In my ForbesWomen article ‘We Have Power Together’: Three Social Change Leaders On Solidarity And What We Can Learn From History As We Build A More Equitable Future, I featured excerpts from my interview with LaTosha Brown, cofounder of Black Voters Matter, Monica Riley, executive director of The Alabama Alliance, and Pamela Shifman, president of Democracy Alliance—three pro-democracy movement leaders who convened in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
Below I share our full conversation as they offer more insights on the importance of reflecting on the historic figures and events that have advanced rights and freedoms in the U.S., the power of women coming together across race, age, class and geography in this moment, their calls to action for building a more equitable future and much more.
Marianne Schnall: To begin, how did you first get to know each other and start working together?
Monica Riley: I can take the lead on that question, because I'm newer to the trio. I run the Donor Alliance, which is the in-state network of donors. I'm also a native Alabamian, and I'm from a small town as well. So I've known of LaTosha Brown for as long as I can remember because I have an organizing background. When I came to the Donor Alliance and really started my work in philanthropy, which was about two years ago, we ended up getting connected through several different avenues. So I've worked very closely with Black Voters Matter and their staff for years. LaTosha doesn't know this, but the first time I actually officially met her was about five or six years ago at a church in Troy, Alabama. I got a chance to watch her live and in person, and it just inspired me so much. And we reconnected in this role in a more official capacity at the beginning, midway of last year, to really work on building out a sustainable network of organizations in Alabama and to truly figure out how to fund the work that we need long term.
Which brings me to, of course, the great Pamela Shifman in the Democracy Alliance. When they started planning this convening that was coming up, LaTosha, being the wonderful person that she is, brought me into the group to ensure that the Donor Alliance is able to really partner with all parties inside on, how do we build out a convening that is exciting, but that also tells the true story of Alabama and the work that's needed here?
Pamela Shifman: Thank you, Monica. I'm happy to go next and then I'll pass it to LaTosha. I first met LaTosha because she started the Southern Black Girls and Women Consortium. And LaTosha has been an incredible leader, advocate and champion for the rights of girls and Black girls and girls of color. So it has been an incredible experience. I was able to partner with her in my previous role to get that initiative off the ground. We share a belief that investing in girls is key to creating the world that we want, and that if girls are not safe and free, nobody will be safe and free. So I am so lucky that I got to partner with LaTosha to help bring her vision and her dream into being, and she can talk more about that, but I was very excited. So that was our first meeting. And we have been working together for many, many years since, and I was so excited when LaTosha told me about Monica when we were going to be planning this trip together, and she said, “We're going to Alabama, we absolutely have to partner with Monica Riley and the Alabama Alliance to pull this trip off together.” And, as usual, LaTosha was right, because she's always right. And it's been an incredible partnership.
LaTosha Brown: Let me say this: before I met these women in their professional capacity, I met their spirits. And so I remember the very first time I met Pamela. It was in her previous role, she was running a foundation, but her energy and her interest was very different for her to be the president of this major foundation at the time, that was really a game changer. And the work that she did, I would just watch how she would move and how her program officers and just the functionality and the impact. I was so impressed by her professional work. But then personally, when you meet Pamela, how can you not love Pamela when you meet Pamela? She’s just incredibly generous of spirit. She's actually kind of funny and can be the queen of sarcasm, just like fantastically. But more than anything, it was her heart. She just has this amazing heart for people, an amazing heart to help—one of the most brilliant empathetic people that I've ever met in my life. So I'm very grateful we get to work together, but I'm really grateful to be able to call her friend and to walk on the planet at the same time.
And then Monica, your reputation proceeded you as well. There was this young woman, there was this group, there's about three or four young Black women in Alabama that are just doing the thing. So I kept getting these calls around, there’s just this amazing group of women, this generation of women, who were running legal organizations and running the specific organizations and educational organizations, becoming judges and just coming into being. And I was so excited. So I found out about Monica in that way. And then when I got to meet her, she just lights up a room if you, she goes in the room and she lights up the room. So, while I’m a big fan and supportive of her work professionally, I also met her spirit first, I met her humility. You have to walk this line, particularly being a female leader, of having humility, but really having the gravitas to say, “No, I know what I know.” And balancing that humility and confidence in such a way that people are accepting and willing to work with you, but they know that they better work with you as well. So that's what Monica has for me.
