Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter has dedicated her life to helping people and standing up for what is right, without fear or favor. She is an innovative and dynamic leader with a proven record of championing new ideas and producing positive results for the people she is honored to represents. 

 

Elected to the South Carolina State House of Representatives in 1992, Rep. Cobb-Hunter is a woman of many firsts.  She was the first African American woman in Orangeburg County ever elected to a statewide office and the first freshman appointed to the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.  Cobb-Hunter has continued on her road of firsts by becoming the first person of color, male or female, to ever lead a legislative caucus, when in 1997 she was elected House Minority Leader, a position she held for three years.

 

Moreover, she served as Vice-Chair of the African American History Monument Commission leading the historic effort to erect the first monument to African Americans on the grounds of any state capitol.  She represents South Carolina as the National Committeewoman to the Democratic National Committee, where she also serves as a member of the DNC’s Executive Committee.  Rep. Cobb-Hunter is the Chair for the National Black Caucus of State Legislators Youth committee and chairs the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus’ Health Committee.  She has received numerous awards for her legislative leadership and has been recognized as legislator of the year by several organizations during her years of legislative service.

 

Since 1985 Gilda Cobb-Hunter has been the Executive Director of CASA/Family Systems, a family violence agency serving Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun counties.  She has worked on the national, regional and state levels on a variety of progressive issues aimed at making communities a better place for working families to live.

 

Her longstanding commitment to community service is reflected in her active participation on a number of boards and commissions through the years. She has  served on the following boards:  Community Development Advisory Committee for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond,  Planned Parenthood of  South Carolina, South Carolina Fair Share, South Carolina Low Income Housing Coalition, South Carolina SAFEKIDS, and Grassroots Leadership.

  

Rep. Cobb-Hunter holds a B.S. degree in Afro-American History from Florida A&M University, an M.A. degree in American-History from Florida State University and is a Licensed Master Social Worker.  She is a 1986 graduate of Leadership South Carolina, a 1996 Arthur Flemming Fellow Leadership Institute and 2001 Eleanor Roosevelt Global Leadership Fellow.  In May 2007 she received an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the Medical University of South Carolina.

 

 

She is married to Dr. Terry K. Hunter, Executive Director of FACETS and they reside in Orangeburg.