Get Free 2025 Speaker Deon Haywood Interview
Get Free 2025 Speaker Deon Haywood On New Orleans, Black Feminism And Thriving When ‘Sh— Hits the Fan’ [Exclusive]
Despite the horrible things Black women have faced in the Deep South, especially in the state of Louisiana, Women With A Vision co-founder Deon Haywood says they thrive in New Orleans ahead of her conversation during Get Free 2025.
During a call with Madamenoire, Hawyood reflected on spending time with a group of young ladies in the city’s seventh ward, noting how their stories align, specifically when learning that their mother’s were also seamstresses, and used to make stuff for the drag queens who would come out at nighttime to get the outfits that were made from them. Things like this excite Haywood, something as simple as connecting over memories of eating struggle meals made with the basics like egg, rice, and a little bit of smoked sausage.
For women like herself, having a simple conversation with women of a younger generation is just one example of the freedom that New Orleans beholds, allowing her to hone in on the beauty, reflecting on the good, bad, and the ugly, because without any of them, there’d be no Crescent City.
“I tell people, either she loves you or she doesn’t,” said Haywood, confidently gendering New Orleans as a woman. “Either she will embrace you, or she’ll spit you out. All of it is based on who you are. Yeah, that’s my city.”
As someone who has been at the helm of Women of A Vision, the community-based nonprofit founded in 1989 by a grassroots collective of Black women in response to the spread of HIV and AIDS within communities of color, Haywood took a second to reflect on what it means for the organization to be honored during this year’s North Star Gala at Get Free 2025.
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“It feels like the whole coming home reunion,” Haywood told Madamenoire. “I’ve known Paris Hatcher for many years now, and just to have your work honored by your peers… The agency has gotten awards from many different people, but it feels really special for people to see that you’re operating from a Black feminist standpoint, that you’re working intersectionality. You’re working on behalf of Black women and queer folk, right?”
She added, “It feels sweet. That’s the only other word I have. I may be profound, but it just feels sweet to be chosen by your own. Yeah, absolutely, chosen by our own in a state that, yes, they have many partnerships, but oftentimes here we have felt lonely as an organization. Not many people talk about Black feminist thought, Black feminist theory. Not many people operate from that place. So it feels just really sweet to be honored for Black women doing the work that our foremothers have always done. That our ancestors have always done, and we’re rooted in that.”
What is Get Free: A Black Feminist Reunion?
“Get Free is the largest Black feminist convening in the US, and is a space for our people to joyfully connect, build skills, and raise consciousness,” according to the event’s website, and will take place in New Orleans from June 5 to June 7.
Hundreds of Black feminists will be united in collective, learning, knowledg-sharing, and action, including Haywood’s presentation on reproductive justice in a segment titled: “When Sh*t Hits the Fan: Reimagining RJ in Louisiana and the Deep South.”
“I must start this with we started out doing these events once a year at the beginning of hurricane season,” Haywood explained. “This is our third year holding the event, and this year coming into it, we were like, ‘Wait a minute, we are going to have to look at food access.’ In New Orleans, we talk about making groceries. For Hurricane Season, in case you don’t have a way to refrigerate food, something that you can eat to get through the hurricane… No, we’re saying, how are we going to get you through this moment? How are we going to get through this moment of tariffs and increasing food costs? What is in your pantry? Do you have flour? Do you know how to make bread? Do you have anything sustainable that you can use to build your pantry? Do you have tools?”
“We’ve just expanded that to look at that like, the sh*t’s ‘bout to hit the fan. He hasn’t done it yet. Some of us are feeling it a little bit, but it’s going to hit the fan,” said Haywood. “I’m thinking late fall in 2026, we’re going to see all of this stuff that is happening affect people. I see people now, I hear my clients saying, ‘I don’t have no food.’ But really, it’s helping people understand how to make groceries, and making sure you have flashlights. But it’s also saying, Do you know how to protect yourself? Do you know how to use a gun? Did you take a gun training and survivalist training?”
It’s imortant for Haywood that the entire staff has training at the gun range, as well as her family, understanding what it means to have the right to protect themselves so that when sh*t does hit the fan, and when things like reimagining reproductive justice continues to become a reality, our community has what is needed not only to survive, but also thrive.
The impact of Hurricane Katrina 20 years later.
August 29th will mark 20 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana, ultimately leaving 80 percent of the city of New Orleans underwater when flood waters breached the levees.
“What I learned about Hurricane Katrina is we were made stronger by it, but also it’s the amount of work that came after Hurricane Katrina,” said Haywood.
“Yeah, we were doing the work before,” she continued. “But after Hurricane Katrina, we started looking at policy differently. That we needed policy in our people’s lives. We looked at housing and education. We’ve been able to call out injustices from FEMA to the then-president, and when I say president, really just the government, both local, state, and national, on how they fail us every time. And so 20 years later, we’ve been able to uncover, to grow, and to build in a way that we know is sustainable, even in the face of a governor that’s a MAGA lover, a governor who doesn’t want to invest in FEMA himself; it is the people. One thing hurricanes have taught me is that we need to care for ourselves. We take care of ourselves. It’s interesting; my grandson is 23, and he said, ‘Momo, if it gets bad, just remember, we’re not leaving.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ He said, ‘Why would we leave a place where you can fish? Where people can grow food.’ So, I felt good about that because that meant I taught him something. He learned something over here.”
She went on to note that, now that it has been nearly two decades since Hurricane Katrina, the work they’ve done in New Orleans includes changing the criminal justice system, as well as the work within Women With A Vision.
“We have the only diversion program for sex workers in the country that operates outside the court system. It happens at our office,” said Haywood. “Our reentry programs, right? A young woman with a vision that really, or it’s a Black girl radical book club, and it’s other organizations here that have done so much after Hurricane Katrina to change the conditions that were laid bare for the world to see, that was community people doing that work. It’s the Black people who were working in their communities to rebuild.”
Get Free 2025 will feature a keynote from renowned activist Angela Davis, as well as sessions led by speakers including Deon Haywood, Dominique Morgan, Sesali Bowen, Beulah Osueke, and many others.
Ready to connect, strategize, and mobilize with fellow Black feminists? Grab your ticket to “Get Free: A Black Feminist Reunion” in New Orleans here.
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