“It was a reminder that what we're experiencing today in the United States, we have always experienced in this country. We have two Americas: one that is grounded in white supremacy and in violent domination, and another which is grounded in what is possible, which is a multiracial democracy in which everyone can thrive.” –Pamela Shifman
Schnall: That was all really beautiful. I felt that all in my heart—I love that. So we talked about placing us, but why was it important for you all to meet in Selma in March?
Brown: [singing] “Well, the first thing I did right was the day I started to fight, keep your eyes on the prize and hold on, hold on.” That is a snippet of a song called A Freedom Song that 60 years ago, before any of us were born, there were people who believed in the humanity of themselves and others, and stood on that bridge and did something. They changed the course of history in this nation. Matter of fact, I know that people refer to the founders as the framers of America, and they were, but I would say that 60 years ago these people, and others, were the founders of what we know as modern-day American democracy.
So part of the reason I thought it was so important is that we have to remember so we won't forget, because the future has a past. As we are embarking upon these spaces of strengthening, protecting and expanding this democracy, it is really important that we are reflective of how we got here. It's important that we're reflective of what brought us to this moment, the good and the bad. What are the lessons that we can learn from this moment? I think it was important this year in particular as we know the country is highly polarized right now. It's extremely intense and things are shifting rapidly and there's a lot of anxiety and fear and concern and care around it. So we thought it was really important for people in this moment to listen, to reflect and reaffirm ourselves to democracy.
Shifman: This was the first trip of its kind for the Democracy Alliance. We had never done anything like this before, and it was so clear to us that in this moment of really grave threats to our democracy, as LaTosha just referred to, we knew that we needed to reconnect with some of the boldest democracy champions our country has ever known. And so, for a pro-democracy community, there literally could not be any more important place to be than to be part of the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, because we really, really needed to reground in the courage and the boldness of racial justice and civil rights movement leaders, past and present.
So for us it was about four things. One was about grounding in the courage of the folks who got us here. Second, it was about learning how to support the modern-day brilliant racial justice leaders of our time, including Monica Riley and LaTosha Brown. The work these folks are doing is incredibly important right now. It's not just historical work, it's work that's happening right now. So we wanted to bring our community here to learn about that and to be inspired by the work that is happening right now. We also wanted our Democracy Alliance community to reconnect with each other and to build community. This administration is working overtime to divide people and make us feel separate from each other. So a very intentional part of our strategy to build democracy is to build community. Our goal was to build community within the Democracy Alliance and with our partners that we are meeting across Alabama. And finally, it is a moment for our Democracy Alliance partners to reconnect with their highest and best and what they could do in this moment. When we look back at this time in history, it is really clear that we will look back and say, “What did we do in this moment of grave threat?” We really wanted our community to get in touch with what that was for them.
“In the battle for the heart and soul of democracy, we just can't afford to not learn those lessons from the past, but also not to keep repeating the same thing and allowing division to constantly keep us from building community and building power amongst each other.” –Monica Riley
Schnall: What did you take away from your time in Selma? What would you want other people to know and what is needed now?
Riley: I would say the biggest takeaway truly was the power of community building, the power of intentionality. We had a lot of people that this was their first time ever coming to Alabama, so they didn't know what to expect. But during the time they were there, we truly built community that was centered around us being together, breaking bread, sharing stories with each other, but also learning the fuller, more honest history of Alabama’s fight for freedom.
One of the biggest takeaways that I would want everybody to take away from this is that, when you think about liberation, that's not done in silos. Liberation is for all and it's for everyone. MLK said, “The most climactic battles have always been fought on Alabama soil.” So we can't think about how do we build, how do we win, how do we protect without thinking about how to protect the most marginalized and honoring and remembering the place where all of those battles have been historically fought. So I think taking away those very key points is critical.
Shifman: I'd say there were a couple of big takeaways. One is that our community was so moved by the vision and leadership of our incredible co-hosts, the Alabama Alliance and Black Voters Matter. I think we all left with a sense of possibility by the work that is happening right now in the South. It is not from the past, it is right now, and it is brilliant—it is incredible organizing that these folks are doing.
