Hours after President Biden dropped out of the 2024 election and endorsed Kamala Harris, Jotaka Eaddy found herself and her organization, Win With Black Women, at the center of a 44,000 person Zoom call that raised $1.5 million for Harris. Fortune's Ruth Umoh sat down with Eaddy for an inside look at this record-breaking call and her journey in activism, business, and tech.
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00:00:00I remember Van Jones was texting me and he was like,
00:00:03I'm seeing, I'm hearing that you've got like
00:00:07thousands of women on a call.
00:00:08And then like, I was watching it go up in real time.
00:00:11I was like, yeah, they're like 19,000.
00:00:14Then it was like, two minutes later was like,
00:00:16actually they're 25,000.
00:00:18No, there's 30,000.
00:00:19And it just kept going up, up, up, up and up.
00:00:22So it wasn't until about 11, 20 PM
00:00:25that we got the fundraising link.
00:00:27We dropped the fundraising link.
00:00:28And by 1 AM, we had raised $1.6 million.
00:00:32When President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024
00:00:35presidential election race
00:00:37and backed Kamala Harris to take his place,
00:00:39it was an unprecedented event that America experienced
00:00:42on a Sunday afternoon in July.
00:00:44Coincidentally, a Zoom meeting for the organization
00:00:47Win With Black Women was scheduled to take place
00:00:50that evening as it did every Sunday.
00:00:52With the meeting focusing on the recent news,
00:00:55the Zoom call was overwhelmed
00:00:56with more than 44,000 attendees
00:00:59who raised over $1.5 million in just a few hours.
00:01:03Fortune sat down with the creator
00:01:04of Win With Black Women, Jyoteka Eadie,
00:01:07to learn about her background
00:01:08in this impressive fundraiser.
00:01:10I'm Ruth Umo, editor at Fortune,
00:01:12and I'm joined today by Jyoteka Eadie,
00:01:15founder and CEO of Full Circle Strategies,
00:01:18a social impact consultant firm
00:01:20and creator of Win With Black Women,
00:01:22a network of Black female leaders.
00:01:24Thank you so much for speaking with Fortune.
00:01:26I'm excited to be here.
00:01:27I'm excited to have you.
00:01:28All right, let's get to know you.
00:01:30Who is Jyoteka Eadie?
00:01:32Walk us through your professional background
00:01:33and how you got into this space.
00:01:35Wow, so who is Jyoteka?
00:01:40I think the first thing that I would say
00:01:43when anyone asks me who I am,
00:01:45I am a woman, a young woman from South Carolina.
00:01:52I grew up on a dirt road.
00:01:54I carry so much of what I learned from that dirt road
00:01:57and that community in everything that I do.
00:02:00I am an investor.
00:02:02I'm a connector, a businesswoman, and an advocate.
00:02:06And the thing that most describes me
00:02:10is a combination of all of those things.
00:02:12So I try to carry impact in all that I do,
00:02:15whether it's in my personal, professional,
00:02:18or just in just being in the world.
00:02:22And so when I just think about who I am,
00:02:24I'm just a girl that grew up in South Carolina
00:02:26working to make this world a bit better
00:02:29than it was when I came into it
00:02:31and constantly trying to take people pushed to the margins
00:02:34and put them to the center.
00:02:35What does that look like in practice?
00:02:37Walk us through your professional career.
00:02:40So I started my career in activism.
00:02:43And so I've always been an activist.
00:02:45So I started at the National Coalition
00:02:47to Abolish the Death Penalty,
00:02:48where I led strategy on criminal justice reform,
00:02:52specifically around the death penalty,
00:02:55and more poignantly around the juvenile death penalty.
00:02:57So for the first, I think,
00:02:59probably about five to six years of my professional career,
00:03:04I was at the Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
00:03:06I led strategy work around Roper v. Simmons,
00:03:10which was the 2005 landmark U.S. Supreme Court case
00:03:14that abolished the juvenile death penalty.
00:03:16And back then, I had did the advocacy work in South Dakota,
00:03:20Wyoming, and New Hampshire,
00:03:21all states that legislatively abolished
00:03:24the juvenile death penalty,
00:03:25which all informed the U.S. Supreme Court case
00:03:28and did some advocacy work in the United Nations
00:03:31and lobbied in the UN around that issue.
00:03:34And so, you know, in 2005,
00:03:36I thought I had reached the pinnacle of my career
00:03:40because it was like the thing.
00:03:41As a seventh grader,
00:03:43I became very opposed to the death penalty.
00:03:45Why?
00:03:46That's a very young age to be so driven
00:03:50by social justice, by social reform.
00:03:53You know, there were two things very significant in my life.
00:03:55One, Reverend Jesse Jackson came to my small town.
00:03:58The local plant was on strike,
00:04:01and Reverend Jesse Jackson came,
00:04:02and I remember watching and seeing Reverend Jesse Jackson
00:04:05and thinking to myself,
00:04:06oh my God, this movement is just so amazing.
00:04:10And seeing this woman, Cleola Brown, moving with him,
00:04:14and I was very young.
00:04:15I mean, I don't think I was, what,
00:04:17maybe eight, nine, 10 years old.
00:04:20And I just remember standing at the fence,
00:04:23looking over, seeing Reverend Jesse Jackson
00:04:25and just feeling a sense of like motivation.
00:04:28A few years later, I'm in seventh grade.
00:04:30Johnsonville was the home of a multiple murderer,
00:04:34Donald Peewee Gaskins.
00:04:35And so the conversation about the death penalty
00:04:38was a big conversation.
00:04:40Every time he was up for an execution,
00:04:42it was in the news.
00:04:43And so in seventh grade, we had to write a paper.
00:04:47And right before that, we had to debate.
00:04:50And I was a very good oratory,
00:04:51because as a kid, I used to do the Easter speeches,
00:04:55and your grandmama make you
00:04:57do your Easter speech really well.
00:04:58So I was always a very confident speaker.
00:05:01And so I argued for the death penalty in the class.
00:05:04And for the class project,
00:05:06we had to write a paper on the opposing viewpoint.
00:05:09And then as I was reading, I was like,
00:05:12oh my gosh, this death penalty, it's unfair,
00:05:15it's arbitrary, it's racist.
00:05:17So in seventh grade, I became on fire
00:05:20to abolish the death penalty.
00:05:21So if you look at my high school yearbook
00:05:23or talk to anyone that I went to high school with,
00:05:25they would say, Jotaka was the one
00:05:28that was going to abolish the death penalty.
00:05:30My yearbook today, people would say,
00:05:33good luck in life,
00:05:34and maybe you'll abolish the death penalty.
00:05:36So in 2005, after graduating college
00:05:40and I was activism and I did politics,
00:05:43the University of South Carolina,
00:05:45I was student body president,
00:05:47the first black woman student body president there.
00:05:49I had saw the power of combining politics and activism.
00:05:54So my first job, I was supposed to go to law school.
00:05:57So my first job was going to be,
00:05:59I'm going to go do this work,
00:06:01anti-death penalty organizing,
00:06:03and then I'm going to go to law school.
00:06:05And so I did that work in 2005
00:06:09when that Supreme Court case, when we won,
00:06:12I just was like, this is just the pinnacle.
00:06:14And then I was supposed to go to law school,
00:06:16but I got a call and I went and worked for an organization
00:06:20that did progressive advocacy work
00:06:22on a number of progressive issues,
00:06:24whether it was healthcare reform
00:06:26or at the time working to end the war in Iraq.
00:06:28And so that's when sort of my work
00:06:30in sort of the political arena happened.
00:06:32And then 2007, there was this man named Barack Obama
00:06:38that was going to run for president.
00:06:41And I had been working with members of his very early team
00:06:45in my advocacy work,
00:06:47and I got a call to join the campaign and I did that.
00:06:51And then when he won,
00:06:52it was just such a beautiful moment in this country.
00:06:56And then again, the way life works, the windy path forward,
00:07:02my very good friend Ben Jealous became the president
00:07:04and CEO of the NAACP,
00:07:06whom was the person that found me when I was that 16,
00:07:0917 year old that did an internship
00:07:12at the National Coalition Against the Death Colony.
00:07:16And he said, hey, I want you to come to the NAACP with me.
00:07:19And I went there for, I believe about six to seven years
00:07:22as a senior advisor to the president.
00:07:24And so if you could imagine that world of everything
00:07:28from corporate CEOs to the entertainment industry
00:07:32to political folks,
00:07:35I was just sort of interfacing with at the NAACP.
00:07:38I worked on voting rights there.
00:07:40That's where Stacey Abrams and I first met
00:07:43and we were doing voting rights work to expansion
00:07:47and push on the first very pushback.
00:07:50And then yet again, my career would have
00:07:53this next sort of stack.
00:07:55I got a call about the Silicon Valley
00:07:58and the business industry.
00:08:00And I honestly, Ruth, was like, no,
00:08:03there's not my, I'm not a business person.
00:08:06I'm not-
00:08:06Who were they asking you to do?
00:08:08To come into the industry,
00:08:10to be an executive in the industry,
00:08:11come into a company.
00:08:13And at the time there was a company,
00:08:14the first company I went to,
00:08:17no black employees,
00:08:18but yet had a lot of products that was in our communities.
00:08:22And the conversation was that,
00:08:24we need more people like you in this industry.
00:08:26And honestly, I dealt with imposter syndrome
00:08:29despite the fact that I had,
00:08:31been the first black woman
00:08:32student body president in my university.
