Source: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images / Getty
Name: LaTosha Brown
Title: Co-Founder Black Voters Matter and [Black Voters Matter Fund]
SpeakHER Greatness: Georgia flipped blue due to a lot of grassroots work organized and led by a collective of people — especially Black women. Enter LaTosha Brown. She is one of those strategic geniuses who helped to take down the GOP. However, Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter and the Black Voters Matter Fund, isn’t a fan of the terms, “blue state” and “red state. ”
“It makes you choose a side. Ultimately, what we’re trying to say is that Georgia is a new South state. There’s a new South rising. It’s younger, it’s more diverse, it’s more progressive, and it’s more inclusive,” Brown told Marie Claire last November.
Brown began laying the foundation for this “New South” in 2016. The organizer and political strategist co-founded Black Voters Matter and the Black Voters Matter Fund in 2016 out of frustration that the south was often written off as strictly conservative territory despite its mixed demographics.
“We felt like we needed to have a counter-narrative that said that you can build a progressive, multi-racial, multi-generational movement in the South and be able to break up this conservative Republican stronghold area,” she explained.
There’s also voter suppression. Georgia is one of the worst states when it comes to voter suppression laws, and that is one of the many problems Black Voters Matter addresses. Its mission is that it “Seeks to increase power in our communities. Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny.”
Brown’s work through Black Voters Matter is about educating prospective voters about why they should make their voice heard, getting people registered, candidate development, and occasionally raising funds when needed. Black Voters Matter played a major role in helping then democratic nominee Doug Jones defeat Roy Moore in 2017, making him the first Democrat to win a US Senate seat in Alabama since 1992. Last year, Georgia went blue for Biden, making him the first Democrat to win Georgia in 28 years. And in January, Georgia delivered Democrats the senate (the last democratic senator in Georgia left in 2005).
In other words. LaTosha Brown did not come here to play.