The second one is about the need for moral courage at this moment. It is very, very profound. I think we learned what people went through 60 years ago to be able to access the sacred right to vote, the violence they experienced, the perseverance they had to have in order to walk that bridge. And it was a reminder that what we're experiencing today in the United States, we have always experienced in this country. We have two Americas: one that is grounded in white supremacy and in violent domination, and another which is grounded in what is possible, which is a multiracial democracy in which everyone can thrive. That has always been a battle that we are in in this country. So it was a reminder of the boldness and the courage it takes to build the country and the democracy that we are trying to build. And it was a reminder about the sacrifice that people made, literally sacrificing people's lives for democracy and for the right to vote, and the shoulders we stand on, and how important it is for us to carry on that work. So I think those were some of the things we took away.
Brown: My quick takeaway is real simple: love trumps hate. It's really that simple. I remember being on the bridge walking, and I was leading Freedom songs and I saw wealthy people walking next to folks who may not have had any resources. I saw the disabled, I saw communities of color. I saw women. I saw young people. I saw Catholics, I saw Muslims. I'm looking at the make of the march, and I'm like, “You can't beat this. This is what humanity looks like.” So ultimately what I left with was a sense of the power of love; when we lean into the love of humanity, what's possible.
Schnall: This is all so beautiful and so inspiring. In talking about love and healing divides and community, how are women coming together across race, age, class and geography in this moment?
Brown: In ways like this. Women are coming together not by osmosis. Women are coming together because women organizers are bringing them together. I raise that because Pamela Shifman has been such an amazing leader in that space; I think she is the top in the nation in terms of how I've seen her move with Democracy Alliance around bringing women together, bringing organizers and activists and donors together. She's been instrumental in bringing funders together to think more deeply about the work they're doing. She's done work around getting some of the leading donors in this nation to come together in a safe space to be able to share their fears, their concerns, their challenges. She’s got so much “street cred,” she can go anywhere she wants in this nation and pull organizers together. And I'm saying that because oftentimes I think it is important for us to recognize and acknowledge that there's this phenomena happening, but I think part of what has happened is women are fed up; women have decided that they are going to use their time, their talents and their treasure to actually leverage. So I just really wanted to lift up that part of the reason why we're in this conversation right now is because Pamela organized us.
Riley: I don't want us to not realize the power in bringing people in with you. And that's what both of these women very intentionally do with women. I'm a part of a cohort right now at Harvard because LaTosha intentionally and always figures out ways to pull Black women in together to help us build community, to help us have resources for whatever our hopes and dreams are. And the same with Pamela as well. They are consistently and always being very intentional about organizing women, about ensuring that we have a safe space to talk, but also ensuring that we can actually strategize, which is key to all of this. How do we confront and talk about these pressing issues that we're all experiencing? So just like with this interview, Pamela pulled us all together. And LaTosha is always making sure that other Black women are in the room and have opportunities to get to the table. That's just what I'm seeing across the board right now with women: convening and doing what we do best, which is building community.
Shifman: I totally second that. I want to just add something, which is that our opposition is very intentional about trying to divide us. They are very intentional about a strategy to say women cannot be united, that we actually don't have common cause. So if you look right now at the Trump administration, almost everything they have issued in all of their executive orders, it's all under the guise of “defending women.” That's what they say they're doing all the time. And so the way they “defend women” is they go after trans women, they go after immigrant women. Their whole agenda is to divide us and make us feel separate and to make us feel like rights are like pie, like if somebody has rights, then I can't have rights, then there's not enough rights to go around. Actually, no. We can all have them. Our liberation is intertwined. I just believe that in the deepest way, that none of us are free until all of us are free. We say that a lot, but it's just so true. I don't want to live in a world in which other women aren't free. I don't want to live in that world like that. That is not a good world for any of us.
I want us to be very clear about the intentionality that our opposition has to divide us and to make us feel separate. And this is nothing new: the KKK had the strategy of saying we need to protect white women from Black men—that is a strategy to keep us separate. It is deliberate. And it is a strategy for which we have to have the exact opposite strategy. We have to be just as intentional about staying together. Even when it's hard to stay together, we need to stay together. And, honestly, this administration right now gives us such an opportunity to do that, because under their phony guise of defending women, more and more of us see what they are actually doing. They're taking away rape crisis centers. They're proposing cuts to Medicaid, to food benefits. They're rolling back workplace protections. They're making it more difficult to have abortions. We are calling out the truth: this administration is not protecting women, they are harming us.