00:08:34Despite having lobbied in the UN,
00:08:37despite having contributed to
00:08:40a landmark US Supreme Court case,
00:08:42I didn't see myself in the industry.
00:08:46And so I think it was about six or seven months.
00:08:48I just sort of stayed on the sidelines.
00:08:50I was being recruited.
00:08:51I got a job offer and they said,
00:08:53we're just gonna keep this offer on the table.
00:08:55And when you're ready,
00:08:57please come back and talk to us.
00:08:58And I talked to my mentors,
00:09:00like Mignon Moore and others,
00:09:02who then said, you need to do this.
00:09:04But when you go, you can do three things.
00:09:07One, you can make your company more inclusive
00:09:11and bring your valuable skillset
00:09:14for the growth of this company,
00:09:15because it wasn't just about inclusivity,
00:09:17but it's also about the business growth of the company.
00:09:20And then second,
00:09:22you could actually do something wider
00:09:24for the greater industry.
00:09:25And third, you can open the door to other people
00:09:28like you could come into Silicon Valley.
00:09:29And so this was 2013, I was in those conversations.
00:09:33I finally went in 2014.
00:09:34So this was a time when there wasn't as large
00:09:38of the sort of entry of people from like DC
00:09:41and not, if you weren't sort of in the valley already
00:09:45that went into the industry.
00:09:46And so I went in and it was one of the best decisions
00:09:50that I made in my life
00:09:52because it was, I'm now able to carry that activism
00:09:56and those connections into the business industry.
00:09:59And when you were in Silicon Valley, what was your role?
00:10:02What were you doing?
00:10:03So I was, I had a number of roles.
00:10:05So I was at one point the SVP of government affairs,
00:10:12VP of policy and impact for another company,
00:10:15chief strategy officer for another company.
00:10:19And so those were mainly the roles,
00:10:21but the work that I was doing was really
00:10:24in the area of policy impact and also external relations,
00:10:28which at the time,
00:10:30Silicon Valley wasn't thinking about that as much.
00:10:32And so I'm just very proud that of the work
00:10:36that I was able to do,
00:10:37helping grow some very significant companies
00:10:40that I've been a part of
00:10:42and also helping to create a door opening
00:10:46for others to be in the industry
00:10:49in a very meaningful way.
00:10:51Because I think it really,
00:10:53it's important to have people
00:10:55that have a very different perspective,
00:10:56a very different lived experience
00:10:59that can be at the decision-making table.
00:11:02And I think that was important
00:11:03that I was on executive management team
00:11:06of two of the companies that I was in
00:11:09while in the industry.
00:11:10And I'm still working on the private side as an advisor.
00:11:15I'm now an investor in companies.
00:11:17I am an advisor to companies.
00:11:21I'm an LP in a number of funds.
00:11:23And so I'm still able to help guide that industry,
00:11:27but also able to do other parts
00:11:28of the things that I love doing,
00:11:30which is the advocacy work.
00:11:31I think that's a perfect pivot then
00:11:33to discuss in When With Black Women,
00:11:36because it's kind of the amalgamation of the advocacy,
00:11:39the tech and corporate know-how.
00:11:42Walk me through how When With Black Women
00:11:44came to fruition.
00:11:46What year was it?
00:11:47And how did this community come to be?
00:11:50Yeah, so When With Black Women started in August of 2020.
00:11:55And it was, I was actually,
00:11:58it was during the height of the pandemic.
00:12:01And everybody was just sort of off to themselves
00:12:05or hunkered down.
00:12:06I went to South Carolina for a while
00:12:08to be with my parents.
00:12:09And I remember at the time,
00:12:12we were in the midst of a presidential election cycle.
00:12:15And there was a very big conversation
00:12:18around who was going to be the vice presidential nominee
00:12:22for president, now President Biden.
00:12:25And there were amazing Black women
00:12:27that had been named as potential nominees.
00:12:32Now Vice President Kamala Harris,
00:12:34Stacey Abrams, Karen Bass, Val Demmons,
00:12:38Susan Rice, and a number of Black women.
00:12:42Many of them close personal friends.
00:12:45And I remember watching the, just the narrative.
00:12:50And it was a lot of personal attacks.
00:12:52There were ad hominem attacks,
00:12:54sexist and racist attacks on all of those women.
00:12:57They were called too ambitious,
00:12:59or she was abrasive.
00:13:02And then they tried to pit them against each other.
00:13:04And I just remember thinking to myself,
00:13:07if we allow this to happen to these Black women,
00:13:11what is happening to Black women
00:13:13that don't have those platforms,
00:13:14that aren't, quote, famous,
00:13:16are not at a level of vice presidential nominee potential.
00:13:22And I picked up the phone and I called Mignon Moore.
00:13:25And when you mentioned people,
00:13:26if I may pause very quickly,
00:13:27because our viewers and readers might not know.
00:13:29So if you say Donna Brazile,
00:13:30if you could say DNC chairwoman Jess,
00:13:33I know they're close friends of yours.
00:13:35So, yeah, so it was DNC chair,
00:13:38DNC convention chairwoman Mignon Moore
00:13:41was the person that I called.
00:13:43And she pushed back.
00:13:44And it was a very loving,
00:13:46but very direct conversation to say,
00:13:49and what do you do?
00:13:50She said, what are you doing?
00:13:51What are you going to do?
00:13:52Because the ask for me,
00:13:54I was just simply trying to figure out,
00:13:56you know, what are the political aunties going to do?
00:13:59Because you always wait for the political aunties
00:14:01to lead you.
00:14:02So what is Bishop Leodaci going to do?
00:14:04What is Donna Brazile going to do?
00:14:06What is Yolanda Carraway going to do?
00:14:08What's Mignon Moore going to do?
00:14:10And Mignon said, what are you all going to do?
00:14:13What are y'all going to do?
00:14:14Meaning my contemporaries,
00:14:16you know, the women that are,
00:14:20you know, coming up right behind them,
00:14:22you know, my colleagues and friends
00:14:24like Angela Rye or Tamika Mallory
00:14:26or Siobhan Arline Bradley.
00:14:30And the list goes on,
00:14:31but all of us in this age sort of bracket.
00:14:35And I remember putting the phone down.
00:14:36And I think it was maybe 25, 30 minutes later
00:14:40that I then picked up my phone
00:14:43and I wrote this email.
00:14:45And I think the title of it was
00:14:46Not On Our Watch, This VP Narrative.
00:14:49And it was just like part rant, part organizing.
00:14:53And because of my professional career,
00:14:56I had been an activist.
00:14:57So I had been in the political arena.
00:15:00I had been in Silicon Valley.
00:15:02By that time, I had, you know,
00:15:04went into more private and opened my own firm.
00:15:08So I had worked in the entertainment industry
00:15:10or worked with folks in entertainment.
00:15:12And literally, it was just more about
00:15:14bringing all of the people
00:15:16that I had been connected to
00:15:17and had worked with and or had befriended.
00:15:20And so I sent an email to 65 people, I believe.
00:15:25And it just was not on our watch.
00:15:28I was like, are y'all seeing this?
00:15:30It's BS. We have to stop it.
00:15:33Is there any meetings that are happening?
00:15:35If so, put me in.
00:15:36Because that was my notion was like,
00:15:37hey, if somebody's meeting, put me in.
00:15:40I'm ready to work.
00:15:41If not, can we get on a Zoom call?
00:15:43Can we come up with a hashtag?
00:15:44Because we have to fight this back.
00:15:46And so that night, 90 of us got on a call.
00:15:49So you send the email to about 65.
00:15:51I'm assuming they brought on others.
00:15:53Yes.
00:15:54And then you said, let's get on a call.
00:15:56Or how did you go from sending that email
00:15:58where you kind of put all your thoughts
00:16:01and then to having a call later on that evening?
00:16:03Yeah, so we put all the thoughts on the email.
00:16:06It was kind of part rant, part organizing
00:16:08because it was like, let's get a hashtag.
00:16:10Let's come up with a campaign, maybe an open letter.
00:16:14So it was just sort of like a spewing of thoughts.
00:16:16And I said, and if no one has a meeting,
00:16:21let's get on this call.
00:16:23And I think it was Yolanda Carraway
00:16:26was one of the first.
00:16:27Judith Brown Dianus, a great lawyer
00:16:29with a law advocacy group here replied back.
00:16:36Tamara Houston, who leads work
00:16:38in the entertainment industry was like,
00:16:39yes, I'm in.
00:16:41Stephanie Brown James, I remember she was like,
00:16:42and I'm going to bring the wine.
00:16:44And so it was just, it already started
00:16:46with the feel good.
00:16:48But all of the women were like, we have to do this.
00:16:51And Donna Brazile, the great political strategist
00:16:55wrote back and was like, if not now.
00:16:59She just really brought the history of the fact
00:17:03that we have to stand down in this moment.
00:17:08And so we got on that Zoom.
00:17:09It was about 90 on the Zoom and we talked.
00:17:14We decided that we were all agreeing.
00:17:16Everybody was feeling the same thing.
00:17:18And remember we're in COVID.
00:17:20So we were in a moment where people were isolated
00:17:22but I think there was a great need for community.
00:17:24So there were a multitude of things happening.
00:17:26So that Zoom and when with black women,
00:17:28I don't think would have happened
00:17:30had we not been in the middle of COVID
00:17:33because the natural inclination would have been
00:17:36a meeting in person, probably in DC,
00:17:39which would have meant that it was probably
00:17:41just the political folks meeting to try to push back.
00:17:44But because it was during COVID
00:17:47and we had had some familiarity with Zoom
00:17:50and the technology, we were able to hop on.
