Source: iOne Digital
Name: LaTosha Brown
Occupation: Activist
Location: Atlanta
How We Know Her: Brown took center stage after co-creating The Black Voters Matter Fund to support an increase in turnout at the polls on election days.
Why We Chose Her: The advocate’s work has been transformative and remains critical as the country heads towards the 2020 presidential election.
What’s Next: The work hasn’t stopped. The civil rights leader is pushing to empower as many people as possible for local and national campaigns.
IG: @mslatoshabrown
After the 2016 election, one thing was apparently very clear to LaTosha Brown: Black votes matter. The low turnout of Black voters in the last presidential election helped spur her to co-found the Black Voters Matter Fund, a crucial political machine that focuses on getting Black people registered to vote as well as policy and organizing.
Brown, 49, who was recently named as a Harvard Fellow but also has worked as in the non-profit and philanthropy sectors, and her Black Voters Matter Fund were able to make an immediate difference in the 2018 Midterm elections when she told NewsOne that her work got the desired results. “The turnout, the energy, the way I saw Black people working on the ground — listen, we did our part,” she said at the time. Months earlier, she predicted her success in part because of the work that Black women were doing.
Brown is creative in the traditional sense, as she has been a jazz singer. But we chose her to be in this year’s Creative Class because he woman who is also political strategist and consultant has been a devoted soldier on the front lines of the war against voter suppression, a perennial obstacle for Black folks especially. Heading into 2020, her other creation of the Black Voters Fund, especially during such a time of need, can’t be overlooked. And she knows it.
“We are centering the voices of Black women, supporting grassroots leadership and coordinating our efforts,” Brown said last year. “When we work together, we win!”
Check out all of the other honorees on iOne Digital’s The Creative Class.
