxRVA June 23. “I’ll speak at the intersection of several things that I love: the city of Richmond, issues of equity and fairness, and the arts.”
When I ask about Barnes’ latest ventures, she rattles off her commitments in a calm, direct voice. She’s principal at MB² Solutions LLC, a public policy and domestic strategy consulting firm she co-founded with her husband, Marland Buckner. She is a senior fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller School, and will begin teaching at the university’s law school this fall.
She’s civically engaged, serving on various national nonprofit and foundation boards, and she makes time to work in the community — her community — too. She’s reoriented herself in Richmond after decades away, following the arc of a meteoric career that began in a New York City law firm and included a long stint as chief counsel to U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy. While she’s an internationally recognized public figure, her story starts in Richmond’s North Side.
Born into a tightknit family, Barnes came of age in 1970s-era Richmond. Her mother, Frances, was a longtime teacher before becoming a curriculum specialist in Richmond Public Schools (she died in 2014). “Mom’s gift was working with children,” Barnes says. “We often talked about what it would mean if she had been born at a different time, if there had been many, many more opportunities for African-American girls and women; she always said she would have done the same thing. She loved it.” Barnes’ dad, Charles, served in the Army and later, as a civilian, directed a division of the Quartermaster’s Center at Fort Lee. He still lives in the home where he raised his family.
Barnes is a proud graduate of RPS, from elementary through high school. “I attended John B. Cary Elementary, and at that time it was incredibly diverse, with a lot of parental engagement.” She adds, “My dad was the PTA president for a while.” She describes her neighborhood as one where everyone knew each other, and everyone felt like family.
In the late ’70s and ’80s, Richmond took a turn. “Broad Street became a ghost town,” Barnes remembers. Crime spiked in the city, people started moving in greater numbers to the suburbs and many young folks with big career ambitions, like Barnes, set their sights elsewhere. “I never thought I’d live in the city again,” she admits. “I knew I’d come back to visit family, but I left for New York, and then settled in D.C. When my mom would ask, ‘When are you going to move back?’ I’d say, ‘Oh, Mom … .’ ”
Her perspective of her hometown changed drastically, however, after she married Buckner in 2009, and they made trips south to visit her parents. “You could feel that a big shift had occurred,” she says, “especially concerning the arts scene.” The blossoming restaurant industry caught the couple’s eye, too, as well as the revitalizations of historic neighborhoods such as Jackson Ward, and the city’s renewed higher education atmosphere.
“We felt [Richmond] would be a great place to link arms with people who are doing great work, and bring the skills we’ve learned through our careers, our public policy and equity work, and put them to good use here.”
Barnes and Buckner’s move to Richmond was “very intentional,” a decision driven by a sense of purpose. “We felt [Richmond] would be a great place to link arms with people who are doing great work, and bring the skills we’ve learned through our careers, our public policy and equity work, and put them to good use here.”
Having grown up watching her parents quietly serve their community, Barnes gleaned an early, lasting understanding of grassroots social justice and civil rights work. As a youth, she was active in her home church, Moore Street Baptist, and now attends Ebenezer Baptist Church, one of several area congregations involved with the interfaith, nonpartisan group RISC — Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities — which examines and addresses community justice concerns such as affordable housing, health care and education issues.
The question that pushed her into law and centered her focus on public policy was, “How can I find ways to help people, using the best skills that I have? And, for those who can’t sit at the tables where I may be able to sit, how can I help them bring about the change they want to see in their communities?” Barnes’ time in the Obama administration also widened her perspective on civil rights in the United States. “Our policies and practices should create the opportunity for everyone to participate in society, prosper and reach their full potential.”
Her focus on education, and making quality education accessible to all, was a central part of her efforts during her time in the White House, which also included work on the Affordable Health Care Act and the Education Reform Bill. Barnes’ education-focused work continues in her role as chair of the Aspen Institute’s Forum for Community Solutions, where she directs the Aspen Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund, a program designed to help youth further their educations and, afterward, provide a seamless pathway to employment.
Here at home, “I see wonderful people in Richmond giving of themselves to support and help our young people every day.” Barnes also volunteers locally with Communities in Schools as a one-on-one mentor and serves as the vice chairwoman of the advisory board for the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU.
Noting again that her aperture on civil rights has widened beyond the historic causes, Barnes counts employment, housing, urban development and planning, criminal justice, and education as civil rights issues — all issues at the forefront of Richmond’s economic and social landscape, which the city is struggling to comprehend and improve.
“At the core of all of them,” she says, “is equity.” As we think about how we grow the city, and the kinds of problems that we tackle, “it’s critical that we have good people, in every sector, of all races and ethnicities, who contribute to this work.”
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