Julie Leak grew up in Charlotte, NC in the 1960s and moved to Atlanta to work as a legal secretary and then to Houston where she worked again as a secretary and then nine years for IBM as a marketing support representative. She graduated from the University of Houston in 1982 and transferred with IBM to Raleigh, NC in 1984 before setting out on her own as a training consultant. Here she became involved with ending apartheid in South Africa before moving to Washington, DC and finally New York City in 1989. Living in DC and then NY, the belly of the beast, changed all this and her eyes were opened. There was a Town Hall in Manhattan with a call to action for two important issues — health care and housing. This became a defining period in her life. In those days it was not Medicare for All but Single Payer and she joined the fight learning, engaging and eventually running into the Raging Grannies, singing their clever songs about health care and other issues. She had never heard of WILPF except that they were influential in establishing the Raging Grannies in New York City. Singing about all the issues became a real education and expanded her engagement totally. The issues of social justice that she sang about became the primary focus of her life. Naturally some touched the heart more than others given the circumstances and two of those were the Occupation in Palestine and the Blockade of Cuba. She finally made it to Cuba in 2021. Julie currently lives in New York City; however, she has family in Charlotte and a home in Raleigh. Depending on the circumstances she may be in either of those places but easy to contact.