Brown: There’s one piece Pamela said that gave me a thought, and it was really around this idea that there was this whole lynching movement that happened because men told white women they were doing it under the guise of, “These Black men seek to rape our women, and therefore we have to lynch and rid the world of these men that want to attack and abuse our women.” That whole thing grew legs, you start seeing thousands upon thousands of Black men be lynched over the course of history for this idea of “protecting women's purity.”
However, there was a Black woman named Ida B. Wells, this Black journalist and leader, and there was a white woman named Jessie Daniel Ames, who was so inspired by what she heard around lynching from Ida B. Wells that she created in the early 19th century what was called the Anti-Lynching Society, which was in the deep South. She organized thousands of white women in the twenties that as a result, literally created this movement, so that essentially within four years, lynching had dropped by 800%, something crazy. I'm raising that because this is one example of how when our gender is trying to be weaponized against us, that we take our power back and we use it towards good. That we're not going to allow people to do anything evil in our name or saying that they're protecting us, but that we're going to use our power as human beings, as women, as the sisters, to really push back and create the kind of world we want our children to live in.
Shifman: I'm so glad you told that story, LaTosha. I didn't know about Jessie Ames until LaTosha taught me about her. And I think that's intentional. We don't know our history. We actually have never learned about the history of racial solidarity in this country. And there needs to be much more, but we actually do need to celebrate and to honor those people and know our history, so we know we can do it again. To know that it is also possible for people to come together across race, across class, and be able to be and struggle together. So thank you for teaching me about her, LaTosha. We know the story of men, right? We know the stories of white men who have done this work, but we actually don't know the stories of white women who also have.
Brown: And it even distorts history because it gives a historical perspective as if white women were either a part of supporting the problem or they were absent, and it does not support and lift up, other than a few figures that we can name, that the way that we've gotten to this space is that there have been many women from many different walks of life who have literally said “No,” who've resisted and created something very different and will continue to create. And I think it's really important for us to share that, because when you share what has been done before, then it doesn't make the task feel so daunting.
Shifman: Exactly. And it connects back to the core reason we were in Selma for the 60th anniversary. You have to see what people did. You have to understand the lengths people went through to cross that bridge, to access the right to vote, to actually build democracy, to know what we can do now. That is how we can get inspired and to know what is possible.
“Part of what we have to really recognize in this moment is that when we see the oppression of others, that's simply target practice for ourselves. Ultimately, when people are oppressing others, the same muscle they're building when oppressing somebody else, they're going to be a little bit stronger by the time they get to you.” –LaTosha Brown
Schnall: That is all so important and powerful. What else can we learn from history in terms of what mistakes can we try to avoid? And how do we approach this all with integrity and respect, taking into account lessons from history as well?
Brown: I think part of it is, we can look at instances of thinking about what takes us so long to stand up for what is right and how many people were hurt and damaged in that process? It’s the idea of, I'll go back to the Salem witch trials, how is it that the women who were burned were seen as the bad people, but there's no question that there are people who burn women alive? How did they come out of this unscathed? That's a lesson in learning, in terms of history, what can happen when you don't hold people to account. How did the Holocaust happen? How can you have a moment where you’ve got millions of people that are being put in gas chambers? How do you have a slave trade within the U.S. that you're literally watching families be snatched from each other?
We've kind of normalized those things as history, but at one point in the current moment, there were people who did work to actually help bring that evil system down. And there were people who acquiesced to it, who supported it. So I think that that's a lesson for us in this moment: a hundred years from now, 50 years from now, what is our position going to be? Are we going to be a part of the people who really were pushing to shift and change and have a better world that's more inclusive, that is more prosperous, or are we going to be a part of the people who allow this beautiful, rich planet to be degraded, allow our children to inherit all of these challenging problems? That instead of us building step by step, now we want them to go back and fight wars or battles from our ancestors? Come on.
