Board of Directors
Monica Guyot, Founder and President, GAP Community Child Care Center
Ms. Guyot oversees the staff, teachers, and education programs at GAP and is a former member of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Early Childhood Development. Prior to opening GAP, she worked for the Child Development Group of Mississippi. She was also an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi during the 1960s. Ms. Guyot and her husband have 2 children, 3 grandchildren and 1 dog and resides in Washington, DC.
Lawrence Guyot, Past ANC Commissioner, Washington, DC
Mr. Guyot, a lifelong Civil Rights activist, is past ANC Commissioner in Washington, DC. While studying at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, he learned that black citizens could not register to vote in most of the state. While in college, he became a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field secretary and worked throughout the state on voter education and registration. He directed the 1964 Freedom Summer Project and was founding Chairman of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. After serving in Mississippi’s first integrated Democratic National Convention delegation in 1968, he earned his J.D. at Rutgers University School of Law. He has since worked on behalf of Civil Rights in and around Washington, DC. Mr. Guyot is married to GAP Child Care Center founder Monica. They have 2 grown children and reside in Washington, DC.
Honorable Zinora M. Mitchell-Rankin, Associate Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia
Judge Mitchell-Rankin is an attorney specializing in civil litigation. In her current role, she has served in the Civil, Family, and Criminal Divisions of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Previously, she was Assistant United States Attorney of the District of Columbia, where she served in both the United States District Court and in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. She has also served in the Civil Division, Commercial Litigation Branch as a trial attorney, where she argued affirmative and defensive civil litigation cases. Judge Mitchell-Rankin holds a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science from Spelman College and a Juris Doctorate from George Washington University. She and her husband have 4 children and reside in Washington, DC.
Honorable Anna Blackburne-Rigsby, Associate Judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia
Prior to her tenure as an Associate Judge, Judge Blackburne-Rigsby served as a Magistrate Judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Deputy Corporation Counsel for the Family Services Division of the Office of the Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia, and as a litigation associate at the law firm of Hogan and Hartson. Judge Blackburne-Rigsby is an instructor for the Harvard Law School Winter Trial Advocacy Workshop and a member of the Board of Directors of the Washington Council of Lawyers, the Judicial Council of the Washington Bar Association, the National Association of Women Judges, and the NAACP. She received her Bachelors of Science from Duke University and a Juris Doctorate from Howard University School of Law. Judge Blackburne-Rigsby lives in Washington, DC with her husband and son.
Vanette Graham, Director, Regional Resources Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Howard University
Ms. Graham is a licensed independent social worker who advocates for children’s rights. Because of her work, she was named Social Worker of the Year by the DC Metropolitan Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. She has worked as Senior Social Worker at the Child Abuse and Neglect Project; Children's Hospital Supervisor, Intake at the Department of Human Services, and Director, Special Needs Adoption Project at Lutheran Social Services. Ms. Graham has also taught at the School of Social Work at Howard University. She earned her Bachelors of Science in Psychology and her Masters of Social Work in Psychiatric Social Work at Howard University. She is married and has one adult son.
James D. Berry, JR., Chief Community Defender Division DC Public Defender Service
Mr. Berry is a licensed professional counselor in the District of Columbia. He holds a Master of Arts Degree in Counseling and has worked in the field of criminal justice for all of his professional life. He is a former Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, and was a civic association president for many years. Mr. Berry is an incumbent member of the Mayor of the District of Columbia's Juvenile Justice Advisory Group; he chairs the MPD Chief of Police Citizen's Advisory Council; and he is a member of the Washington, DC Police Foundation's executive committee. Mr. Berry is also a lifelong resident of Washington, DC., who lives in the city with his wife and daughter.