But Joy Cometh ft. L’Oreal Thompson Payton, Maya Wiley, & the DNC

On this episode of She the People with Aimee Allison, you’ll hear: on the ground reporting from Equity Observer reporter L’Oreal Thompson Payton profiling Tansy McNulty of 1 Million Madly Motivated Moms, Aimee Allison’s interview with civil rights lawyer and activist Maya Wiley, and some joyful noise from the recent Democratic National Convention. 

This podcast begins with a candid discussion about guns, police violence, and the Sonya Massey murder case. If you’d prefer to skip this section, please join the conversation at the 11-minute mark. 

During their conversation, Aimee asks Maya about her forthcoming memoir, Remember, You Are a Wiley. Maya reflects on her personal legacy of social justice work and what her story could tell the next generation of activists:

“It’s like all these things are as personal as they are political, and the political is personal, and activism has to be, too. And so I, I’m just really privileged and I’m going to put it out there. What I hope it will do is spark these conversations about how everything all of us do matters, and how it’s okay when it’s hard and we self-doubt, because we can draw strength from one another and trust and believe every single badass Black woman out there, or any other woman of color out there, had doubts, fell down, was not always successful, and had a community that lifted her back up. And that’s how we have always done. And it’s okay.”

Also discussed in the episode:

• Maya’s powerful segment on MSNBC
• “Project 2025: What’s At Stake for Civil Rights” from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
• Maya’s memoir, Remember, You Are a Wiley, which publishes September 17 and is available for pre-order here

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She the People is a registered trademark of Aimee Allison.

Transcript

Aimee Allison [00:00:04] Welcome to She the People with Amiee Allison. I’m Amiee Allison. On this, our first episode, you’ll hear me catching up with reporter L’Oreal Thompson Payton about her recent reporting on 1 Million Madly Motivated Mothers, a public safety and mental health nonprofit dedicated to ending gun violence. Also in this episode is my conversation with Maya Wiley and stick around for our Joyful Noise segment at the end,.

[DNC crowd] [00:00:32] When we fight. We win!

Aimee Allison [00:00:35] You’re not going to want to miss the audio I captured at the Democratic National Convention.

[DNC crowd] [00:00:50] We win!

Aimee Allison [00:00:50] I’m Amiee Allison. It’s Tuesday, August 27th, and I’m here with L’Oreal Thompson Payton. Hey. How are you doing?

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:00:57] I’m good. How are you?

Aimee Allison [00:00:58] Very good. And let me just first introduce you to everyone. L’Oreal is a Chicago based author, award winning journalist, keynote speaker, and founder of LT in the City Media. She serves as Equity Observer’s democracy and justice reporter and is here on She the People to talk about her newest piece just recently published a profile of Tansy McNulty, founder of 1 Million Madly Motivated Mothers, a public safety and mental health nonprofit dedicated to ending gun violence. L’Oreal, thank you so much for being here and for this reporting.

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:01:30] Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Aimee Allison [00:01:32] So tell us about the article and the issue.

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:01:36] Yeah. So in this story I talked to Tansy McNulty, who’s the founder of 1 Million Madly Motivated Moms, also known as 1M4. And we had actually connected earlier in the year, with the story that was originally tied to Mother’s Day and talking about her focus on black maternal mental health, as well as we were coming up on that four year commemoration of George Floyd’s murder and then calling out for his mom and his last breaths.

Aimee Allison [00:02:02] What was it about Tansy work that you thought was prescient and important right now?

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:02:08] We reconnected recently, actually, because of the murder of Sonya Massey here in Illinois, actually down in Springfield. And that really touched on everything that 1M4 stands for when it comes to black maternal mental health and alternatives to calling 911 in mental health crisis situations. So knowing that nearly a quarter of fatal law enforcement shootings involve a person with mental illness, Tansy is really on a mission to separate that 25% from the remaining 75% to make that issue a bit smaller. And in doing that, she set a goal, a very ambitious goal, of ending police violence in the US by 2038, using these prevention focused strategies that she’s come up with, along with her organization and equipping moms with the tools that they need to care for themselves, their families and their communities. And to do that, she’s put together with her organization this right response directory that includes more than 250 resources nationwide of alternatives to calling 911. These are organizations that are embedded in the community that will respond instead of the police to help people through mental health crises. And I just think that that is something that would’ve been really beneficial for someone like Sonya Massey, who had this history of mental health issues, and even her own mom had called the police just a few days prior to her murder, begging the police to not hurt her, right, because she had been, like many of us, traumatized with the history of police violence in Black communities. So would Sonya Massey still be here if there were an alternative to 911 or the police were better equipped to deal with these sensitive matters of people who have mental health issues and illness? Maybe we won’t know for sure, of course, but I’m very optimistic and Tansy is as well that this can be a solution, an alternative to calling 911, which could then and police violence in the US.

