Lenora Fulani, PhD

Dr. Lenora Fulani is a Developmental Psychologist and political activist, best known for her two runs for the presidency as an independent in 1988 and 1992. A longtime agitator for Black political independence, Fulani became involved after the 1992 elections in a joint effort with the Perot movement to create a multiracial, pro-reform, national political party. Fulani is Chair of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, a think tank, strategy, educational and activist center for Independent Politics.

Dr. Fulani who earned her doctorate in developmental psychology from the City University of New York, is a co-founder and co-executive Producer of the All Stars Talent Show Network, one of the country’s leading youth anti-violence programs and the co-director of The Development School for Youth, a leadership training and career education program for young people ages 16-21. A practitioner of the performatory clinical approach called Social Therapy, Dr. Fulani is on the faculty of the East Side Institute for Short Term Psychotherapy in New York City, where clinicians from all over the country are trained in the social therapeutic approach. She also teaches at the Institute's Center for Developmental Learning.

Biography

The daughter of a baggage carrier on the Pennsylvania Railroad and a nurse, Lenora was raised in Chester, PA. A youth leader in the Baptist Church and in high school government, she won a scholarship to Hofstra University on Long Island. She has lived in the New York City area since. After graduation with a major in psychology, Lenora went on to study at Columbia University’s Teachers College and the City University of New York where she earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology.

From 1973 to 1977 she worked as a guest researcher at Rockefeller University specializing in the interplay of social environment and learning with a particular focus on the Black community. While at Rockefeller she decided that the problems facing ordinary Americans of all communities required her to do more than just study them. She has combined a career as a psychologist and political activist ever since and currently works as a consultant to several organizations including: the All Stars Project, Inc.; the East Side Center for Short Term Psychotherapy; and the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. Lenora has a daughter Ainka, age 26, now a Wall Street diversity recruiter and a son, Amani, age 22, a construction supervisor.

Political Chronology and Candidacies

• 2001 – Co-Initiator of a national petition drive appealing to Ralph Nader, Gov. Jesse Ventura and Ross Perot to unite and convene a Million Independents March on Washington.
• 2000 – Initiator of a suit to take the Federal Elections Commission to court for failing to enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), which require debates sponsors to be nonpartisan.
• 1999 – Initiator of a campaign for same day voter registration.
• 1998 – part of a team that organized over 100 New Yorkers, many of them under the age of 30, to run for the Independence Party State Committee. Re-elected to State Committee of the Independence Party.
• 1997 – founding member of the national Reform Party; chair of the platform committee on education.
• 1997 – led youth voter registration drive in New York that registered over 8,000 new voters.
• 1996 – elected to State Committee of the Independence Party.
• 1996 – campaigned nationally for the Perot/Choate ticket.
• 1994 – campaigned for ballot status for the Independence Party of New York.
• 1994 – founding member of the national Patriot Party, one of 110 delegates representing 23 states.
• 1994 – co-founder of the Committee for a Unified Independent Party ("CUIP"); a think tank and initiative center for independent politics. Among CUIP’s current initiatives is a campaign to introduce legislation for same day voter registration at the federal and state levels.
• 1994 – received 21% of the vote in Democratic primary for New York Governor.
• 1992 – independent candidate for President of the United States. Qualified for ballots in 40 states and received federal matching funds.
• 1990 – independent New Alliance Party candidate for Governor of New York.
• 1988 – independent candidate for President of the United States. Qualified for federal matching funds and appeared on the ballots of all 50 states becoming first African American and first woman to do so.
• 1988 – 1993 New Alliance Party chair.
• 1986 – independent New Alliance Party candidate for Governor of New York.
• 1985 – independent New Alliance Party candidate for Mayor of New York City.
• 1982 – independent New Alliance Party candidate for Lt. Governor of New York.

Spokesperson for Independent Politics

• Featured guest on countless TV and radio programs as a nationally recognized spokesperson for third party politics including: Crossfire, The MacNeil-Lehrer Report, Talk Back Live, the Larry King Show, Inside Politics, Crier & Co., Washington Journal, Tony Brown’s Journal, Charlie Rose, Road to the White House, America After Hours, Primetime Justice, Inside City Hall, America’s Black Forum, BET’s Nightly News, McCreary Report, Geraldo!, Tom Synder, the Jim Bohannon show, NPR’s Democracy Now, the Pat Choate show, and Kugell & McLaughlin.
• Dr. Fulani co-hosts a weekly half-hour television talk show entering its ninth season. The show airs live in New York City and is syndicated in Atlanta, Cambridge, San Francisco and Brooklyn, NY. Guests have included: author Bell Hooks, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich; Former Congressman Tim Penny; Executive Director U.S. Term Limits, Paul Jacobs; Head of Marist Poll, Lee Miringoff; former Reform Party Chairman Russell Verney; Ozzie Davis and Ruby Dee as well as noted personalities from the arts, science and business.
• Syndicated weekly column This Way for Black Empowerment appears in over 140 Black newspapers nationally.
• Social and political commentaries have appeared in major daily newspapers such as USA Today and the Christian Science Monitor.
• Keynote speaker at at countless events, conferences and universities, including: Humphrey Institute Policy Forum, University of Kentucky First Amendment Celebration, Harvard Law School, Cornell University, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, Howard, Brown, Spellman, Smith, Tuskegee Institute, and University of California at Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, Columbia University and Cardozo Law Schools, Yale, Swarthmore, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Deerfield Academy
• Author of The Making of a Fringe Candidate, Castillo International, 1992; contributor to Independent Black Leadership in America, Castillo International, 1989; editor of The Psychopathology of Everyday Racism and Sexism, Harrington Park Press, 1988.

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