DNC Shorts: LaTosha Brown

As Tivany Cross always says, is Latasha Brown matter.

this story. We're on the other side of you know what MSNBC Digitif and we knew there was no other place we should be, but in Atlanta, next to you, working with you, and I remember like the people that you pour into, pouring back into Tiffany talk about why the work of black voters matter is so critical, especially in a moment like this.

that's moved us forward. It's been spirit. It's been strategy and the spirit, the spirit and the ancestors, the spirit of resistance, the spirit of freedom, the spirit of love, like loving each other when we haven't had anything else, when we didn't have money, when we didn't have land, when we didn't have kind of the politics. What we had is we had this sense of self and the love of each other that would actually take us through.

And so for us with Black Voters Matter, we wanted to create an organization that was unapologetic about being black. Right we ride around in a big bus, a fifty eight foot bus and say we're in the blackest bus in America. We wanted to own and affirm that and not just say that we're participating in the election, because we're really not in election group. We're a power building group. We're real clear that all the work that we're doing is really about how do we build power for black folks.

And when people are talking about voting, yes, voting is one key, you know, and is a very very powerful tool, but it's also a space of when you own your agency. There's something about voting that's really about owning your agency that if a decision is being made about me and mine, I need to be a part of that process, right that that's fundamentally you know. And also we've got to have this space around when people are actually hurting and

harming our communities, there has to be a consequence. So you can't continue to serve in the office and hurt and harm us. We've got to send a message loud and clear like this, this ain't going down like that, right. But also to create space, create space if there's nothing else for harm reduction, to reduce the harm happening to us, to actually work collectively together and really move towards a vision, a collective vision. So that's the work that we do

and that's why we do it. You know, if you want to the three things, I call it three ms. The three things we do is money, it's movement building, and it's message. In the last seven years, we've really been blessed. One of the things that we always would sitting around and were like, how could we invest in black communities. We've invested over forty I think as of now, I think it's over forty one million dollars and black leg grassroot groups in the last six years. In the

last six years to do power building. That's everything from reparations, organizing around reparations, to organizing around police accountability, to actually do an election work to referendums. At the end of the day, how black communities define what power building is for them. We want to be in alignment with them and support them around that. In addition that we also know that the message matters. That's why I'm so happy you all are doing this podcast. We need black media,

We need places like this. I want if I had all the money in the world right when I hear the lottery, I promise y'all that my first investment is going to be this podcast right here, right because the world needs to hear your voices. I have clarity, and I'm just really really grateful to be in relationship with you.

election cycle. So often donors and media and others like to put organizing in the black community and the bucket of election turnout and what's happening with the black vote and the da da da da da, And you're saying, no, no, no, that's not the box that we're We're not in an any box. And what I have to say, as a person who had run for office and have gone to the communities where we have felt really disempowered, really not

invested in, really not seen. It's groups and efforts like yours who were there before the election after the election, putting pieces back together and renewing in people a belief a system that they're not some commodity to be traded on that right, but rather we're an investment to be made. We are a community that gives, we feel, we love, we breathe, we have disappointments, we have ups, we have downs.

And what you're doing is you're helping. You're helping to give that greater credibility, and hopefully what it will do is recruit greater investment in our community that is there

outside of anybody's election cycle. Because if we do that work and people start to believe that that's how change gets created, that this is an element of the change that we're trying to see, then I have to believe that we won't need the investment of these short term voter registration turn out projects why because the work will

be there three sixty five. And I'm just curious, before we go to our other bad age over here, is that how are you experiencing the donor class as it relates to investing in that kind of move.

has organized us for multiple decades. That part of the challenge we had sometimes when there was an election or there wasn't There was an election happening, but if the candidate did not invest in the campaign or a party, there were no resources, but it mattered, It mattered who was kount of commissioner, it mattered who the sheriff was, but there were no resources available if the party or candidate wasn't put it in there. And we were like, our power should not be tied into whether a candidate

believes that that is important enough. We've got to find a way that the candidate that we're running for, the candidate that we're doing our work for, the candidate that is ongoing is black power. We wanted to be very intentional about being black. That's what our colors are our colors ain't red, white and blue. I know that this is pretty around, is pretty right, but our colors are red, black, and green.

own power just that point black period. If black people believe in our own power, what we have shown is we will change this nation. We have everything that we have stood in the space of our power, even whether whether we had the majority of numbers or not, we

have created change. And so that's what we wanted to literally build off the rich history of that, the real history of struggle, a spirit, a strategy, and putting those things together really to advance not just black liberation for us, because I actually fundamentally to believe that all people will actually benefit from black liberation if you lift up those communities that are on the fringes, those communities that have been marginalized. Then it has always made life better for

all of us. When black folks fight for housing white acount of parts. Everybody benefits from housing. So that's what I mentioned, is that's our dream. And we're just really grateful to be in service of the ancestors. We are grateful to be in service of our people. We are grateful to go around and say in this space right now, baby be clear, we'll be bowl beautiful and.