DJ Sims

Director of Truth + Transformation Initiative

Darrin “DJ” Sims is a minister, teacher, community organizer, and strategist. He currently serves as Director of the Truth and Transformation Initiative at The Center. In this role, he leads The Center’s work which explores the truth of US history using strategies of memorialization, commemoration, organizing, education, and civic engagement. He works with a wide range of community partners working in coalition and collaboration to create a civic architecture by confronting our history of racial discrimination and its manifestations today and charting collaborative a path forward on racial equity. 

As a community organizer, DJ has worked on several policy campaigns that allowed for early termination of probation for individuals and greater access to expungements for criminal records. He has also led a successful statewide campaign encouraging Black male civic engagement while also leading an anti-Capital Punishment campaign in Georgia.  

DJ received a B.A. in Political Science and History from Fisk University, and a Master of Divinity from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology where he received concentrations in Race and Religion, Leadership in Church and Community, and Criminal Justice as well as a Certificate in Black Church Studies. His writing has been published in The Huffington Post, Facing South and The Journal for Law and Religion. DJ has helped strategize around social movements across the United States, Haiti and The United Kingdom. 

He is from St. Louis and currently lives in Atlanta.