00:17:53And so here you have on that call,
00:17:56women like Cassandra Butcher,
00:17:58who is a long time PR executive
00:18:02in the entertainment industry,
00:18:03who invited Ruth Carter,
00:18:05whom I had known Ruth for years on that call.
00:18:09Young women like Marissa Jennings
00:18:12and then Dr. Johnnetta Besh Cole
00:18:14then was told about the call
00:18:15and Dr. Cole joins the call.
00:18:18So then you start to see sort of this mix
00:18:21of women like Morgan DeBron at Blavity
00:18:24and Shannon Nash, who's a COO at a tech company.
00:18:30So all of these women,
00:18:31so coming onto this call that are all
00:18:35from various industries with the same goal in mind
00:18:39is that we don't want this narrative
00:18:42because the same narrative
00:18:44that was happening in politics
00:18:45happens to women in the entertainment industry,
00:18:47happens to women in Silicon Valley,
00:18:50it happens to women in whether
00:18:52they're in the movement as well.
00:18:54And so we were collectively in agreement
00:18:58that we were gonna do an open letter.
00:19:00And I think within the first 24 hours or 48 hours,
00:19:04we had had over 2,500 Black women leaders
00:19:07sign that open letter.
00:19:09And then we published and made that letter public
00:19:13and we got more women started to sign onto that letter.
00:19:17And that was the very beginning
00:19:19of when with Black women,
00:19:21we were speaking out against racism and sexism.
00:19:24And then we decided that we wanted to be very forceful
00:19:28about the need for there to be a Black woman
00:19:31at the top of the ticket.
00:19:33And it is important to note
00:19:34that there was a group of Black women
00:19:37who had been meeting prior to the start
00:19:40of Women with Black Women around this issue.
00:19:43And they had met with then Vice President Biden
00:19:47and said, we think there needs to be
00:19:49a Black woman on the ticket.
00:19:50And so those women had been doing that work.
00:19:53And so when Black women was formed,
00:19:55we were able to amplify
00:19:57and support that in a very meaningful way.
00:20:00And so a lot of people,
00:20:02their first sort of interaction
00:20:03with Women with Black Women
00:20:04was around that first open letter
00:20:06and then also around the work that we did
00:20:09to amplify the need for a Black woman
00:20:11be at the top of the ticket.
00:20:12What have you championed since then
00:20:14and really walk us through the machinations
00:20:17and how this works?
00:20:18Back in 2020, we were very clear.
00:20:20People probably saw online,
00:20:22we do a lot of social.
00:20:23So a lot of social graphics
00:20:25and when Black women,
00:20:27it was this thing and it was like, it's time.
00:20:30And the part about it that's so beautiful
00:20:32is that Women with Black Women
00:20:33is pretty much all volunteer ran,
00:20:35all volunteer funded.
00:20:37So it's the women that you see
00:20:39that power Women with Black Women
00:20:41do it out of their love.
00:20:42For many of us, it's our heart work.
00:20:45It's the work that we do
00:20:46outside of our day-to-day jobs.
00:20:49Many of these women have very robust careers
00:20:53and they choose to bring their talent
00:20:54to Women with Black Women.
00:20:55So other sort of key moments that we've had,
00:20:59I think the ones that are probably closest
00:21:04to the hearts of a lot of the women
00:21:05in Women with Black Women
00:21:06has been the work around Brittany Griner.
00:21:08And that really started because a woman
00:21:10that is a part of Women with Black Women,
00:21:13Terry Jackson,
00:21:14who is the president
00:21:17of the WNBA Players Association
00:21:20and Angela Rye and coach Don Staley
00:21:24and Karen Finney,
00:21:25all were very much a part of the movement
00:21:29to really advocate for Brittany Griner.
00:21:32And Terry said,
00:21:33hey, we need Women with Black Women.
00:21:35We've got like, this is at the time,
00:21:37this is like, I believe February
00:21:39when no one was really paying attention.
00:21:42And so the beauty of Women with Black Women
00:21:44is that often it's almost like
00:21:45when there's a need,
00:21:47we will galvanize around that need.
00:21:49And that need might be
00:21:50in the entertainment industry this month.
00:21:53It may be in sports this month,
00:21:55but we all galvanize.
00:21:57And we decided
00:21:59that we were gonna do an open letter.
00:22:00Women with Black Women
00:22:01is known for our open letters.
00:22:02And so we penned a letter this time though
00:22:04to President Biden
00:22:08and Vice President Harris,
00:22:09but it was to the president
00:22:11in this administration
00:22:12saying that we need for you
00:22:14to do whatever you need to do
00:22:18to get Brittany Griner home.
00:22:20And at the time,
00:22:21if you could imagine,
00:22:22we were very supportive
00:22:23of this administration.
00:22:24And it was a letter
00:22:25pushing this administration.
00:22:27And that letter, I think,
00:22:30wasn't the only thing that was a catalyst,
00:22:33but it was a part of it.
00:22:35Brittany had written
00:22:36her own powerful letter.
00:22:37This was around the 4th of July.
00:22:39So our letter went public on July 6th.
00:22:43Her letter went out July 4th,
00:22:47her own letter, her own words.
00:22:48But we had been advocating
00:22:50and supporting well before then.
00:22:54And when we put that letter,
00:22:56we immediately had a meeting
00:22:57with the White House at the time.
00:23:00Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms
00:23:02was the senior advisor to the president
00:23:04and she was the head of OPE.
00:23:08We had a meeting
00:23:09and things started churning.
00:23:11And again, I wouldn't never say
00:23:14that it was only our letter that pushed.
00:23:16I think it was a factor
00:23:18that showed that there was
00:23:19a great amount of support
00:23:21of Black women leaders
00:23:23that was very serious
00:23:24that this administration
00:23:25needed to do what it needed to do.
00:23:27And we were just so pleased on that.
00:23:30I believe it was in November
00:23:32when Brittany, we got the call,
00:23:34I'll never forget,
00:23:35when I was sitting at home
00:23:37and I got a sort of obscure text message.
00:23:40It was like,
00:23:41something big is happening today.
00:23:42And I was like,
00:23:43I wonder what this could be.
00:23:44And then messages started coming.
00:23:46I got a call from Terry.
00:23:48I think I talked to Karen Finney,
00:23:50Rachel Norlander.
00:23:51And when I got the first photos
00:23:55of BG on the plane,
00:23:57it was so powerful.
00:23:59And that to me was
00:24:01the power of what a collective can do.
00:24:05And you have all these women
00:24:06that are willing to weigh in.
00:24:08You have a Dawn Staley who is on,
00:24:11you know, in the public eye
00:24:12every single day fighting for BG,
00:24:14wearing a We Are BG pin,
00:24:17lending her voice to graphics
00:24:20and videos,
00:24:21lending her name to this open letter,
00:24:23even offering to trade their time
00:24:27at the White House
00:24:29so that Sherelle Griner,
00:24:31Brittany's wife,
00:24:32could have a meeting with the president.
00:24:34All of those things,
00:24:35Black women just sort of doing
00:24:37what they needed to do
00:24:38to weigh in to support the sister.
00:24:40You've also bowed out movie theaters.
00:24:42Talk about that.
00:24:43Talk about your efforts
00:24:45behind advocating for Ketanji.
00:24:48Talk about your efforts
00:24:49around Lisa Cook.
00:24:51Yes.
00:24:51There's so many different avenues.
00:24:53Yeah, so there's just been so much that,
00:24:57and all of this work is in partnership
00:24:59with Black women-led organizations.
00:25:01That's so important.
00:25:03The work around Ketanji Brown-Jackson,
00:25:05which I think we're borrowing a lot
00:25:08from that page in terms of this,
00:25:09what we're seeing right now
00:25:11with the presidential election,
00:25:14it was centered around advocacy, yes,
00:25:18but also joy.
00:25:22The president had already
00:25:24made a commitment on the campaign trail
00:25:26that he was going to nominate a Black woman
00:25:28to the United States Supreme Court.
00:25:29And it was very important
00:25:30for Women with Black Women
00:25:31when that time came
00:25:33to make sure that we galvanize around
00:25:36whomever this nominee was going to be.
00:25:39We had had the position
00:25:40that all of them are indeed qualified.
00:25:43And then when it became Justice Jackson,
00:25:46we galvanized around her,
00:25:48we mobilized in partnership
00:25:50with Black women-led organizations
00:25:52and helped to seek that through
00:25:55around Governor Lisa Cook.
00:25:58And when she was up for the nomination
00:26:02for the Federal Reserve Board,
00:26:04we galvanized because we understood
00:26:06the importance of not only
00:26:08there being the first Black woman
00:26:10in that position,
00:26:11but what it meant for the policies,
00:26:14the decisions that she was making,
00:26:15particularly on the economic landscape.
00:26:19And we galvanized around her
00:26:20in a very meaningful way.
00:26:21And when you say galvanized,
00:26:22what do you mean?
00:26:22Really break that down for readers.
00:26:25Is it calling people within your network?
00:26:27Is it campaigns?
00:26:28What does that look like in effect?
00:26:30It's all of the above.
00:26:31So it's making sure that we call people
00:26:34in our networks
00:26:35because these are voting processes.
00:26:37So Lisa Cook had to go before the Senate.
00:26:41She had to go through the Senate process.
00:26:44It's not only the grassroots nature
00:26:46of what do we need to do
00:26:47to make these phone calls
00:26:49to let our members of Congress,
00:26:52particularly our senators,
00:26:53know we want this vote.