Aimee Allison [00:03:58] What’s really striking me about, this story is the intersection of race and mental health and honestly, a perennial problem that the Black community has faced, which is policing, for which, you know, they pay for those public services and seem to be not being served and in fact, being victims. And how do you understand and really write about the intersection of all those issues?

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:04:26] That’s what honestly made this story so important for me. I mean, it was important before when I worked on the original draft. But in recent weeks, with everything that we’ve learned about Sonya Massey’s situation- so it got me thinking, you know, this hits on the intersection of so many different things: It’s mental health, it’s being a Black mom, it’s gun violence in communities, it’s about what if there were alternatives? What if there was someone else to call in these situations? What if our police were equipped with more mental health training to be able to better respond to these different scenarios instead of shoot first, ask questions later. And so it got all of the wheels turning. And so I had to go back to Tansy because I knew she would be the best person to speak on this, both from the point of view as a Black mom herself, but also someone who is an advocate for mental health and wellness in our communities, and especially someone who is dedicated to ending gun violence.

Aimee Allison [00:05:18] It sounds like really, from your reporting, you’re highlighting that Black women, and women of color finding alternatives, whether, you know, this is not a public policy solution, this is in the social service sector where she’s getting the word out.

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:05:32] Yes, absolutely. And is very on the ground, you know, bootstraps. There’s moms who are in the organization calling different people communities to find out — Okay, what is it that you need. And the differentiator also in Tansy’s organization is that they’ll have people report back what happens. So okay, I. called this number, I reached out to this organization and then they are encouraged to report back what it is that actually happened when that group came out to respond to their emergency, so that we’re not putting black and brown bodies in further harm.

Aimee Allison [00:06:05] The four years since George Floyd was murdered, and I don’t know how many minutes it was, but, millions of us watched, him be murdered, and it’s deeply traumatizing. And every time there was yet another, victim of police violence, I know personally I’ve felt it—  to the point now where it’s very difficult for me to be a witness to it, even though I know it’s a critically important issue. So writing about this stuff, not only is it new, but it’s also, I could imagine it taps this deep trauma that many people have. How do you write about these issues, advance the public conversation without it falling into kind of, you know, trauma porn where, you know, they call it, where attacks on the Black body become entertainment?

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:06:52] Yes, absolutely. And I love this question for that very reason, because it’s something that took me quite a while in my career, honestly, to grapple with. To take it back to 2015, I left full time journalism because I was deeply traumatized by covering all of these reports and shootings, and it was essentially, you know, the same story, but a different city and a different name. And, you know, working on a small team just sort of became desensitized to all of the news, and that’s not what I wanted. That’s not why I became a journalist in the first place. And I knew something had to change. So I took a step away and then I came back. But I also gave myself some grace. Right, in 2014, the week in that Michael Brown was murdered. I was getting ready to go out on the town, had my nails done, makeup done everything, and had to pull out the laptop and get to work and write the story. And it just became kind of this automatic, motion that I would do without really taking the time to let it sink in, to mourn, to grieve. Because who has time to do that in digital media? But this was also before I had equipped myself with tools around self-care and wellness, before I started therapy, before I would willingly and publicly take a mental health day and make that known on my Slack status, right. I feel like very optimistic that the conversation in media has evolved since those times in 2014, 2015 to where now we are openly talking about mental health and wellbeing, especially as people who are writing and reporting on these sort of, instances. And so that’s the biggest thing for me, is taking care of myself, first and foremost. I mean, like you, I, I don’t watch the videos. I can’t- I know they’re important and I know that they do serve a purpose in bringing people to justice sometimes. Right. Not all the time. So I can respect and appreciate that. And also for my own mental health and well-being, I, I can’t I just can’t. Actually in the conversations that I have with Tansy as well, we talked about how activism takes on different forms. And so for me, it is my writing. It’s my storytelling, it’s my reporting. For her, it is starting this organization and advocating for other people. It’s protesting and being on the frontlines. And we all have our different ways, right, of contributing to the mission and the cause. And I don’t personally think one way is better than the other, but it is really important that we, especially as Black women, care for ourselves and pour into ourselves first, because we are often the ones, you know, doing all of the work, carrying the weight of the world in our communities, on our shoulders. And so it’s very much, you know, as they say on the airplane, to apply your own oxygen mask  first because- then you can’t help anyone else if you’re passed out. And that’s exactly what we have to do here. And I think the aftercare is important as well. After these conversations, these heavy conversations — taking some time to do yoga, meditate, journal, go for a walk outside or something just to kind of reset is very helpful for me. But what gives me hope is having that call to action, having something tangible that people can do to take action. In this case, Tansy has this amazing directory there, right response directory that has, a map of local alternatives to traditional law enforcement interventions. And it’s listed in places nationwide. And so that’s something tangible that people can do after they read this article. They can look up the directory, they can find the resources in their community and share it with their neighbor, friends, family member, colleagues, so forth and so on.