At some point, I think we have to learn from the past that in this moment, there's the opportunity to act. Secondly is the opportunity to imagine. And third, in the space of what is fear, that is when courage is born. So this is our moment. Game on. I don't think there's anything else for us to think about. Where you are in this moment is reflective of where you would've been at every difficult and transitional moment in American and world history. Wherever your posture is now, this is where you would have been in the Holocaust. This is where you would've been in the Civil Rights Movement. This is where you would've been in the American Revolution. Whatever your position is now, you're either going to help advance humanity or you're going to work against it.
Riley: To kind of piggyback off that, I think one thing to avoid is to realize the size and magnitude of the fight. You can't fight fascism with a lackadaisical attitude or without really realizing that they are serious about what it is they want. They are serious about building the America for them. So we have to be equally serious and committed to building out the future that we want to see.
From the Civil War to the Holocaust to Trump's first term—all of those things are about 75, 76 years apart, and when you think about the fallout and the followup from each of those, we have this pattern of still allowing fascism to exist and taking our foot off the break and getting too comfortable. These are the same patterns that we keep repeating because we're not taking it seriously oftentimes about how we build out a democracy that's for us and making sure that we can uphold that.
So post Civil War, Alabama was left to our own devices. We were still allowed to build out a nightmare for Black and brown people post Holocaust. We had [Nazi] scientists who took root in Huntsville, Alabama, we have buildings named after them, who lived their entire lives there. So these are the same patterns that we keep repeating because we're not taking it seriously oftentimes about what we want to see, how we build out a democracy that's for us, and making sure that we can uphold that.
So it's not the time for taking our foot off the break. It's not the time for discouragement. On our side, oftentimes we take a loss and we get discouraged and we throw our hands up, and the other side gets invigorated. In the battle for the heart and soul of democracy, we just can't afford to not learn those lessons from the past, but also not to keep repeating the same thing and allowing division to constantly keep us from building community and building power amongst each other.
Shifman: I love that. I would just add one thing: in the words of Audre Lorde, “Your silence will not protect you.” That is just so important. I think authoritarianism demands that we not speak up. To feel that we are separate and to not speak up when somebody else is harmed, and to say, “Well, that's them. I'm not an immigrant, I'm not Muslim, I'm not Black, that's them.” But actually the only way is to understand that we are all connected and to speak up and to stay united. Because what we are facing is very strong, and the only way we can fight back is to be united. And we need a very big front to be united. We need it at this time so urgently. We need everyone to speak up.
Brown: And we need people to move beyond seeing this as a political frame. We have to really move away from that. This idea that you're either left or you're right or you're Republican or you're a Democrat, I'm rejecting that right now in this moment. I'm hoping, and I fundamentally believe, that there has to be good people on both extremes. That there are good people who just have different political ideologies, and that's okay. I think having differences in political ideology creates a rich and diverse and beautiful democracy. That's what we need. What we don't need is this idea that there's a particular ideology and anything against that ideology is to be destroyed and to not have their rights or not to have free will. That is insane. That is the antithesis of freedom.
So part of what we have to really recognize in this moment is that when we see the oppression of others, that's simply target practice for ourselves. That, ultimately, when people are oppressing others, the same muscle that they're building when oppressing somebody else, they're going to be a little bit stronger by the time they get to you. So we've got to see that and really understand that in this moment. I don't care where you are on the spectrum. I don't care if you are ultra-conservative. I don't care if you're a liberal. I don't care if you're independent. I don't care if you don't care about politics. What you have to care about is that humanity, that our rights, our freedoms, are protected, so we can have the freedom to not care if we don't want to. But at this point, the consequences are so grave that they go beyond this idea of partisan politics. They go beyond this idea of, “I can't say this if I'm a C3 or a C4 or whatever.” The truth of the matter is, whatever you need to do to be free in this moment, while we still have some space around it, you better fight like hell to utilize that and to lift up and to shape this moment so that we don't lose at least the freedom to be.
“I want women to start thinking beyond being citizens of this nation: I need you to start thinking of yourselves as mothers of the new America that has enough space to be inclusive, it has enough space to be equitable, has enough space that every human being can be treated with some measure of respect.” –LaTosha Brown
Schnall: So much truth. And the stakes are so high. What are the full set of tools women are using or we all need to use? And what would you say to other women at this moment—how can they engage, and what is your call to action?