00:26:56It's important.
00:26:57And if you don't vote in this way,
00:26:58then recognize that we see you.
00:27:01And it's also the socials
00:27:04and making sure people understand
00:27:06who is Lisa Cook?
00:27:07What does she stand for?
00:27:09Her qualifications.
00:27:11Because the reality is that
00:27:13people may not know
00:27:14or often they're misinformation
00:27:17and downright lies
00:27:19told about a lot of these women.
00:27:21And so it's important for us
00:27:22to lift up who they are,
00:27:24their stellar qualifications,
00:27:27and then do the work
00:27:28to ensure that we are galvanizing,
00:27:30meaning calling the people
00:27:32in our networks,
00:27:33leveraging our own influence
00:27:35and our personal capacities
00:27:37to ensure that the votes,
00:27:39that we get the votes needed
00:27:40to get them into office and place.
00:27:42You also had some prominent people
00:27:45from the entertainment space
00:27:46attend these calls, correct?
00:27:48Yes, we have.
00:27:49I mean, we've had Ms. Dionne Warwick
00:27:51has joined our calls.
00:27:53Of course, the late Cicely Tyson
00:27:56joined one of our very early calls
00:27:59right before she passed.
00:28:00She was a part of our calls.
00:28:02Ms. Oprah Winfrey
00:28:03has joined some of our calls.
00:28:05She actually wrote about her experience
00:28:08on our calls,
00:28:09but there have also been women
00:28:11in the entertainment industry
00:28:13who've been on the very first calls.
00:28:15Women like that work
00:28:18on the backside,
00:28:19but I always say sort of like
00:28:21behind the scenes,
00:28:22but I think those are
00:28:22the most important aspects
00:28:24of the entertainment industry,
00:28:25the producers and those folks.
00:28:27But women like Felicia Henderson,
00:28:29who has been a part of
00:28:30Women with Black Women
00:28:31since the very first call.
00:28:33Showrunner, she gave us Soul Food,
00:28:36First Kill on Netflix.
00:28:39Women like Cassandra Butcher,
00:28:40PR executive Sonia Edie Williams.
00:28:43We've had other women
00:28:46part of these calls.
00:28:48Ava DuVernay has been on a call.
00:28:50We've gotten behind and supported
00:28:53Origin in a very big way
00:28:55with The Little Mermaid, of course,
00:28:59was a film because there was
00:29:00so much racism and sexism again.
00:29:02And you say supported Origin
00:29:04or The Little Mermaid in what way?
00:29:06Theater buyouts.
00:29:07So we will do,
00:29:08often we will do theater buyouts.
00:29:10We'll do social media amplification.
00:29:13For The Little Mermaid specifically,
00:29:14we bought out over 100 theaters
00:29:17on opening weekend
00:29:18and held events
00:29:20where Black women leaders
00:29:22bought out theaters
00:29:23and invited community,
00:29:24invited young girls,
00:29:25gave away books
00:29:27because it was important
00:29:28for us to support
00:29:29and to send to Hollywood a signal
00:29:32that Black women are paying attention
00:29:33to the images that you create
00:29:35and that when you do center
00:29:38and show the diversity of all women
00:29:42with a Black Little Mermaid,
00:29:45that we want to say,
00:29:47yes, keep doing that.
00:29:48And that's also the power of our,
00:29:51you know, the economic power that we have.
00:29:53So it's not just the advocacy that we do.
00:29:56It's the economic power that we put forth,
00:29:58whether or not we're raising money
00:30:00for a candidate,
00:30:01that we've had
00:30:04just about every major Black woman candidate
00:30:07that has run for office,
00:30:09whether it's United States Senate to mayor,
00:30:12have come through our calls,
00:30:14introduced themselves.
00:30:15And on the spot,
00:30:16we will fundraise for those Black women.
00:30:19But at the very least,
00:30:21it's important for Black women
00:30:23to just know other Black women
00:30:24that are leading.
00:30:25And so the same with the entertainment industry
00:30:27or in the tech industry.
00:30:28We've had, you know,
00:30:30women from Silicon Valley
00:30:32that come on and talk about their funds,
00:30:35women like Val Mosley,
00:30:36who will come and break down
00:30:38and understand a little bit more
00:30:40about finance for each other.
00:30:44Authors have come on the call
00:30:47to talk about their books,
00:30:48Deesha Dyer,
00:30:50Lovia Jahi-Jones,
00:30:51because our goal is,
00:30:52not only do we want to support
00:30:53these women in their books,
00:30:55but how do we make sure
00:30:55they get on the bestsellers?
00:30:57And so it's not just understanding,
00:31:00yes, we want to buy books,
00:31:01but what's the strategy here?
00:31:02What's the algorithm?
00:31:04You know, how do you actually
00:31:08support and buy books in a way
00:31:10that help these women
00:31:12get into the rightful place
00:31:13that they belong?
00:31:14Or how do we make sure
00:31:16on these streaming platforms
00:31:17that Black women projects
00:31:20that center us in a way
00:31:22that tell our story in a way
00:31:24is done in a way
00:31:25that we support it economically
00:31:27so that we show economic force?
00:31:30Or whether or not we're raising money
00:31:31to show that Black women
00:31:32can raise money in the political arena.
00:31:34So it's all of that,
00:31:37or getting behind Black women in sports.
00:31:39Like a very special member
00:31:41of Women with Black Women
00:31:42is Sint Marshall,
00:31:43the president and CEO
00:31:45of the Dallas Mavericks,
00:31:46who has been on our calls
00:31:48since the very beginning.
00:31:49And on most Sunday nights,
00:31:52she has gotten on those calls.
00:31:54And so there's something about
00:31:56the special nature of
00:31:59Women with Black Women
00:32:00is that when you get on a call
00:32:01and it doesn't matter who you are,
00:32:05we're all the same
00:32:05when we get on those calls.
00:32:06We're Black women who are
00:32:08just trying to make a difference
00:32:09in our direct communities
00:32:11and the greater community as a whole.
00:32:14You've had these Sunday calls
00:32:16for four years.
00:32:17Then on Sunday, July 21st,
00:32:19President Joe Biden announced
00:32:21that he'd be ending his 2024 race
00:32:24for the White House,
00:32:25later endorsing VP Kamala Harris.
00:32:28What went through your mind at the time?
00:32:31It's something about the dirt road
00:32:33in Johnsonville, South Carolina,
00:32:34because I was yet there then.
00:32:36Again, I was visiting my family
00:32:39and I remember sitting there.
00:32:40I was on the porch
00:32:41and you know,
00:32:42everybody's on a text thread.
00:32:43So I'm on my Black women's text thread
00:32:45and it popped off.
00:32:46I think it was Holly Holiday
00:32:48was the first person.
00:32:48She's very much a big part
00:32:50of Women with Black Women.
00:32:52That was the first person
00:32:53I got the message from.
00:32:55And what did she say?
00:32:56I think it was just,
00:32:57I can't remember the exact text,
00:32:59but it was basically ringing the alarm.
00:33:01Like this thing is happening.
00:33:03And I had always thought
00:33:05that it was a potential
00:33:07that the president was going
00:33:08to make a decision
00:33:09because it was a big conversation
00:33:11and Black women had,
00:33:14we had been very vocal
00:33:15about our support
00:33:16of the Biden-Harris ticket.
00:33:18Melanie Campbell had penned
00:33:20a very powerful letter
00:33:21that, you know,
00:33:228,000 Black women had signed on
00:33:23to supporting the Biden-Harris
00:33:26administration's,
00:33:28the Biden-Harris ticket.
00:33:30And we were very much clear
00:33:33that we supported this president
00:33:35and he should make that decision
00:33:37and only him
00:33:38when he wanted to make that decision.
00:33:39And should he make that decision
00:33:41that quite frankly,
00:33:42Vice President Kamala Harris
00:33:43was the only conversation
00:33:44that we were going to end.
00:33:46There was no other conversation for us.
00:33:48And so when Holly said this,
00:33:49no, I was like, oh boy.
00:33:51So it's this moment
00:33:52where you realize,
00:33:53because, you know,
00:33:53I'm a political science major.
00:33:55I studied political science.
00:33:58I've worked in politics
00:34:00and advocacy
00:34:01in some form my whole life.
00:34:03And here I am thinking about,
00:34:05first, like,
00:34:07this is very historical.
00:34:08Like this ain't,
00:34:09this has never really happened before.
00:34:12So we're in a moment
00:34:15that is never seen before.
00:34:18And so then you realize,
00:34:19then you go like, whoa,
00:34:21I think I'm in this moment too.
00:34:22Like, whoa,
00:34:23like there's a role to play
00:34:25in this moment.
00:34:27And there was also a moment for me
00:34:29where I had a great sense of gratitude
00:34:33towards the president.
00:34:34Because President Joe Biden,
00:34:36since his, you know,
00:34:38since his start of his presidency
00:34:40has seen Black women
00:34:42in ways that I have never witnessed
00:34:44in my lifetime of any presidency,
00:34:47whether or not it has been
00:34:49his nomination of Black women
00:34:52from the cabinet level
00:34:53to the Supreme Court,
00:34:54to the Federal Reserve Board,
00:34:56to other positions,
00:34:57or the policies that he put in place
00:35:00that impact our lives,
00:35:01whether it's student debt relief
00:35:04or its investments in HBCUs
00:35:07or the lowering of medical prescription,
00:35:12medical costs.
00:35:13So, so much the focus
00:35:15on maternal health.
