Karen Williams Gooden serves as President, CEO, and Founder of The Gooden Center for Law, Media, Policy, and Historic Preservation, LLC. To learn more about the history of Prince George’s County and key figures in Maryland, Karen Williams Gooden is your ideal guide. As an award-winning writer and attorney, Karen’s contributions to her home county and state span decades, serving in positions such as Associate County Attorney for Prince George’s County, Assistant Secretary for the Maryland Department of Transportation and Assistant Secretary for the Governor’s Appointments Office. Other public service posts include: 

• Attorney with the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity  (Social Security Administration)

• Attorney & Deputy Director for the Office of Human Resources Management for Prince George’s County

• Attorney & Deputy Director of the Maryland Housing Fund (Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development)

• Attorney for the Prince George’s County Board of Appeals 

• Attorney & Deputy Director of the Prince George’s County Minority Business Opportunities Commission 

• Hearing Examiner for the Maryland State Office of Administrative Hearings

• Past Member of the Board of Trustees for the Prince George’s Community College (gubernatorial appointment)

Karen is committed to the community and to her craft, as reflected in appointments to state and local positions and commissions. She has also received many writing awards. She won the Irmae

Karen is the author of two books:  Like A Phoenix I’ll Rise; An illustrated History of African Americans in Prince George’s County, Maryland, 1696-1996, and A Cross Borne; A Biography of Judge James Franklyn Bourne, Jr., which includes a history of the J. Franklyn Bourne Bar Association.  

Attorney Gooden loves to inspire others with her love of history. She co-produced and wrote a documentary film and wrote the Study Guide for Middle and High School Students, based on the book, Like A Phoenix I’ll Rise. She also collaborated with her daughter Lezla to create a documentary about her mother titled: Will the Circle be Unbroken: The Extraordinary Life of Lessie Branche Williams (2016). 

In addition, she co-produced and helped write: The Mount Rose Story:  The History of the Mount Rose (MD) Chapter of the Links, Incorporated (2019).

Karen also authored several other historical and biographical works:

• A History of the Women Legislators of Maryland, based on the experiences of a leader Gooden long admired, State Delegate Pauline Menes; 

• Women Legislators of Maryland Then and Now —1972-2019; and 

• Women Legislators of Maryland: The Changing of the Gavel — A Tribute to Three Maryland Women Shaping History (January 2020).

This skilled researcher’s capacity for discovering details of the past began with her own family’s history, from 1805 to present. In her article, The Search for My Roots, that appeared in New Directions, a Howard University magazine, Karen brings alive the brutal reality of slavery and poignant moments of her mother and father’s lives.  

Karen uncovered the influence of her mother’s six paternal uncles and aunts, who were all born during the late 1890s and finished college, no easy feat for African Americans at that time.  Four of the six became teachers and role models for Karen’s mother, who also became a teacher. The article discusses her father’s uncle, John Epps Hubbard, Jr., the second African American City Councilman in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Karen is an active member of the Iota Gamma Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority, Incorporated in Prince George's County, Maryland, where she serves as Chaplain.  

As a charter member of the Mount Rose (MD) Chapter of the Links, Incorporated, Karen also serves as Chaplain, Co-Archivist and Co-Chair of the Fund Development Committee. She is also a member of the NAACP and a life member of the National Council of Negro Women, Inc.

Karen is a graduate of Howard University (BA) English cum laude and a graduate of the Howard University School of Law. She studied Theology and is a product of the Givens Bible College of the Rhema Christian Center Church in Washington, D.C. She is also a member of the Maryland and the District of Columbia Bars. 

Beyond that, Karen, a former deaconess at Rhema, is an active member of the First Baptist Church of Glenarden, where she attends services with her husband Caesar, to whom she has been married for over 36 years.  They have one daughter, Lezla, a broadcast journalist, who is a co-author (with her dad) of a children's book, Spanky Goes to Camp: A Lesson in Obedience.