Christian “Cece” Worley

Born just outside Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Christian "Cece" Worley grew up in a family that faced poverty and periods of homelessness. Those early experiences shaped her understanding of how unevenly opportunity is distributed in America and how often the difference comes down to whether a family has had a fair chance to build and keep wealth across generations.

Worley earned a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology with a minor in Sociology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2020. During her time there, she came to understand that the hardship her family had experienced was part of a much larger pattern. She saw that poverty and housing instability in Black communities are not isolated personal failures, but the result of generations of economic exclusion and denied access to opportunity. That realization became the foundation of her life’s work.

In the summer of 2020, she founded Economic Justice for African Americans to help build a future in which Black communities have greater power, greater access, and greater control over their economic lives. In 2021, she traced her lineage to ancestors who were enslaved on a plantation in Columbus County, North Carolina, and later walked that land with a descendant of the enslaving family. That experience deepened her conviction that the economic conditions facing Black families today cannot be separated from the history that produced them.

Worley’s professional path reflects that mission across public service, policy, and law. She began her career with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, where she graduated as valedictorian of her Juvenile Justice Basic Training class. She later served as a Senior Child Support Agent for Durham County, managing a caseload of more than 300 matters while ensuring compliance with federal, state, and local requirements. She also worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the Simpler Grants.gov initiative, an effort aimed at making federal funding opportunities more accessible to underserved communities. Most recently, she completed a summer internship with the ACLU of Texas and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, where she contributed to litigation strategy and policy analysis on major civil rights issues.

In 2022, after a workplace accommodation related to her severe endometriosis was denied, Worley represented herself in federal court after multiple attorneys declined to take her case. She secured a significant ruling in a groundbreaking Americans with Disabilities Act case against the State of North Carolina, with a federal judge holding that the symptoms of endometriosis could qualify for ADA protection. The case later resolved with monetary relief and a commitment to statewide ADA training. Her advocacy drew coverage from USA Today, The New York Times, Black Enterprise, WRAL, and other outlets, bringing national and local attention to disability rights, women’s health, and workplace equity.

While litigating her case, Worley went on to earn a Master of Public Administration from North Carolina Central University in 2024, graduating summa cum laude. That same year, she was named one of ten Marshall-Motley Scholars nationwide, receiving a full scholarship awarded to future civil rights lawyers who commit to practicing in the South. Her leadership and service have also been recognized with the Tyrone Baines Leadership Award, the ICMA Local Government Early Career Service Certificate, and recognition as a 2026 B105.7 Women’s History Month Honoree. She is a lifetime member of Pi Alpha Alpha Honor Society and has received scholarship support from the American Bar Association, Georgetown University Law Center, and North Carolina Central University.

Worley is now pursuing her Juris Doctor at Georgetown University Law Center, where she is on track to graduate May 2027. Her path through public administration and the law has never been a detour from EJAA’s mission. It has been deliberate preparation for it. She leads EJAA with lived experience, policy training, and legal training, as well as the conviction that Black freedom must include economic justice. Her work is grounded in the belief that real repair requires more than ending discrimination. It requires restoring access, building power, and confronting the structures that have long denied Black communities the ability to accumulate and protect wealth for generations to come.