00:35:17And so I felt a sense of gratitude
00:35:19because in this moment,
00:35:21this president is doing something
00:35:24very, very much a sacrifice.
00:35:26He is stepping aside
00:35:27for the greater good of democracy
00:35:29and he is choosing into doing so
00:35:32a few minutes later to endorse,
00:35:35fully endorse his vice president,
00:35:38Vice President Kamala Harris.
00:35:39So there's a sense of gratitude.
00:35:41And then I went into just work mode.
00:35:44So it was like, okay.
00:35:44So you have this text thread
00:35:46or a group text.
00:35:47How many people are in the group text?
00:35:48I think it was 14.
00:35:49About 14.
00:35:50I'm assuming it's popping off.
00:35:51It's popping off.
00:35:52Talk to me about the energy.
00:35:53What are you guys sending each other?
00:35:54The fervor?
00:35:56Because that Sunday night,
00:35:57serendipitously, you have a call.
00:35:59We have a call set.
00:35:59As you always do every Sunday.
00:36:00So as in always on these text threads,
00:36:04it was, okay, it's a big deal.
00:36:07This thing is going down.
00:36:11Here's a Zoom line.
00:36:12Like, we can't believe this is happening.
00:36:14It was like joy, work.
00:36:17But then you can imagine
00:36:18some of the women on this text thread
00:36:20are deep into understanding
00:36:23the mechanics of all of this.
00:36:25They're longtime members of the DNC.
00:36:29And so it's like, whoa, wait.
00:36:31What does this mean?
00:36:32Because this is a whole process
00:36:34that's now going to have to take place.
00:36:37And so I think immediately
00:36:38one of the first things was,
00:36:40so I think I sent out a Zoom link.
00:36:42And it was my Zoom link.
00:36:43I was like, hey, let's just get on a call.
00:36:45And so a few of us got on a call.
00:36:47And we were just-
00:36:48And that's separate from the Sunday call.
00:36:49That's separate from the Sunday call.
00:36:50It's like, this is just like,
00:36:51here's a Zoom link because,
00:36:53one, it was just like,
00:36:54it's so many text messages.
00:36:55Let's just get on a Zoom link.
00:36:56And so we literally were sitting on a Zoom link,
00:36:59just in space with each other.
00:37:01Like, y'all, this is happening.
00:37:03And then it was like, okay,
00:37:05the Sunday call has to,
00:37:08the agenda is going to have to shift a bit.
00:37:10But we had already,
00:37:11Jasmine Crockett was already
00:37:13going to speak on the Sunday call.
00:37:15Congresswoman Joyce Beatty
00:37:16was already going to speak on the call
00:37:18because we were going to,
00:37:19and we still did,
00:37:20honor Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee,
00:37:22who had been very much a part
00:37:23of Women with Black Women.
00:37:25Many of the women
00:37:26of the Congressional Black Caucus
00:37:27have always been a part
00:37:28of Women with Black Women.
00:37:29Anytime they come on,
00:37:31we would always yield
00:37:33to have them speak about key issues
00:37:35that they're working on in the country.
00:37:38And Donna Brazile was already slated
00:37:41to speak.
00:37:42And so we knew we had to shift the agenda.
00:37:44And so I thought something was up
00:37:47when, like, 2.30, 3 o'clock,
00:37:49there were women in the waiting room.
00:37:51And I was like,
00:37:51why are all these women
00:37:52in the waiting room?
00:37:53It's like 70 women in the waiting room.
00:37:56For a call that's supposed
00:37:57to start at what time?
00:37:588.30.
00:37:588.30.
00:37:59And then around 6,
00:38:01it just kept creeping up.
00:38:03And I remember having a conversation
00:38:05with Holly Holliday,
00:38:06who is a big part of
00:38:08Women with Black Women.
00:38:10And she gives so much
00:38:11to Women with Black Women.
00:38:13And I said, Holly,
00:38:14I know that the capacity for them,
00:38:16you know, I'm kind of techie.
00:38:18So I knew that Zoom capacity
00:38:21for a meeting is 1,000 people.
00:38:24And at the height
00:38:26of Women with Black Women,
00:38:27when we've had, you know,
00:38:28even like Oprah Winfrey on the call,
00:38:30it shot up to like 950 people
00:38:33on a Sunday night call.
00:38:35So I was saying,
00:38:36we'll have maybe 1,000 people.
00:38:38And on average,
00:38:38that's what you have, 1,000?
00:38:39On average, on average,
00:38:41it's about two to 300 on a Sunday.
00:38:44But we have special guests.
00:38:46So if Ava DuVernay is on,
00:38:48you might have 500 women
00:38:49on that Sunday night.
00:38:50So it just, it goes,
00:38:52it just sort of kind of
00:38:53goes up and down.
00:38:55But on average, there's always,
00:38:57you know, two to 300 women
00:38:58on a Sunday night.
00:39:00And so this was the grand plan, Ruth.
00:39:03The grand plan was,
00:39:05we're going to let in 950 people
00:39:09so that if there is someone
00:39:11who needs to get in,
00:39:13we have 50 slots that we can make sure
00:39:16that we can let them into the call.
00:39:18That was the plan.
00:39:20Around eight o'clock
00:39:22is when the tech team
00:39:23and the folks that volunteers
00:39:26log into Women with Black Women
00:39:27to open it up and get ready
00:39:29for the 8.30 call.
00:39:30At 8 p.m.,
00:39:32I could not get into my own Zoom
00:39:34because it was over capacity.
00:39:36And so we sent a note to the list serve
00:39:37and said, hey, and at the time,
00:39:39there's about maybe 6,000 people
00:39:42on our list serve.
00:39:43So we would sit down a note and say,
00:39:45hey, can you all,
00:39:46a few people hang up
00:39:47so that we can get in.
00:39:48This is my mind thinking
00:39:50that it may be like,
00:39:51maybe there's 50,
00:39:52maybe there's 1,200 people.
00:39:55So a couple of people hang up,
00:39:57at least I can get in.
00:39:59No, so that wasn't happening.
00:40:01No one was hanging up.
00:40:02I didn't know at the time
00:40:04that there was this viral nature
00:40:06of the text threads
00:40:08and the notes saying,
00:40:09you got to get on this call.
00:40:10You got to get on this call
00:40:11because we had set out the agenda
00:40:14earlier that day.
00:40:15So the agenda was already set
00:40:17and it wasn't speaking
00:40:18to this specific issue.
00:40:20And we said, oh,
00:40:21we're going to have to go
00:40:22from meeting to webinar.
00:40:24And at the time,
00:40:24our webinar capacity was 3,000.
00:40:28And I said, OK,
00:40:30that would then cover us.
00:40:31We'll be good
00:40:32within one minute
00:40:33of the webinar opening
00:40:35at capacity, 3,000.
00:40:37So we were on this call
00:40:39for probably about an hour.
00:40:43And I always say,
00:40:43blessed be a Black woman
00:40:45that has a connection.
00:40:46And there was an amazing sister.
00:40:50I won't say her name
00:40:51because she often doesn't like
00:40:52her name to be said out loud.
00:40:55She likes to be behind the scenes.
00:40:57But she knew the executives
00:40:59over at Zoom.
00:41:01She picks up the phone,
00:41:02she calls the executives at Zoom.
00:41:04And in real time,
00:41:05the Zoom executives work with us
00:41:07to have engineers
00:41:09to open up the call.
00:41:11And so the capacity
00:41:12then is increased.
00:41:13And then all of a sudden,
00:41:15I remember Van Jones was texting me
00:41:17and he was like,
00:41:18I'm seeing, I'm hearing
00:41:20that you've got like
00:41:22thousands of women on a call.
00:41:24And then like I was watching it
00:41:25go up in real time.
00:41:26I was like, yeah,
00:41:27they're like 19,000.
00:41:29And then it was like
00:41:29two minutes later was like,
00:41:31actually they're 25,000.
00:41:33No, there's 30,000.
00:41:34And it just kept going up, up, up, up and up.
00:41:37And so we hit,
00:41:38I think at one point
00:41:39it might've been 45,000,
00:41:40but it was the number
00:41:41that we went with was 44,000.
00:41:43But outside of that,
00:41:44there were 30,000 women
00:41:47in a clubhouse room,
00:41:49another 10,000 on a conference call line
00:41:51just listening.
00:41:52So if you could imagine
00:41:54Black women and not just Black women,
00:41:56because we had other people
00:41:58listening in, watching.
00:42:00People started streaming to YouTube.
00:42:02It was on Twitch.
00:42:03We were in clubhouse.
00:42:05We were, people were opening up
00:42:07Zoom lines to
00:42:10push to other Zoom lines.
00:42:13So we can count
00:42:15an additional 50,000
00:42:17that we are very confident
00:42:18that we could go back and say,
00:42:19no, no, no, here's the record.
00:42:20You can see.
00:42:22Plus the 44,000.
00:42:23About 94,000.
00:42:25Yes.
00:42:25So that's how many we can count.
00:42:29I dare say there was probably
00:42:30another 30 to 40,000
00:42:32in places that we'll never know
00:42:35because we are finding out like,
00:42:37no, they were like,
00:42:38somebody was on Twitch.
00:42:39And so, and for me,
00:42:40having worked in Silicon Valley
00:42:42in tech to see
00:42:44all the use of technology
00:42:46and to see both the creativity
00:42:48and the resilience of Black women
00:42:50to figure out how they were
00:42:51going to be together in this moment.
00:42:53That was so powerful.
00:42:54I was actually chatting with
00:42:55Shannon Nash, who you know
00:42:57as the CFO of The Wing,
00:42:58Alphabet subsidiary.
