Carol McGruder is a seasoned veteran of California’s tobacco prevention experience. Carol is a senior project director, activist, researcher, and writer.  She has worked in tobacco prevention since 1994. She is experienced in the fields of public policy, social marketing, media advocacy, global tobacco control, health education, community capacity/power building, and leadership development.  She is a proud co-founding member and Co-Chairperson of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council (AATCLC).

Carol and the AATCLC have received honors and accolades from many organizations including the Public Health Law Center, SRNT, American Legacy Foundation, and the San Francisco and Berkeley Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  She served as NAACP Branch President for Berkeley, CA for two terms.  She received the prestigious Biddy Mason “unsung shero” award in 2021.

The AATCLC

Created to inform the direction of tobacco control policy, practices, and priorities, the AATCLC works at the intersection of public health policy and social injustice.  They have fought resolutely against the decades of racialized tobacco industry targeting of the Black community and the resulting 45,000 Black lives lost each year from tobacco-induced diseases. www.savingblacklives.org

The AATCLC has been at the forefront of the U.S. movement to restrict the sale of mentholated tobacco products, assisting municipalities across the country.  In 2020, the AATCLC, the Action on Smoking and Health, the American Medical Association and the National Medical Association filed an administrative lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its failure to take mentholated tobacco products off the market.  The lawsuit prompted the FDA to begin the arduous rule-making process that is expected to finally take deadly menthol and little cigars off the market in 2023. In 2022, the AATCLC worked arduously with other tobacco control advocates to make California the second U.S. state to ban the sale of mentholated and flavored tobacco products.