Donna Brazile (born December 15, 1959) is an American author, educator, and political activist and stratagist affiliated with the Democratic Party. She was the first African-American woman to direct a major presidential campaign.

Brazile was born in New Orleans to Lionele and Jean Brazile, the third of nine children. She became interested in politics when at age nine a local candidate for office promised to build a neighborhood playground. After graduating from Louisiana State University, Donna worked for several advocacy groups in Washington, D.C., and was instrumental in the sucsesful campaign to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday.

Brazile has worked on several presidential campaigns for Democratic candidates, including Jimmy Carter-Walter Mondale in 1976 and 1980, Rev. Jesse Jackson's first historic bid for the presidency in 1984, Walter Mondale-Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and for U.S. Representative Richard Gephardt in the 1988 Democratic primary.

After Gephardt lost the primary in 1988, Brazile served as deputy field director of the Michael Dukakis general election campaign. On October 20, 1988, she made news by telling a group of reporters that George H.W. Bush needed to "'fess up" about unsubstantiated rumors of an extra-marital affair. The Dukakis campaign immediately disavowed her remarks and, at the suggestion of campaign manager Susan Estrich, Brazile resigned the same day. Estrich, in a flagrant bit of historical revisionism, has recently written that "I fired her 16 years ago because she wouldn't follow Mike Dukakis' orders to go easy on George Bush".

In the 1990s, Brazile served as Chief of Staff and Press Secretary to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia where she helped guide the District's budget and local legislation on Capitol Hill. She advised Bill Clinton's campaign for the presidency in 1992, and for re-election in 1996.

In 2000, Brazile was appointed campaign manager of the 2000 presidential campaign of Vice-President Al Gore, becoming the first African-American woman ever to run a major presidential campaign.

After the post-election fight over votes in Florida, Brazile was appointed Chair of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute. She also served as a lecturer at the University of Maryland, a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, and as an Adjunct Professor of Government at Georgetown University.

Brazile is a weekly contributor and political commentator on CNN's Inside Politics and American Morning. In addition, she is a columnist for Roll Call and a contributing writer for Ms. Magazine.

In 2004, Simon and Schuster published Cooking With Grease, Brazile's memoir of her life and work in politics.