00:42:59And she said,
00:43:00I go to these Sundays calls
00:43:01all the time.
00:43:02I couldn't get in.
00:43:02Someone had to put it on speakerphone
00:43:04so I could listen until I was
00:43:05finally later in the night
00:43:06able to get into the call.
00:43:07Yeah, yeah.
00:43:08And I think that was the part
00:43:10that was so powerful
00:43:12that people figured out
00:43:14how to get on.
00:43:14And so I don't think our Zoom line
00:43:16opened up until about 10 p.m.
00:43:17So, and we hung up
00:43:21and I think there were probably
00:43:23maybe 20,000 people.
00:43:25You hung up at what time?
00:43:27A little after 1 a.m.
00:43:28Hey, what was the discussion?
00:43:29What were people saying?
00:43:30What was the energy on that Zoom call?
00:43:32It's hard to describe.
00:43:33It was an energy of jubilation.
00:43:37It was appreciation
00:43:41for those that came before us,
00:43:42recognizing that this moment
00:43:46didn't start four years ago.
00:43:47The moment didn't happen
00:43:49just in that 24 hours.
00:43:51This has been a moment
00:43:53that has been long before any of us,
00:43:55many of us had been born.
00:43:57And then we had in that moment,
00:44:00we had a Dr. Johnnetta Beshcole
00:44:03and a Hazelynn Dukes, you know,
00:44:05you had those folks with us.
00:44:08So if you could imagine having someone
00:44:1087 years old, 92 years old,
00:44:15right there with women
00:44:16who were watching with their children,
00:44:19who were all together
00:44:22in this moment of joy
00:44:25knowing the history of Shirley Chisholm,
00:44:28knowing the history of those
00:44:30that even came before Shirley Chisholm
00:44:32that didn't even have the opportunity
00:44:33to put their name on a ballot
00:44:35and to be in this moment
00:44:38that we could very well see
00:44:41the rise of the first Black woman
00:44:45president in the United States.
00:44:46And so you can't describe
00:44:48the joy that we felt,
00:44:50but there was also
00:44:52a sense of knowing
00:44:53that we have to work.
00:44:55What was that conversation?
00:44:56It was a real conversation.
00:44:57So when you have someone like a,
00:44:59you know, political strategist
00:45:00like a Donna Brazile
00:45:01or Bishop Lea Daughtry,
00:45:03or you have Angela Rye,
00:45:05who, you know, those women
00:45:08reminding us of, you know,
00:45:10this isn't going to be handed to us.
00:45:12And I think the vice president
00:45:13in her words,
00:45:14nothing has ever been handed
00:45:15to any Black woman.
00:45:17We've always had to work twice as hard
00:45:20just to get in the door sometimes.
00:45:22Yeah.
00:45:23Were you talking strategy
00:45:24in that conversation
00:45:25that that that fateful Sunday?
00:45:27Yeah, there was some strategy.
00:45:29We said we need to raise money.
00:45:30And Star Jones, who has always been
00:45:34four years ago is still today
00:45:36at the helm of fundraising
00:45:37for Women with Black Women.
00:45:39If you could imagine
00:45:40everything happening in real time,
00:45:41like Zoom being open up in real time,
00:45:44trying to get a fundraising link
00:45:47in real time.
00:45:47So it wasn't until about 11, 20 p.m.
00:45:51that we got the fundraising link.
00:45:53We dropped the fundraising link.
00:45:54And by 1 a.m., we had raised $1.6 million.
00:45:58And we've gone on now to raise even more.
00:46:01I think we've raised now
00:46:02over two and a half million
00:46:04towards our goal of $4.7 million.
00:46:07So $4.7 million for 47.
00:46:10And so that was an important part
00:46:12of, again, showing that
00:46:14we're not just going to be happy
00:46:17and we're just going to be jubilant,
00:46:19but we're going to do the work.
00:46:21We're going to raise the money.
00:46:22We're going to turn out the voters.
00:46:24We're going to take ourselves to the polls.
00:46:26We're going to educate the public.
00:46:27We're going to speak out
00:46:28against sexism and racism.
00:46:30And we're going to do it
00:46:31in a way that is strategic.
00:46:32We're going to do it in a way
00:46:33that is very direct.
00:46:35And we're going to do it
00:46:35in a way that is impactful
00:46:37with our unified goal in mind.
00:46:39And has that strategy
00:46:41been tweaked at this point?
00:46:42Has the mission changed at all?
00:46:44No.
00:46:46Women with Black Women
00:46:47has always been about three things.
00:46:50Speaking out against racism and sexism,
00:46:53against Black women wherever it exists,
00:46:56whether it is in politics.
00:46:58We started there.
00:47:00But it is in business.
00:47:02It is in entertainment.
00:47:04It is in sports.
00:47:05And every time we have saw that,
00:47:07we've sought to speak out against that.
00:47:11Number two,
00:47:11working in our personal capacities
00:47:13because a lot of the women
00:47:14in Women with Black Women,
00:47:16you know, again,
00:47:19they are some of the most powerful women
00:47:22in America.
00:47:24And by power, I mean,
00:47:26it's not just positional power.
00:47:28Some of them have very,
00:47:31you know, very prestigious titles.
00:47:34Some of them have no titles.
00:47:36And they also carry a lot of power as well.
00:47:39And so when I talk about the power
00:47:41of the collective,
00:47:43some of these women,
00:47:43you know their names.
00:47:44They're in books or they're authors
00:47:46or they lead some of the largest
00:47:48companies or organizations in this country.
00:47:52Others, they don't.
00:47:54But they yield just as much power
00:47:56and influence in their community
00:47:57because we think a Black woman
00:47:59on the city council
00:48:00is equally as important
00:48:01as a Black woman in the White House
00:48:03or a Black woman in the United States Senate.
00:48:05And so we do that.
00:48:06And the third is seeking to elevate
00:48:09both the power
00:48:11and the collective energy
00:48:14of Black women and our images,
00:48:16the positive images of Black women
00:48:19and the leadership of Black women
00:48:20and particularly that
00:48:22of Black women-led organizations.
00:48:24And so every Sunday call
00:48:27that we have had,
00:48:29we state that at the top
00:48:30so that everyone who is a part of women,
00:48:32Black women,
00:48:33and we're very open.
00:48:34We say as long as you share our values
00:48:37and our goals,
00:48:38all is welcome.
00:48:40Because we're not a monolith.
00:48:41We all are very different.
00:48:42We're in different places
00:48:43and different spaces.
00:48:45But what do we have in common
00:48:47is our collective goal
00:48:50to ensure that the lives
00:48:52of not only ourselves,
00:48:55those that we care about,
00:48:56but our greater community
00:48:58has impact.
00:49:00You know, when with Black women,
00:49:01we often say that it is a love letter
00:49:04from ourselves to ourselves.
00:49:07And it is the hard work
00:49:09that many of us love
00:49:11and often seek refuge in.
00:49:13You raised about $1.5 million,
00:49:15$1.6 million in a matter of hours.
00:49:18How much did you think
00:49:19you were going to raise?
00:49:20And what does that tell you
00:49:22about the economic prowess
00:49:24and the financial capital
00:49:25of Black women?
00:49:26Well, the goal was to raise,
00:49:29I believe,
00:49:30I have to go back,
00:49:31but Stardust said like,
00:49:32oh, we're going to raise
00:49:35a million dollars
00:49:37over the next 10 days,
00:49:39I believe it was.
00:49:40And we shattered that goal.
00:49:42And it was so interesting
00:49:44because that night
00:49:45all the women on the call was like,
00:49:46no, no, no, we're going to do this now.
00:49:47We're not going to do this over 10 days
00:49:50or we're not going to
00:49:51and we were going to raise
00:49:52a million dollars.
00:49:53And we just started seeing it go up
00:49:55and Stardust was like,
00:49:56I have another report.
00:49:57And when we hit that goal,
00:49:58I think there's this this photo
00:50:00because when with Black women
00:50:02also was very kind of
00:50:03underground slightly.
00:50:04It was one of those,
00:50:05if you knew, you knew.
00:50:06And it certainly isn't anymore.
00:50:07It's not anymore.
00:50:09So but we were we for four years,
00:50:11we never had a leak.
00:50:12We had one leak.
00:50:14That was a time that we had
00:50:15the Duchess of Sussex on.
00:50:17So one leaked a photo
00:50:18of her on a call with us.
00:50:20And so for the most part,
00:50:22we've had all of the work
00:50:23that we've done,
00:50:24all of the things we've done.
00:50:26We've done it.
00:50:27No one's known about it.
00:50:28There have been times
00:50:29that we will put out a press release
00:50:30about our collective
00:50:32when we're trying to push around
00:50:34an author, a movie,
00:50:37a nominee in the administration
00:50:38or an issue.
00:50:39But for the most part,
00:50:40we've been very much underground.
00:50:43And and if you knew, you knew.
00:50:46And so we didn't we
00:50:48knew we could raise money
00:50:49in the 2002 cycle,
00:50:51I mean, 2020 cycle.
00:50:53Then we raise a probably
00:50:55about six hundred thousand
00:50:56collectively.
00:50:57And then in the midterms,
00:50:59we did a lot of work
00:51:00to amplify working
00:51:02with a hashtag.
00:51:04G.A. was a campaign
00:51:08that a social campaign
00:51:09that we ran in California.
00:51:12We did advocacy
00:51:13around keeping the seat.
00:51:14You might have seen
00:51:14hashtag keep the seat.