Riley: I would say the biggest thing is that you do belong. Movement work is so vast, so people sometimes feel like if they can't be an organizer on the ground, that they don't belong. No. There's always a space and there's always a place for you. If you're not an organizer, you can be a giver, you can be a donor, and that's a huge role to play. Organize your friends, organize your money, organize your family. So there is truly a space for all of us in this work, and that's the biggest takeaway. It's oftentimes very difficult to identify if movement work is for you, where it is that you want to be, but there is a place for all of us, and everybody is needed equally in this fight.
Brown: We know the story of the founding of America and we know the story of the founding fathers. And even as I say “the founding fathers,” have you all ever been to a barbecue that was just organized by men? There's usually no sides, there's always something missing. I'm saying that because the very fact that this nation was created just in terms of thinking of the men, that in itself is part of the weakness. So I think in this moment, I want women to start thinking beyond being citizens of this nation: I need you to start thinking of yourselves as mothers of the new America that has enough space to be inclusive, it has enough space to be equitable, has enough space that every human being can be treated with some measure of respect. We've got to be the mothers of that. We see what happens when women are not at the table, so we’ve got to correct that in this moment.
So, one, I want women to be visionaries in this moment. Secondly, I want women to use our voice. It is important for us to stand up and speak out, to talk to our children, our families, our partners, the people in our circle. We've got to really start getting people organized in that way. And nobody can organize folks, in my opinion, like women. And the third thing is, we've got to be really, really focused on supporting our vision by supporting people on the front lines. So whether that's a dollar, whether that's $25, whether that's $25 million. We’ve got money. There are entire industries that are actually just marketing to us [women] because we drive the consumer industry. I'm asking women to take some money and invest in an organization, a women-led organization, a woman leader, a female candidate. We have to pay for our politics. We want power, we've got to leverage that.
And the fourth and the final thing is, I don't care what it looks like, I don't care what it seems like, what we know as mothers, as daughters, as women, as lovers, is that love can always shift the day. Love always makes things taste better. So I'm hoping in this space that we don't allow what is happening to steal our joy or make us believe that we've got to be mean and evil and dominant, but to lead with love and compassion and empathy, and know that ultimately we are going to win.
Shifman: I'll add just a couple things. One is, authoritarianism is designed to make us feel overwhelmed. This barrage of executive orders, new, terrible things that happen every day—the whole point of it is to make us feel overwhelmed and powerless. So I think being very clear that we actually do have power and we have power together. It is so important that we operate from that stance and that posture. There are things we can do, there are steps we can take. We are not powerless in this moment. We are not. So that is one thing.
The other thing that feels really, really important is that we are entering a period of time where women are coming into much more wealth. We're in the largest wealth transfer in human history right now. And what that means is that the majority of wealth is in the hands of men right now. Soon, about two-thirds of that wealth is going to be in the hands of women. So the question is, how will that wealth be deployed? How will that wealth be put to good? How will that wealth be used to support other women in building the new democracy and building the country and building the world that we want? How is that going to happen? It's going to happen with intention, and it's going to happen when small groups of women across race and class come together to strategize and to plan the future that we want to build together.
So I think this is a big moment of opportunity, and we need to seize it. We need to invest boldly in the incredible leadership of women who are doing the hard work of organizing on the ground. And this is particularly Black women who are doing the hard work of organizing on the ground, because what is always clear is that Black women are leading democracy. We would be nowhere in this country without Black women leading democracy. I know that is said all the time, but it's so true. And what we know is that Black women don't get the financial support that they need to be able to do the incredible work of building a democracy that works for all of us. So I would really encourage folks to invest in that power, invest in that organizing, invest in that vision, invest in that brilliance, because it actually benefits all of us.
To find out more about these leaders and organizations, visit Black Voters Matter and Democracy Alliance.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. Portions of this article originally appeared at ForbesWomen.
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Marianne Schnall is a widely-published interviewer and journalist and author of What Will It Take to Make a Woman President?, Leading the Way, and Dare to Be You: Inspirational Advice for Girls. She is also the founder of Feminist.com and What Will It Take Movements and the host of the podcast ShiftMakers.
You can find out more about her work and writings at www.marianneschnall.com.
