Photo: Hilary Schwab

Through her work as a Conciliation Specialist with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service (CRS), she has visited communities scarred by racial tensions and sometimes violence, including places such as Macomb County in 2004 in the wake of the burning of a cross outside the home of an interracial couple, and to Benton Harbor, Mich., in 2003, after a police chase leading to a fatal motorcycle crash sparked riots.

The Community Relations Service was created by Title X of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide conflict resolution services to communities where there are disputes based on race, national origin and color. The agency can visit communities through invitation, or can go into communities by its own motion. The aim is not to mandate that the community solve a given dispute in a particular way, but rather to achieve long-term “community stability” with what are described as “capacity-building initiatives,” Mitchum explains.

“In helping communities to resolve conflicts, we also help them to develop mechanisms for the future. When conflicts occur again, the parties have the capacity to resolve conflicts without the need for CRS services,” she says. “Our expertise is bringing a resolution process to the community.”

Strong mediation skills, the ability to gather information from all perspectives, are necessary for this line of work, skills which Mitchum developed in law school, then built upon as executive director of the Board of Community Relations for the city of Toledo. She joined the U.S. Department of Justice in 2000, first working in regional offices in Detroit and Philadelphia. She has served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service in D.C. since 2006.

Mitchum’s drive to serve the public was instilled in her from a young age and led her to devote part of her life to military service. She spent 3 years on active duty in the U.S. Navy, and then spent 21 years as a Reservist in the Army National Guard. This value of service also continues to inspire her current work in community relations, a career which she says has given her the opportunity to serve and “in a small way, contribute toward building better relations, one community at a time.”