00:51:15That was us working
00:51:17and following the leadership
00:51:18of the women and women
00:51:19with black women in California.
00:51:20But we we knew we could raise money.
00:51:22But when we saw that number,
00:51:25I think what it showed,
00:51:27what we've always known
00:51:28is that black women does have
00:51:29we have economic power.
00:51:31There is a power,
00:51:32the purse black women,
00:51:33about 80, 81 percent
00:51:35ahead of household, 70 percent.
00:51:38I just learned the statistics
00:51:39around 70 percent
00:51:41of of of our households
00:51:44are single black women.
00:51:45And we do know
00:51:47we have these equity gaps still.
00:51:50You know, black women earn,
00:51:51you know, around 60,
00:51:5363 percent on the dollar
00:51:55than that of a white man.
00:51:57But yet we still choose
00:51:59with our resources that we have.
00:52:01Black women will always be
00:52:02intentional about using
00:52:04our resources for something
00:52:05that is greater than us.
00:52:08So you'll often see black women
00:52:10who still earn less
00:52:12than we are supposed to.
00:52:14There's still these gaps,
00:52:16but you'll see them choose
00:52:18to donate to their community
00:52:21or to pour into the next child.
00:52:23I certainly would not be here today
00:52:26if it was not for black women
00:52:28in my small town of Johnsonville,
00:52:29South Carolina, my church
00:52:31that gave what little they had
00:52:33to send me to a conference
00:52:35that cost three thousand dollars
00:52:36that my parents did not
00:52:38have to send me.
00:52:40And they raised the money
00:52:41they gave to me.
00:52:43I go to this conference.
00:52:44I meet people who would then
00:52:45offer me an internship
00:52:46right out of high school
00:52:48that would set my career
00:52:51on the path that it is today.
00:52:52And I think that if you look
00:52:54at community, at the community,
00:52:55at the community,
00:52:56there are all these black women,
00:52:59largely black women
00:53:00who don't lead organizations,
00:53:02who are just in their churches
00:53:03of their communities.
00:53:04That are pushing
00:53:06that little black girl,
00:53:07that's pushing that young black man,
00:53:10giving them the encouragement.
00:53:11But sometimes I remember
00:53:13I would go off to a conference
00:53:15or I would go someplace
00:53:17and an older black woman,
00:53:20she'd just hand me
00:53:22a little something in my hand
00:53:24and it'll just be three dollars,
00:53:27five dollars.
00:53:28And that just also speaks
00:53:30to not just the economic
00:53:32ability of black women,
00:53:34but the decisioning
00:53:35that black women often make
00:53:38when choosing to invest.
00:53:40And I think that's what we're seeing
00:53:42in this moment now.
00:53:44It is a choice
00:53:45because it is a choice about
00:53:47being supportive of something
00:53:49that is larger than you,
00:53:50but it is also about
00:53:52being supportive of something
00:53:53that is going to benefit
00:53:54your community in a way
00:53:56that is long beyond your life
00:53:58on this earth or your life.
00:54:01And that is the beauty
00:54:03of what Oprah Winfrey
00:54:05once shared with me
00:54:07that Maya Angelou passed on to her
00:54:10of what the true meaning of legacy is.
00:54:13And she shared that Dr. Angelou said,
00:54:17your legacy is not just one person
00:54:21or one thing.
00:54:22Your legacy is every life you touch.
00:54:27And I think when you think about
00:54:28the decisioning of black women
00:54:30where they choose to spend their dollars,
00:54:31they're often thinking
00:54:32about their legacy
00:54:33and the lives that they touch
00:54:35in a very meaningful way
00:54:37to create something that is much bigger
00:54:38and that will live longer than them.
00:54:40Yeah.
00:54:41What's also quite unique about this
00:54:42is just the platform.
00:54:43Obviously, we were all on Zoom for work
00:54:45during the pandemic,
00:54:46and it's now become a mainstay
00:54:48part of our lives.
00:54:48It's long existed.
00:54:50But you've, in some ways,
00:54:51pioneered a new way
00:54:52of what I call teleconference
00:54:54fundraising, if you will.
00:54:56There are now all these spinoffs,
00:54:57white women for Kamala,
00:54:58white dudes for Kamala,
00:55:00tech for Kamala.
00:55:01What does that say about this movement?
00:55:03I mean, it's quite a unique strategy.
00:55:04I think it's the new wave
00:55:06in terms of the combination of tech.
00:55:09And as I shared,
00:55:11sort of when I think about
00:55:12just even like the places
00:55:13that I've been blessed to be into
00:55:15in my career,
00:55:18to see the marrying of politics and tech
00:55:21in a way that is galvanizing
00:55:26the world
00:55:27has just been beautiful to witness.
00:55:29And I think that we are going to see
00:55:32more use of innovative technology.
00:55:35It allows us to have people together
00:55:38in community
00:55:39who otherwise would not be together.
00:55:41I think there's this narrative
00:55:43that we're segregated
00:55:44or that why are we siphoning off?
00:55:47No, we're not.
00:55:49Yes, there is some identity politics,
00:55:51which I think is important
00:55:53for people to organize
00:55:55with people that they identify with.
00:55:56But we're also in unity.
00:55:58We're in unity around a collective goal.
00:56:00We're in unity around a message.
00:56:01We talk to each other on a regular basis.
00:56:03But you also look at
00:56:04like what's been happening with,
00:56:06you know, cat ladies that are organized.
00:56:09And there are diverse set of cat ladies,
00:56:12women that are without children,
00:56:14that are galvanizing together,
00:56:16realtors, doctors.
00:56:18We're seeing all of these communities
00:56:21be inspired by this vice president,
00:56:24by her record,
00:56:25by what she stands for.
00:56:27But now we have the tools to do so in a way
00:56:30that allows us to very quickly fundraise,
00:56:32that allows us to talk to each other,
00:56:34that allows us to see each other,
00:56:36and most importantly,
00:56:37to amplify the work that we're doing.
00:56:39So all of it works together.
00:56:40So our ability, you know,
00:56:42had there not been,
00:56:43unfortunately, a pandemic,
00:56:46women, Black women
00:56:47would not be what it is today
00:56:50because it was people who were isolated
00:56:53and frustrated by what we were seeing.
00:56:55But there was a technology ability
00:56:58for us to gather.
00:57:00And of course, you have to do the work,
00:57:02and we have been doing the work.
00:57:04And then you fast forward four years later,
00:57:06and now we're seeing that technology,
00:57:08those technology platforms even more stronger,
00:57:13where you could see
00:57:14upward to 200,000 people on a Zoom call,
00:57:17where you can live stream,
00:57:19where people can gather and organize
00:57:22in a way that they feel,
00:57:25and they are very much a part of the process.
00:57:28And then you can amplify that,
00:57:31whether or not it's on Instagram
00:57:33or TikTok or X
00:57:36or even some of the other platforms
00:57:38like Discord and others.
00:57:39And so people are getting more involved,
00:57:42I think, that had maybe normally
00:57:44not been involved in the political process,
00:57:47now have a venue and an avenue to get involved.
00:57:51And they figure out which aspect
00:57:54and how they wanna fit in.
00:57:55And the most important thing
00:57:57is that there's a space and place for them.
00:57:58Yeah.
00:57:59Hindsight's obviously 2020,
00:58:01but as you reflect to when you first launched
00:58:03this organization four years ago,
00:58:06did you think this is where you were going to be
00:58:08four years later?
00:58:09Did you ever have doubts along the way?
00:58:12Do you feel vindicated?
00:58:13I'm a person of faith.
00:58:15And I always believe that our steps
00:58:19are always divinely ordered.
00:58:21And in this moment,
00:58:24of course, hindsight,
00:58:25everything happened for a reason.
00:58:28We couldn't have scripted this out,
00:58:30everything that happened.
00:58:31And some of our friends
00:58:33in the entertainment industry said,
00:58:35I could have never even written this.
00:58:38But the thing that is most important
00:58:39is that we have been doing the work.
00:58:41Most Sundays, I can tell you,
00:58:43it's hard sometimes on a Sunday
00:58:45when you pull away from dinner with your friends
00:58:48to do a call.
00:58:49I was just in Martha's Vineyard
00:58:52for a series of events and work.
00:58:56And I was having a very good time
00:58:58on a Sunday evening,
00:58:59but these calls are so important.
00:59:01So I literally found myself in a bathroom,
00:59:04someone's very nice bathroom set up
00:59:06in their very nice luxury bathroom in their house.
00:59:10I took the call.
00:59:12And so there have been times on a Sunday
00:59:15where all of us, not just me,
00:59:18choose to get on these calls.
00:59:20And now, four years later,
00:59:23it's paid off in ways that,
00:59:26you know, I don't have children,
00:59:28but I have little kids that I love,
00:59:31that those kids and those kids' kids
00:59:33and their kids hopefully will benefit
00:59:36and reap from the work that was done
00:59:41not only in the last four years
00:59:42of women with Black women,
00:59:43but years and years before
00:59:45by Black women who paved the way
00:59:48for there to be a win with Black women.
00:59:50Yeah.
00:59:50Has the conversation changed now?
00:59:53In terms of our calls?
00:59:54Correct.
00:59:55The focus, the topics?
00:59:57Well, the focus right now
00:59:58is very much on the election,
01:00:00but we still are doing the work that we,
01:00:02we're still championing Black women
01:00:04who are running for local office.
01:00:06We're gonna still champion Black women authors,
01:00:10Black women in entertainment
01:00:12who have special projects.
