Susan Burton is the founder of A New Way of Life, a nonprofit organization that provides housing and other support to formerly incarcerated women.

She is nationally known as an advocate for restoring basic civil and human rights to those who have served time.

Susan is the 2010 recipient of the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award from the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. In 2015, on the 50th anniversary of Selma-to-Montgomery marches and the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Los Angeles Times named Susan one of the 18 New Civil Rights Leaders in the nation.

Other honors include being named a Starbucks Upstander, a CNN Top 10 Hero, a Soros Justice Fellow, a Women’s Policy Institute Fellow at the California Women’s Foundation, and a Violence Prevention Fellow with the California Wellness Foundation, and she is the author, with Cari Lynn, of “Becoming Ms. Burton” (New Press). She lives in Los Angeles.