Come Alive, October 5! Watch Now!
Come Alive, October5!
October 5, 2026
In Case You Missed Us - Watch Now!
On October 5, CWTA came alive to learn from folks working hard on the Midterm elections. Hear what is going on and see what you can do to get out the Democratic vote and turn our senate and house from Red to Blue. The panel included:
Moderator: Cleopatra Draper, WVON, Radio Host
Panelists:
Pamela Wilks, Harold Washington Legacy Committee
Jaquie Algee, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Veronica Castro, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR)
Sarah Lincoln, Indivisible
Cleopatra Draper is a Chicago-based social worker, radio host, and community advocate recognized for her civic leadership across Chicago’s Far South Side. Armed with a degree in communications, Draper hosts The Cleopatra Show on WVON 1690 AM as "Your Favorite Millennial" and has led broadcasts for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition Saturday Morning Forum. A progressive nonpartisan candidate for Chicago’s 9th Ward Alderperson in 2019 and 2023, her public service and media career focus on expanding mental health services, ending local food insecurity by supporting neighborhood grocers, securing affordable housing investment, and advancing transit equity via the Red Line South extension. Draper’s advocacy emphasizes participatory budgeting, trauma-informed care, and reallocating resources toward youth programs and community support.
Pamela D. Wilks is a Chicago-based author, businesswoman, public speaker, and dedicated community advocate with over 35 years of customer service experience and leadership roles at PWilks Global Communications Inc. and Infinite Global Events. A consistent voter since 1972, she has spent decades advancing civic engagement through voter registration efforts for major campaigns, including those of Harold Washington, Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama. Today, Pamela serves as Secretary on the Executive Board of the Mayor Harold Washington Legacy Committee, actively championing voter education, social justice, and political participation guided by her core principle that every voice matters and every vote counts.
Since 2003, Jaquie Algee has dedicated her career to organizing, labor movement leadership, and social justice, serving since 2008 as Vice President and Director of External Relations for SEIU Healthcare Illinois/Indiana/Missouri/Kansas (SEIU HCIIMK). In this role, she builds vital community, political, and faith-based partnerships to advocate for workers' rights, healthcare, Medicaid funding, and civic engagement. A powerful force in major mobilization efforts, she co-organized multi-hundred-thousand-person marches and Get Out The Vote drives as board president of Women’s March Chicago and national board president of March On, played a key role in Chicago’s 2023 mayoral transition, and led regional voter mobilization efforts, including Women 4 Kamala in 2024. Fueled by her faith and commitment to community advocacy, Ms. Algee serves on numerous civic and non-profit boards—including the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Illinois Democratic Women of Cook County, and the Illinois African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission—to advance equity, political power, and support for vulnerable populations.
Veronica Castro serves as the Deputy Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), leading community organizing, advocacy, and rapid-response networks to support immigrant and refugee communities across Chicago and Illinois. Her extensive background includes key leadership roles such as National Training Director for Planned Parenthood, Immigration and Worker Justice Campaign Director at National People's Action, and District Director for Cook County Commissioner Jesús “Chuy” García. A dedicated advocate for sanctuary policies and intersectional community building, Castro is also an active member of Mijente's National Leadership Circle and collaborates closely with prominent coalition partners including Centro Romero, the Arab American Action Network, and the Illinois Equity Table.
Sarah Lincoln is a long-time resident of Chicago and of Hyde Park. She is a retired medical oncologist from Rush University Medical Center. She’s been involved with both Indivisible Chicago-South Side (IC-SS) and Indivisible Chicago Alliance (ICA), an alliance of neighborhood chapters, since the beginning, in January 2017, and at the leadership level since 2020 and 2022, respectively. She has been involved particularly in medic services at the recent large rallies and, more pertinent to tonight’s discussion, organizing and running canvassing in WI and phone banks in MI and WI.