Aimee Allison [00:10:20] You don’t often hear, particularly from journalists, kind of the way that you’re talking about having to take care of yourself as you’re reporting these stories. So thank you for, you know, your openness because I’m also a Black woman. And, it isn’t that we’re robots that are, you know, writing a report or a story about something that we’re not involved with. So I appreciate that very much. Thank you so much, L’Oreal. And if, if we want to keep up with you, how do we do that?

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:10:49] I’m LT in the City everywhere — on Twitter, I refuse to call it X  still,.

Aimee Allison [00:10:54] /laughs.

L’Oreal Thompson Payton [00:10:55] Instagram and website is LT in the city dot com as well.

Aimee Allison [00:10:57] And to never miss L’Oreal’s reporting, subscribe to the Equity Observer Newsletter at Design Observer dot com.

Aimee Allison [00:11:13] I’m Amy Allison, and here we are at the end of August, a week out from the Democratic National Convention. And I’m here with the great Maya Wiley. Maya, thank you so much for being here on She the People.

Maya Wiley [00:11:25] Oh, Aimee it is such a pleasure. And thank you for all you do for all us women of color.

Aimee Allison [00:11:30] It’s been quite a moment. I was there on the floor of the United Center in Chicago with the California delegation —

Maya Wiley [00:11:39] I saw your photo.

Aimee Allison [00:11:41] Oh, okay. /laughs.

Maya Wiley [00:11:42] /laughs.

Aimee Allison [00:11:42] Listen, I went right into the conversation. Didn’t even introduce you. This is what you need to know about this remarkable person: She’s a lawyer. She’s a professor, a civil rights activist, and president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Her resume is too long for me to read, but let’s just say I first met you, Maya, when you were running several years ago for mayor in New York City. After a very long and illustrious career, both advising mayoral administrations on the Civilian Complaint Review Board and other things — your expertise around basic telling it like it is was on display a couple of weeks ago on MSNBC, I believe, was MSNBC, where you characterized a certain group of people, which I think Michelle Obama was also talking about, that was victimized by fairness:

Maya Wiley@MSNBC [00:12:36] They have been telling us, and I say they, because I am talking about a certain group of people who are victimized by fairness, who are victimized by competition from the competent and who are upset because they have for so long gotten to be mediocre and rise. And those of us who have had to be better than mediocre to get cut are so many.

Aimee Allison [00:13:06] I think this kind of truth telling is helping us get the language. Tell me more about how you found the language to characterize both the people who are enemies of civil rights right now and, you know, really helping Americans to articulate that in an authentic way.

Maya Wiley [00:13:21] Well, first let me say, Amy, how kind and how much that intro made me blush. It’s a real privilege, as you know, to be able to be in service in any kind of way. And I’m just grateful that I have had that opportunity. That segment on MSNBC that you’re referring to, I was on Deadline: White House with Nicolle Wallace, who I deeply appreciated getting to appear with, as I have with Joy Reid and so many other really powerful women voices that we’ve had in this time. I did not know I was going to say any of that. Now I knew what I was there to talk about topically. And I think, as we are all trained to do when we appear on television as commentators, is to be as neutral as possible, as fact base as possible, and to break things down as simply as possible so that everyone in the audience feels that they can access it and understand it. Not-not because we’re trying to dumb it down. That’s a mistake. Always a mistake. Your audience is very intelligent, but especially when we’re talking about these issues, it can get very wonky and you don’t want people to feel distanced by the wonk. So I was not thinking that’s what I was going to say or do, not the topically we wouldn’t be talking about these kinds of issues. But all I can say is Nicolle showed a clip of Kamala Harris from some years-I forgot how far back, but it wasn’t a recent clip where she was talking about what it meant to be a Black Asian woman, strong, smart, powerful woman. And she was talking about what it meant to be cut. She was saying something very powerful, very authentic, meaning something very real to all of the experiences we had:

Kamala Harris@MSNBC [00:15:00] So here’s the thing about breaking barriers —breaking barriers does not mean you start on one side of the barrier and you end up on the other side. There’s breaking involved, and when you break things, you get cut. And you may bleed. And it is worth it every time. Every time. And so to especially the young people here, I say to you, when you walk in those rooms, being the only one that looks like you, the only one with your background, you walk in those rooms, chin up, shoulders back. This is part of what’s involved is that we have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open. Sometimes they won’t. And then you need to kick that [beep] door down. /crowd laughs  and claps

