photo of Melekte Melaku

Melekte Melaku

Pronouns: she/her/hers

senior advocacy strategist

Bio

Melekte Melaku serves as the Senior Advocacy Strategist for the ACLU of Ohio’s Policy & Advocacy Team. Over her tenure, Melekte has gained vast advocacy experience in pretrial reform, youth justice, environmental justice, and educational equity. 

In her current role, Melekte identifies, recruits, trains and manages leaders and teams around ACLU of Ohio strategic priorities and issue areas, and oversees our Campus Action Teams across the state. She is a key-player in connecting the ACLU of Ohio’s membership and grassroots activists to opportunities for policy change. 

Melekte is an alumnus of the Obama for America fellowship and a member of the Progressive Talent Pipeline, a national program recommending progressive candidates for roles in Congress and the Executive Branch. She previously served as public safety coordinator for Cleveland Mayor Bibb’s transition taskforce and currently sits on the board of Preterm Abortion Clinic. She is a devoted yoga practitioner and is learning to read Amharic, the language of her birthplace, Ethiopia.

Featured Work

News & Commentary
Money overlaid on a gavel
  • Smart Justice|
  • +1 Issue

Electronic Monitoring, Pretrial Policy, and Bail Reform in Cuyahoga County

Despite broad consensus that Cuyahoga County’s bail system is in desperate need of reform, early bit of momentum from elected officials fizzled in 2020. Aside from pilot pretrial program at the Cleveland municipal level in which Judge Michelle Earley integrated call and text reminders of court dates and no jail time for the majority of low-level, non-violent offenses, little progress was made. With more than 60% of the felony charges in the common pleas court fed from the other 13 municipalities, the lack of county-wide solutions or meaningful coordination by county stakeholders means the cash bail system continues to deprive thousands of residents of freedom well before their court date.
News & Commentary
IssueJuvenileJustice150x150.jpg
  • Smart Justice|
  • +3 Issues

Cleveland’s Youth Deserve Justice; Systemic Failures of the Cuyahoga Juvenile Detention Center