01:00:15That work doesn't stop
01:00:16because that doesn't stop.
01:00:18And so one thing about Black women,
01:00:20we can do two things at one time
01:00:23and we'll continue to do that.
01:00:24The focus right now is this election.
01:00:26That's, that's what's before us.
01:00:28But now we just have a greater platform.
01:00:31You know, they're now over 100,000,
01:00:33we went from 6,000 to over 100,000 women.
01:00:36I think they're over 60,000
01:00:38in a very active private Facebook group,
01:00:42nearing 100,000 on our Instagram page
01:00:46of people who are coming to get information
01:00:49and other platforms
01:00:50where now we can continue to share information.
01:00:53We could continue to make sure
01:00:54that all of these women
01:00:58are informed about Black women-led organizations.
01:01:01And most importantly,
01:01:02in the next two months
01:01:04are able to take action to,
01:01:06to get facts so that they can exercise
01:01:09and be a part of the historic nature
01:01:11of democracy in this election.
01:01:13And then afterwards,
01:01:14doing the work to uplift the policies,
01:01:17whether it's the economic policies
01:01:19that we care about,
01:01:20supporting Black women in tech
01:01:22and by sharing opportunities
01:01:25to invest in their businesses
01:01:26or to amplify their businesses.
01:01:29That's the beauty of Women with Black Women.
01:01:31It's all about supporting Black women
01:01:34in every sphere.
01:01:37Because every sphere of American society
01:01:40where Black women exist and lead,
01:01:42which is everywhere,
01:01:43is a part of this network.
01:01:45And the most powerful thing we can do
01:01:46is make sure that we're connected,
01:01:48that we see each other,
01:01:49and most importantly,
01:01:50that we support each other.
01:01:51Yeah. Lots of excitement right now,
01:01:54especially among Black people,
01:01:55beyond Black people.
01:01:57How do you keep this momentum going?
01:01:58Is there any fear or trepidation
01:02:00that the excitement, the energy,
01:02:03the vigor might fizzle out?
01:02:05I think there's always the,
01:02:08you know, you always think about,
01:02:09well, what happens, you know,
01:02:10when the honeymoon period is over?
01:02:12But I think in this country,
01:02:14there is such a great desire for joy.
01:02:19People are tired of the defensive nature
01:02:22that, you know,
01:02:24some people try to bring into
01:02:26the political conversation
01:02:28or even into the workplace.
01:02:30When you think about women
01:02:32and, you know,
01:02:34you think about the audience,
01:02:35the Fortune audience,
01:02:37you know, whether or not
01:02:38you're a Black woman or not,
01:02:39I think any woman has been mansplained
01:02:42in a meeting.
01:02:44And we're tired of it.
01:02:45And we want joy.
01:02:47We want inspiration.
01:02:49We want unity in this moment.
01:02:50So I think that
01:02:52there is a sense
01:02:55of appreciation for that.
01:02:57And I think so it's going to stay around.
01:03:00Because I think ultimately,
01:03:03society as a whole,
01:03:04and not just women,
01:03:06but all people,
01:03:08we just want to thrive.
01:03:09We want to be able to
01:03:11support and provide for our families.
01:03:14And we want to do that in freedom.
01:03:17We want to love in freedom.
01:03:19We want to make decisions
01:03:20about our bodies in freedom.
01:03:21We want to learn in freedom.
01:03:23Ultimately, we want to vote in freedom.
01:03:26And we want to live in freedom.
01:03:29And I think that's the place
01:03:30and the space that people
01:03:32are gravitating towards.
01:03:33So I think it's going to be around for a while.
01:03:35Certainly, there's going to be a time
01:03:36when people aren't as amped.
01:03:39But I think in those moments,
01:03:41we got to get back to
01:03:42what we were doing four years ago,
01:03:43just stay in the course,
01:03:46continue to do the work
01:03:48so that we're prepared
01:03:50for when the big moments come.
01:03:51What have you learned
01:03:52through all of this about leadership,
01:03:55about galvanizing a group
01:03:57around a shared vision,
01:03:58getting that buy-in?
01:04:00I think the most important thing for me
01:04:02that I've learned about leadership,
01:04:05it comes from mentors
01:04:08and watching mentors
01:04:10like the great Mignon Moore.
01:04:14Lift as you climb is so important.
01:04:17And I've also learned
01:04:20that leadership is really about,
01:04:23it's not about any one person.
01:04:25It is about how do you ensure
01:04:27that everybody that is in the sphere
01:04:32of whatever it is that you're creating,
01:04:34that they see themselves,
01:04:35that they understand the role
01:04:37that they play,
01:04:38and that they have the tools
01:04:41that they need to play the position
01:04:44that they choose to play.
01:04:46And so leadership for me
01:04:48is really about creating that energy
01:04:52and that space.
01:04:54And it's about the collective.
01:04:56There's always been more power
01:04:58in the collective of leadership
01:04:59than any one person.
01:05:01And as long as we can lead
01:05:03in a way that we lift our boats,
01:05:08that when we enter,
01:05:09that we see everyone.
01:05:10And most importantly,
01:05:11that we're building tables
01:05:13in this country
01:05:14in which everyone has a place
01:05:16at the table.
01:05:17That to me is how we actually
01:05:20can achieve something great.
01:05:21And hopefully when the story is told,
01:05:23that it won't just be the story
01:05:25of what we did in this moment,
01:05:28but how we did it,
01:05:29that we did it in a way
01:05:31that was inclusive,
01:05:32that we did it in a way
01:05:35that led with grace
01:05:36and most importantly, love.
01:05:38That is my goal,
01:05:39and that is my hope.
01:05:40Anything else you think
01:05:41that our readers would want to know
01:05:43that they could learn from this?
01:05:45C-suite executives.
01:05:46Oh yeah, yeah.
01:05:48I think there's a part about,
01:05:50you know, particularly
01:05:52for the Fortune community.
01:05:55I think that very similar
01:05:57to what we have seen
01:05:58with the Fortune community,
01:06:00Fortune's most powerful
01:06:02women community,
01:06:03is that there is a power
01:06:05in our ability to be united.
01:06:08Because there's more that,
01:06:11there's so much more
01:06:13that unite us than divide us.
01:06:16And leaning in on that
01:06:17has been just super important.
01:06:19That's been a great learning.
01:06:21I think that also,
01:06:22it's just been the beauty
01:06:24of this unity moment
01:06:25to, you know,
01:06:26to see the white women,
01:06:29to see the Latino women,
01:06:32to see the white dudes,
01:06:33the black men.
01:06:34I think there's a part
01:06:35of this story is that,
01:06:36yes, black women,
01:06:38we came out of the gate first.
01:06:40We were there.
01:06:40We showed power.
01:06:42We showed our force.
01:06:44And I think it's important
01:06:45to talk about solidarity
01:06:48because I think that translates
01:06:49into the boardroom
01:06:52and into the C-suite.
01:06:53Having been in these C-suites,
01:06:55we're all a team
01:06:57and everyone has a critical role
01:07:00that they play.
01:07:01They have an expertise
01:07:03and not everyone is going
01:07:04to do every job.
01:07:05Not everyone is going to be
01:07:07on the television,
01:07:09sharing the message.
01:07:10Not everyone is going to be
01:07:11writing the strategy.
01:07:13Not everyone is going to be
01:07:15creating the social media memes.
01:07:17Not everyone is going to do
01:07:18the fundraising.
01:07:19Not everyone is going to do
01:07:22fill in the blank role.
01:07:24But together,
01:07:25there's a power.
01:07:27And I think that is what
01:07:28has been a great lesson
01:07:30in all of this is that
01:07:31it has just really been
01:07:32what we've learned best
01:07:33in the C-suites,
01:07:35what we've learned
01:07:35at any leadership academy
01:07:37or just in living life
01:07:39is the power is in our ability
01:07:42to ensure that those
01:07:43that are on any team,
01:07:45whether it's a formal team
01:07:46or it's just a team of people
01:07:47with a common goal,
01:07:48that they have the tools
01:07:49that they need
01:07:51to function at the highest level
01:07:54with their influence
01:07:55and their talent.
01:07:56And when you can see their talent
01:07:58and they can go and flourish
01:07:59and then you can bring
01:08:00that all together,
01:08:01that is an unstoppable force
01:08:03that is something
01:08:05that is powerful.
01:08:08And that to me is power.
01:08:10And it also places Black people,
01:08:12Black women in particular
01:08:13at a table,
01:08:14provides with accessibility
01:08:15that has long been given
01:08:16to majority groups.
01:08:18So absolutely.
01:08:19And I think, you know,
01:08:20we often talk about
01:08:21Shirley Chisholm
01:08:22and we should absolutely
01:08:23talk about Shirley Chisholm.
01:08:24We should say her name
01:08:25in this moment
01:08:27because of the pioneer nature
01:08:28of running for president.
01:08:30And she often would say,
01:08:32well, if you don't have
01:08:34a seat at the table,
01:08:35then bring a folding chair.
01:08:37And in this moment,
01:08:38I've been thinking
01:08:39about Shirley Chisholm.
01:08:40And I said, you know,
01:08:41not only in this moment
01:08:42are we bringing our folding chairs,
01:08:44but I think she would be proud
01:08:46of the fact
01:08:47that in this moment,
01:08:49we are building the table.
01:08:50And as we build this table,
01:08:52contrary to the tables
01:08:53that did not include us,
01:08:54where we had to bring
01:08:55a folding chair,
01:08:57Black women are building a table
01:08:59in which everyone has a seat.