Maya Wiley [00:15:42] She was putting it in plain human personal terms that spoke to all- not talking about herself exclusively, but personal terms. Right, you knew she was talking about herself as the first woman of color to become a district attorney in San Francisco, which is a majority white city, and to do it as a woman, but as a woman of color, you knew this personal context for her was also a personal statement, but it was also something we all experienced. And in that moment, there are times when it just gets pulled from you. It’s not something I sat down and wrote out, and it just so cut straight to what I know I’ve experienced, what I know my friends have experienced, what I know, people who have worked for me, people who have coached and mentored young women have experienced. And that we, of course, at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights have been working towards, which is a country that is inclusive of all of us and recognizes all our value, including and in particular people of color, women of color. And that the way in which that’s under attack is something we’ve been working on, actually, for hundreds of years, not just for the last six decades. It just unleashed something. I can’t even tell you where it came from. I’ve never said it that way before.

Aimee Allison [00:16:55] I want to say that, the way that you said it, and I listened to it again: Characterize a certain group of people victimized by fairness, victimized by the competition from the competent who gotten to be mediocre and rise. That’s what you said. And that helps us understand who we’re up against right now. Who are the enemies of civil rights, who are the people calling diversity, equity and inclusion bad words. You know, why they’re doing that. And that helps to explain a lot of what we’re facing in this moment.

Maya Wiley [00:17:27] And a lot of what we’ve just experienced in life. So you’re right, it’s a culmination of a long standing battle in this country and one that starts with the founding of the country. Right, it’s not — it’s hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of years of battle, you know, and because of fighting for hundreds of years, first for abolition of slavery and then for efforts to be fully included as citizens, we had come to a place 60 years ago where we won the Civil Rights Act of 1964. You know, we call it an omnibus act, meaning it wasn’t just a piece of legislation. It covered employment. It covered public accommodations. It covered registering to vote. It covered so many, it’s covered anything that was federally funded, anything: Education, health care. It created the you are not allowed to discriminate in any of the spheres, which meant all of the spheres. And that was a platform from which we started saying: Okay, now we get to finally be able to compete, except what we’ve been struggling for ever since, as the forces that have never wanted that bill and never wanted the playing field that says we compete, but actually want the privilege that comes from generations of having power. And I think that, you know, what we see in this moment, it’s not even a moment, it’s an era, but this era that we are in the permission that Trump-ism, right, it’s not just about a single person. It’s about an ideology and a viewpoint that has always been threatened by full equality in this country. That has never, ever committed to the promise of the principle that was embedded in the constitution of equality, not truly, right. And so, even as we’re looking at how the Supreme Court attacked affirmative action, right. And we know most Americans actually support it, most Americans, just like most Americans, support dealing with gun violence and having reasonable controls on gun sales and ammunition. Just like we know the majority of Americans want the freedom to choose whether or not they have an abortion or not. But in the context of this, it’s a fundamental attack on our qualification, on our deserving-ness as people of color and women of all races, people with disabilities  —on all these things. And it has always been and we all have this, these personal experiences. And I went personal in that segment because people see me on television and they know I have a privilege, right, because it is a privilege-there are far too few of us still on television with the ability to be participants in a large public conversation in that way, but people think that you have so much power that you didn’t experience it, except we all continue to experience it. Even as we had the opportunity to rise, we still experience it. So think about all the people who didn’t get the opportunity to rise. And none of that is their fault, none of that. And so the ability to have, a Kamala Harris speaking, a vice president of the United States, speaking it when she was a district attorney, speaking it when she was an attorney general of the largest and most populous state in the country and diverse when at that, speaking it is a vice president gives tremendous power to the rest of us to also tell the truth. When a Michelle Obama stands up on stage and makes that and makes that powerful statement that tells us all: Yes. Be brave. Be vulnerable because it is vulnerable to do that. It is vulnerable to do that.

Aimee Allison [00:20:59] And as you’re speaking, I’m realizing this is something we all need to get really clear about beyond the policies and the politics. The very existence of Michelle Obama on a major party stage, the very existence of Kamala Harris on the major party stage says, when we compete, when we compete, America changes. That it is possible, and also it’s good for America, for people that look like us and sound like us with our set of experiences, the way we talk, the way we look, the way our hair is — everything.

Maya Wiley [00:21:33] Oh, so can we talk about Michelle Obama’s hair?

Aimee Allison [00:21:35] Oh, when she walked in,

Maya Wiley [00:21:37] /laughs.

