“We need to understand black women as the integrating force within the Democratic Party, an institution and a political party that historically was preserved for white men,” Ms. Newsome Bass said. In 2013, Ms. Newsome Bass staged a sit-in at the office of Thom Tillis, then a state representative and now a senator, who was supporting a bill that said student IDs weren’t a valid form of identification for voting. For the past three years, Ms. Newsome Bass has been focused on housing rights. She has also traveled across the country, speaking about organizing and activism to communities trying to organize themselves. Through those efforts, she has worked with down-ballot candidates and helped with the election of a record number of black sheriffs in the state.

Source: New York Times June 14, 2020 21:11 UTC