Cherri D. Waters

In 1998; "Cherri D. Waters is vice president of InterAction, a coalition of over 150 U.S.-based relief and development agencies. She was senior director for policy and research for the National Summit on Africa, executive director of the TransAfrica Forum Policy Institute, and director of the Office of Learning and Dissemination at the African Development Foundation."

"Cherri Waters was one of the 1980s cohort of African Americans who brought both activist commitment and professional credentials to the Washington policy scene on Africa...

"In the 1980s she worked for the newly founded TransAfrica Forum, then taught at Howard University, and finally joined the staff of Representative George Crockett, who was deeply rooted in the progressive politics of Detroit.[3] Since the 1980s she has worked with the government-funded African Development Foundation, with TransAfrica Forum for a second time, at the NGO coalition Interaction, and at Lutheran World Relief. She was a close friend and advisor to Jean Sindab, her Yale graduate school colleague, during Sindab's time as director of the Washington Office on Africa.[4] Waters also served on the board of the Washington Office on Africa Educational Fund (later the Africa Policy Information Center) from 1984 through 2000.

"In this interview Waters alludes to the complexity of networks behind the " anti-apartheid movement," both in Washington and around the country. These networks featured rivalries as well as collaboration toward common goals. In Washington in the 1980s, in addition to the locally focused Southern Africa Support Project (SASP),[5] the two principal lobbying groups focusing specifically on mobilization against apartheid were TransAfrica and the Washington Office on Africa. Each had a tax-exempt educational affiliate (TransAfrica Forum and Washington Office on Africa Educational Fund)."