Aimee Allison [00:21:37] I’m not sure people appreciate the fact her hair was in braids and the the braid was long all the way down her back. And I was like, when she walked, I was like: Oooh, she’s a free Black woman because she’s coming up and she’s-she’s saying the truth. The difference between 2016 and 2024 —2016 was the last time I was at the DNC, okay, on the floor — and now is that you have someone who carries herself, speaks the truth, looks the way she looks, that everyone, at least in the Democratic Coalition, is looking to for guidance and leadership and to speak the way we do. And they’re also looking, looking to you. And I think that that cultural shift is something that what I was standing in the in the middle of the convention and the balloons had dropped, I was like: We’re here. We’re in a new era. This is new. And I think it’s important for people to understand fundamentally why Trump, why MAGA, why the Republicans, as the party that’s been taken over by this faction, are so committed to destroying democracy — because it allows us as flawed as the processes to compete through our votes, and it allows us to be-to organize, to lead and to change the fundamentals in America. I want to talk about your assessment as a civil rights leader of Project 2025 that the Republicans have published as their 900 plus page guide, if Trump takes the white House again what they plan to do. What are the things in that plan that we need to understand and know about in terms of what’s at stake?

Maya Wiley [00:23:17] Oh, that is such an important question, and I want to pick up on those really very wise and important last words you made before the question about both Michelle Obama and that moment and how people are looking. What you’re describing is us owning our power. Us owning our power. Because we do have it, even in a context where there are those trying to take it away. And what Project 2025 is, and this is fundamentally, at its core, is a blueprint that says that an ideological, extremist, white ethno nationalist few — that’s not all white people, this is not about-—this is about a very specific extremist ideology that is fundamentally rooted in our past. And when I say our past, I’m talking even pre 1950. You can go back before that. This is an ideology that has always been in this country and is still present, but now it is trying to own its power because it has seen an ascendancy of its access to the white House and in Congress, by taking ours, by trying to take ours, meaning the rest of the country. When I say ours, I’m talking about a majority of the country. So- but the way it does is so when you read Project 2025, no one has to read on 900 pages. You don’t. And actually, at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, we have a landing page on our website where you can go and we have one pagers on the primary things you need to understand about it. At its core, it’s saying we do not want the federal government, which had been the key and the core of us being able to ensure that no state can take our fundamental rights away from us, from voting to abortion to anything we consider a fundamental right, and that the federal government had every ability not to take over States, that’s not what civil rights laws ever did. That’s not what federal government ever did. But to have a more united country around some of the fundamentals that every person should get. And what it really is saying is a President can be so powerful, so powerful as to essentially ignore and pervert existing laws and use the power of agencies of the federal government to do it just in its day job. So that’s everything from wiping out civil servants who are just there nonpartisan, serving administration after administration, Democrat Republican, whomevers in office as experts in their areas can be purged to put in place ideologues, people who will have a plan and a purpose thats not about the people, but about their own ideology.

Aimee Allison [00:26:08] I mean they’re talking about employees purging employees of the federal government—

Maya Wiley [00:26:13] 25,000. 25,000 to put in place. And we saw this happening in the previous Trump administration in trying to when Donald Trump himself was trying to direct the Department of Justice to do his bidding that was going to serve his personal interests, right. His personal interests about whether or not he was prosecuted or whether or not he was going to win an election. And-and the roadmap is very explicit that the president can do these things. So I’m just saying that it’s it’s a it’s a takeover of what is supposed to be nonpartisan agencies functioning to deliver on an extremist plan. And that’s why you can look at everything from taking away from the Department of Labor, undermining the Department of Labor’s ability to protect workers in overtime, getting paid for the time they work over and above eight hours a day to actually undermine the Department of Justice doing civil rights enforcement of existing laws that are still on our books and utilizing it to criminalize voters and elections at the bidding of a President, of a sitting President. It says that we should not- it actually says we should be utilizing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to protect white men. Remember the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and my point about people feeling victimized because they have to compete — the primary argument is that white men are being victimized by civil rights laws designed to say, everybody gets a fair chance to compete. And it wants to weaponize the EEOC to protect white men. And this is what people need to understand. And schools, education, a lot of talk about—

Aimee Allison [00:28:02] Yeah, I was going to say, Project 2025 is this blueprint for Trump, and MAGA also talks about teaching history. It also relates to that.

Maya Wiley [00:28:14] Think about this: A demo-what is a democracy, right, what is a democracy? It is about voting for sure, being able to pick and choose our leaders and all have a say in that. But it’s also about how we understand our problems and find solutions that benefit all of us. Well education is a core to that. Learning our history. You can’t understand a problem, you can’t understand when you don’t understand its origins. You can’t fix something when you don’t know how it got broken. That’s one of the things that education is supposed to do with us, for us. And it’s one of the reasons the same ideological group that came up with Project 2025, it’s the same groups that wanted to make sure we weren’t learning critical race theory which they attacked, which you and I know was really about, law schools and faculty who were doing deep dives on understanding that not just the history of racism, but how it’s produced some of the outcomes we see today, acting as if we’re indoctrinating young kids because they’re just learning history.

