Jessica King, Founder of WDDA

Jessica smiles at the camera while holding a bouquet of sunflowers at her hip. She's wearing a black shirt with white and colored text saying, "Disability rights are human rights," along with disability symbols.

Neurodivergent with chronic illnesses, Jessica King (she/they) founded White Dove Disability Advocacy with the aspiration to create a community-driven organization that promotes equity in disability and accessibility through creative, educational, and innovative projects. As the founder and executive director, she prioritizes the everyday goal to learn, grow, challenge, and be a better activist.

Connecting her disabled experiences to interdisciplinary disability activism, she has presented at over a dozen conferences, fulfilled leadership roles in nonprofits, and contributed to community psychology research. Her recent roles include Disability Pride Project Lead Coordinator at Words for the World, Submission and Accessibility Coordinator at DREAM-U Zine, and Director of Campus and Student Communications at The Orion Fund.

Alongside leading WDDA, Jessica is also an entrepreneur starting two small businesses. Her sole proprietorships, Neuro-Sunflower Poet/ry and Disabled Tutor Consults, will encourage accessibility strategies and disabled representation in higher education and creative writing.

A first-generation and low-income student, Jessica recently graduated with her dual-BA in creative writing and comparative world literature and dual-minor in health humanities and and human development at California State University, Long Beach. This campus was where she'd begun her career as a disability activist, supported by faculty and staff with her makeshift independent study in disability culture and justice. Her supplemental education includes associate degrees in anthropology, communication studies, and interdisciplinary studies.

She welcomes everybody and every body to participate in WDDA to forward its mission of disability empowerment.