About Our Founder

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Mark Eberra, Founder and Executive Director of Defend1964.org, has the background of a true polymath—an individual who has studied and developed expertise across multiple disciplines, often leading to pioneering innovations. 
He has excelled as a published author, poet, writer, educator, television producer, inventor, and entrepreneur—and now, perhaps his greatest calling: Civil Rights Advocate.
 The youngest of eight children and the son of two hardworking, God-fearing parents who survived the treacherous life of Jim Crow America, Mark was taught at an early age the importance of knowing his history and gaining an education if he was to not only survive but thrive as a young Black man in America. Through their love, devotion, and faith, he did just that—growing into the educated, principled man his parents dreamed he would become. This is his story.

EDUCATION

Mr. Eberra earned his B.A. in Communication Studies, M.A. in Adult and Continuing Education (with an emphasis in Andragogy), and completed all but the dissertation in an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Urban Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, where his doctoral work included original research in neuroscience and expertise development.

EARLY CAREER

Mark’s first position after college was Director of Student Services for a national network of colleges specializing in training medical and dental professionals. There, he achieved success improving student retention and transforming curricula from pedagogy to andragogy to better serve adult learners.
 He was later recruited by the Internal Revenue Service as an Organizational Development Specialist, where he helped design and facilitate large-scale systemic and cultural change. He trained over 5,000 executives and employees in leadership and team development.

FROM PIONEER TO “MAGICNEER”: A Life of Creativity and Innovation

In the early 1990s—before the widespread use of the Internet, before Facebook, Google, or even a web browser—Mark began his lifelong career as a pioneer in education and entrepreneurship.
While completing his doctoral work in neuroscience and adult learning, he wrote an article titled “The Top Ten New Breakthroughs in Adult Learning for the 21st Century.”  He emailed it to an education listserv, gaining national recognition as a forward-thinking expert and receiving speaking invitations from organizations across the country.
 Recognizing the potential of this new digital medium, Mark published his idea for the world’s first email marketing company on Usenet, the precursor to the World Wide Web. He later registered InsideConnect.com and EmailConnections.com, anticipating the coming commercialization of the Internet. Soon, he found himself a sought-after Internet marketing guru, fielding requests from around the world for advice on online marketing, digital advertising, and early website development. 
As old academia clashed with a new wave of digital entrepreneurs, Mark founded D.E.M.M.A.—The Direct Electronic Mail Marketers Association—to establish ethics, standards, and a vision for how the Internet could responsibly evolve into a commercial enterprise.
 A self-taught coder on his Macintosh computer, Mark was invited to teach a graduate-level computer science course in business. As he watched the dot-com era emerge and giants like AOL, Microsoft, and Google rise to dominance, he witnessed his once-niche email marketing industry give way to billion-dollar corporations—many capitalizing on the very social networking concepts he had helped pioneer.
 During this creative period, Mark began writing poetry and publishing books about his personal philosophy, Magicneering: Living, Laughing, and Loving Life. With a global email list of devoted readers known as “Magicneers,” his uplifting message spread worldwide. The phrase “Live, Laugh, Love”—popularized through his writings—became part of the global lexicon and a cultural touchstone, appearing on countless products and works of art across the globe.
His success as an author led to children’s books and television production. He created lovable characters such as Debbie the Laughing Dolphin and produced the live-action TV show Debbie Dolphin and the Magic Day Adventures, which reached 1.5 million households in Hawaii in the summer of 2011. Mark and “Debbie” made live appearances in schools, teaching children the value of kindness and good deeds.

FROM FIRED TO INSPIRED

After a long and varied career, Mr. Eberra—like many baby boomers—decided to supplement his retirement by returning to work. He accepted a local position with the world’s largest retailer. To his great disappointment, he encountered overt racism almost immediately. Exercising his constitutional and statutory rights, Mark filed a charge of discrimination with the EEOC in 2024.
After filing his charge, he was fired. What began as a private employment dispute quickly evolved into a national case raising fundamental questions about the ongoing existence of racial discrimination in America—and the enduring necessity of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  In Eberra v. Walmart, the defendants did not merely dispute the facts; they went after the statute itself, explicitly challenging the foundational precedent of Title VII.  If their position were accepted, it would gut the law and leave millions of Americans unprotected from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the workplace.
 While Mark could have quietly retreated into retirement, he chose instead to take a stand—not just for himself, but for future generations and for every person in the United States of America.
 That choice—to stand when it would have been easier to be silent—is the inspiration behind Defend1964.org, perhaps his greatest calling and life’s work.