Aimee Allison [00:29:15] Let me stop you right there because, Project 2025 is truly an expression of it’s evil, it’s white supremacist, and it imagines an America that takes away the civil rights that we’ve gained. And it uses government to do that. The polls that She  the People been putting out, we’ll have more complete results in the next weeks, but the more we talk to young people under 30 about what Project 2025 is planning to do if Trump takes over, the more likely they are to vote. In our generation, in my 50+ generation, Gen X, we knew the civil rights icons,

Maya Wiley [00:29:56] Yep.

Aimee Allison [00:29:56] And we were directly connected to the movement that brought about the civil rights legislation. I mean, it’s hundreds of years in the making, but I think this next generation needs to know what Project 2025 is proposing and how it’s going to affect them. And I know that one of the things that if they go on to your organizational website, just educating themselves about that, talking to their friends and family, getting their vote planned, because this is what’s at stake. I have so much, more I want to I want to talk to you about Maya Wiley. First of all, you have a beautiful new book. And let me just say, speaking of icons, your book, Remember: You are a Wiley, talks about your parents and your legacy. Can you talk about your book, which is actually out mid-September — talk about your legacy and the tradition of civil rights that you come into?

Maya Wiley [00:30:46] Well, thank you. Thank you for those extremely kind words, Aimee. And I’m extremely humbled, and excited and a little terrified about this book. And I do think it goes back to what we were saying about Michelle Obama. You know, we all stand on really broad shoulders. And one of the things I really wanted, I-I have two young adult children, they’re still children to me, but they’re 23 and 20, and just even having this multi-generational conversation, your point about talking to voters who are under 30, there’s so much that we and our generation have been able to take for granted in terms of what we know and understand, about who we are and how we got where we are and what more we have to do, but also how much we are shaped by our histories. And those histories are also very personal histories. And how much-how important it is to talk about them and to share those stories, both for empowerment — so I come from a family of civil rights, civil rights organizing family. And a lot of what I know about our history is both family history of our forebears freed from slavery and what they did and why they had opportunity. But what that gave my grandparents and what they gave my parents, but also the complexity of race because my mother was white, and how she kind of broke from the bonds of racism and married a Black man in the early 60s and thought it was the best thing she ever did. While everybody else was telling her she was crazy, right? And and how they collectively organized. Civil rights, and then how my father and my mother supported my father financially-financially a woman — white woman supporting this Black man, to do economic justice organizing with Black women on welfare. As one of the pillars of what we hope to get out of the civil rights movement, to break this Gordian knot between race and poverty and gender. Right. And and to have a father who was a man seeing the power of Black women back in the 60s, back in the 60s, thinking it’s women are going get this done as black women who have to be the core of it and have to be the front of it and has to be about them. And so, you know, I realized in thinking about all of my efforts to contribute, like and all of my struggles, and I think it’s really important for us to be able to be vulnerable about how we’ve had our own struggles and failures and doubt. And, you know, no matter how I have so many young women who look at me and think, how can I do what you did? And I need them to understand, I fell down a lot. I had a lot of self-doubt. I still do at times. And it’s okay, right? It’s okay. It’s how you get back up and how you need people to do that, but also how we’re connected to a history of that, because I really felt including from my own two fierce and fabulous 23 and 20-year-old young ones, that they needed to feel and understand that in their own struggles about where and how they fit in, and also why it is so necessary to activism. And activism comes in so many forms. And if I can share one little story, Aimee, because, you know, my my aunt, my father’s oldest sibling, who is 98 years old, lives outside of Chicago. So when I was going to Chicago, I went early to see my cousin. And my aunt and I, of course, brought them advanced copies of the book. And my aunt called me, a day after I got home and said, I started the book. I’ve read 120 pages. It was just very humbling because she was reading this, and we started this conversation across the generations about what she did, and she was saying: I don’t think I did enough. And I said: Oh my goodness, everything you did mattered. And just being able to say that to her at 98 —like my father wouldn’t have become a chemist if it weren’t for that sister. If it weren’t for my aunt. She inspired him and helped him know he could do it, even though she got discriminated against in not being able to go to medical school. But it helped empower him and his science. It’s like all these things are as personal as they are political, and the political is personal and activism has to be too. And so I, I’m just really privileged that I’m getting to put it out there. But it’s- what I hope it will do is spark these conversations about how everything all of us do matters, and how it’s okay when it’s hard and we self-doubt, because we can draw strength from one another and trust and believe every single bad-ass Black woman out there, or any other woman of color out there had doubts, fell down, was not always successful, and had a community that lifted her back up. And that’s how we have always done. And it’s okay.

Aimee Allison [00:35:34] And it’s okay. What a gorgeous, gorgeous invitation to the next generation to engage in the world changing work that you have been in. You said two things like, it’s like, remember you’re a Wiley — was there times where you had to say, this is something that we, you know, sometimes our friends or family members will say: Hey, hey, hey, chin up. Remember who you are. Was there a moment there where you felt down and out and someone said that to you?

Maya Wiley [00:36:03] Well, my grandmother, my father’s mother used to say it to her children before they left the house every day. Remember you’re a Wiley. Part of that meant, don’t drop your drawers, so to speak. You know, don’t get into trouble, standard. But it’s also expectation, right? Expectation. No one said it directly to us and my cousins. And I’ve had this conversation. We all recognize it. My cousins, as soon as they saw the book together, like Nanny said that.

Aimee Allison [00:36:31] /laughs What a powerful thing to say.

Maya Wiley [00:36:32] Exactly. But it was never said directly to us. And yet we still absorbed the message, which was really interesting, right, no one. But when I hit hard times and running for mayor, I remember many of these moments, many. Because you’re getting constantly attacked, you’re being dehumanized, you’re being told you’re not qualified, you’re being vilified, all kinds of negative things sometimes from your own community, right. And I just remember when I went into it and part of that book title was, I knew whatever I did, I had to hold on to myself. And so the remember, you’re a Wiley, help me hold on to myself. And I remember when people were trying to push me back or get me off a position, or act like I was crazy because there was something in my platform. There were real moments, including in one debate where I had to tell myself: I’m standing here as a Wiley. I’m remembering I’m a Wiley. And-and this is what Wileys do. You get beat up, but you stick to what you believe is your truth, and you don’t let anybody push you off of it if you believe it.

Aimee Allison [00:37:30] Remember who you are. That is a mantra for every Black woman, every woman of color, who’s ready to engage in this hard, hard work. Well, listen, we’re almost out of time, and we talked about this past month at the DNC, everything about Kamala Harris, even the attack ads on her laugh— but, you know, we have joy. There’s so much about the movement that’s evocative of joy. So just to end, I want to ask you what makes you laugh, or what has made you laugh recently?

Maya Wiley [00:37:59] Well, did you see this clip of Kamala Harris and Maya Harris talking about how Maya Harris— when she became attorney, Kamala Harris, became attorney general, her, you know, attorneys general have the title of general, whether it’s the U.S. attorney general or state’s attorney general. And how they had this joke where Kamala said: Now you have to call me general. /laughs And she’s the elder sister, right? And they both broke out into these big, hysterical, beautiful laughs, smiles. And you can just see all that sister bond and all those jokes that happened between them. But I it was such a good reminder both of why this is a joyful moment and why there’s permission for joy, but also because to me, my most joyful moments is laughing with the people I love.

Aimee Allison [00:38:46] Yes.

Maya Wiley [00:38:48] Right? It’s just laughing with and being able to find opportunities to laugh no matter what the heck is going on.

Aimee Allison [00:38:54] That’s right.

Maya Wiley [00:38:55] And often it is about the love you have for one another and the way one person did something funny and screwed up and you can all joke about it. I have two daughters, so seeing that sister stuff between them, all of that brings me such joy. And I think that is the bottom line about what is so important for us all to remember is we have joy in one another.

Aimee Allison [00:39:14] That’s right.

Maya Wiley [00:39:14] That’s our joy.

Aimee Allison [00:39:16] That’s our joy. Maya Wiley, you are a joyful warrior. Thank you for everything that—who you are and everything that you do for America. We’re very lucky to have you. The movement’s lucky to have you. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.

Maya Wiley [00:39:31] Well, right back at you, Aimee. It’s all of us. So thank you.

Aimee Allison [00:39:35] All of us. And thanks so much for being here on, She the People.

Maya Wiley [00:39:39] Pure pleasure. Thank you. It brought me joy.

Aimee Allison [00:39:50] 2024 is our year of joy. I’m going to tell you why she the people’s ending on a joyful noise. There’s a lot of problems. And what I think we’re learning is that women of color bring the joy and it cuts through sorrow, it cuts through cynicism, and it gives us a place to go. And, anyway, enjoy the joyful noise. Let’s get it. /crowd noise and drum line/ I had the privilege of being at the DNC. And everywhere I looked, I saw, I heard, I felt joy, and I did my best to pull out my iPhone and capture it. I was standing between the black woman who was the political director of Equality California arguing for LGBT rights, and the mayor of San Francisco Mayor London Breed. All of us looking at our own directions, all of us talking to the phone. Here’s my attempt to capture that larger than life grateful feeling.

Laphonza Butler [00:41:01] I get to serve as our country’s third Black woman in the United States Senate. /crowd cheers/ And right now, today, I am the only black woman serving in the United States Senate. We are in Chicago, Illinois, the home of our nation’s first Black woman senator, Carol Moseley Braun. And in between me and Carol Moseley Braun was a woman that goes by the name of Vice President Kamala Harris. /crowd cheers

Aimee Allison [00:41:37] I documented some of what I was feeling and experiencing in those moments, and I just want to share it with you here.

Aimee Allison@DNC [00:41:43] I mean, this is incredible. I’m here on day four, the day Kamala Harris day. And, as you can see, we’re not going to get started for a few hours, but the place is packed and I just want to say have been overwhelmed. Today especially. And I’m, I’m wearing all white. A lot of the women here are wearing white, especially Black women. In commemoration of the unity and the solidarity and our hopes and our dreams that, this moment represents and of the long march of of activism and movement to get to this moment. And I’m, you know, I’m, I’m representing, folks back home, in the Bay Area, but also, you know, and I’m really standing with women and women of color who’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. And I’m telling you, it’s very exciting. People are dressed up, they’re showing out. They got the t shirts, they got the the sparkles. This is going to be a fabulous night. I’m just so, so, so excited.

Aimee Allison [00:42:46] And that day, as I watched Kamala Harris accept the nomination:

Kamala Harris@DNC [00:42:52] On behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey, on behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with, the people who worked hard chase their communities and look out for one another, on behalf of everyone whose story could only  be written in the greatest nation on earth. I accept your nomination / crowd cheering/

Aimee Allison@DNC [00:43:33] I had a dream. I had a dream. And it wouldn’t leave me alone. When you have a dream this powerful, when you imagine even from your hometown, even the version of being black that’s expansive. Even like- even like the power of the highest-highest seat in the land— I just, I had a dream. And a dream is manifesting now. Literally manifesting now and I’m witnessing it. I need to catch up with myself. But. I need to catch up with myself. Just remember, Aimee, what this feels like. Remember what it feels like.

Aimee Allison [00:44:32] I was live in the United Center in Chicago, carrying my Kamala Harris signs and For the People, and Fight for our Future, and Fight for our Freedom signs. And I wanted to remember—I wanted a note to myself because I’m-I’m a person, I’m a woman, a woman of color who saw something a lot of people didn’t see. And for the last few years, I was doing everything I could to convince America that it was time for those of us who had been ignored and dismissed. It’s time for the rest of everyone to see how glorious and wonderful we are. To hear us, to follow us. That we are in this moment that America finally responded and has gotten behind this campaign is one of the remarkable moments, and I wanted to remind all the younger Aimee, who worked a lot of times as the sole voice, sharing a vision that a lot of people didn’t see. I wanted to remind her: Hey, your intention is manifesting. And I feel so fortunate that I’m seeing this in my lifetime because many, many, many amazing leaders and visionaries came before me who never had a chance to see. And I want us to remember this. I started She the People with this vision that a woman of color who embraced justice, gender and racial and economic justice, she could be the President. At that time, people thought I was a little crazy. And just a few years later, to be standing in the United Center and all these red, white and blue big balloons had dropped from the ceiling, looking around at how giddy and hopeful people were around me, knowing that the darkness maybe long — I’m paraphrasing — but joy cometh in the morning. And that Bible verse in my head, joy cometh in the morning, and it’s depending on those of us with a deep faith, a deep faith in our own, who we are as women of color, a deep faith in this country, a deep faith in our abilities, and a deep democratic faith that we can build something that hasn’t existed before. All of that was in my mind, and I was trying to allow my heart to relax and let it all in.

[DNC crowd] [00:46:49] When we fight. We win. When we fight. We Win. Are you ready for Kamala Harris to win? Yeah! 

Aimee Allison [00:47:09] She the People with Aimee Allison is produced in collaboration with Design Observer. For more information about us and our guests, plus a full transcript of the episode, check out our website at Design Observer dot com slash She the People. And spread the joy! Make sure you’re subscribed to See The People with AimeeAllison on the podcatcher of your choice, and share the episode with your friends. Don’t forget to tag at Design Observer and underscore She the People on whatever social media platform you’re on. She the People is a registered trademark of Aimee Allison. We are deeply grateful to Ruth Ann Harnish, Susan McPherson, Susan Sawyers, and Jonathan Speed for providing critical funding or other resources. We are deeply grateful to  David Kyuman Kim, Alvin B. TIllery Jr., Bernicestine McLeod, Kevin Bethune, and the entire Design Observer and She the People community. Aviva Jaye wrote the theme music for the show. Justin D Wright of Seaplane Armada mixed the show. And the producers are Alexis Haut and Adina Karp.