Sherrilyn Ifill 

Thank you.  Good evening, everyone. It was a great honor to receive this award in 2020 and to be introduced by my great hero, Marian Wright Edelman. And I thought nothing could honor me more and could make me happier, but I find that I am just delighted to be here with you tonight to introduce this year’s recipient, Miss LaTosha Brown.  

As you may know, I recently stepped down from leading the nation’s premier civil rights legal organization for 10 years. And in the course of that work, I have the great privilege of meeting across the country hundreds of thousands and even millions of people who are fighting every day for something better. And I’m encouraged because I meet parents and young people and teachers and just ordinary folks who believe that this country can be better, who believe that their communities can be better and who are fighting for the future, not only of their children, but of your children.  

But truly one of the greatest honors of this work is discovering and embracing and working shoulder to shoulder with the many other civil rights advocates and activists that you become privileged to meet across the country. One who I have taken into my embrace and who has taken me into hers, who is an extraordinary leader who I feel privileged to know is LaTosha Brown.  

Now some of you have probably seen LaTosha Brown. She’s the incredibly beautiful and glamorous woman that you may have seen on MSNBC or CNN who always gets a 10 out of 10 on Room Rater because her background is so beautiful on her Zoom. You’ve seen her smile, you’ve heard her sing, and I hope you know about her work. And I hope you know about the character of this extraordinary woman from Selma, Alabama.  

She’s a product of the public schools. She went to Selma High School and then to Auburn University, but she had the fire of activism in her that she learned from her grandmother. She calls her grandmother her soulmate and she remembers going to the voting booth as a little girl with her grandmother holding her hand. Her grandmother dressed in her Sunday best for the honor of casting her ballot. And LaTosha Brown said when her grandmother entered that booth and closed the curtain, it was her moment. And so born then in LaTosha Brown was an understanding of the way in which our right to vote is truly preservative of all rights as the Supreme Court said more than a hundred years ago. And so LaTosha Brown has been civic-minded.  

She said she’s always interested in power, not power for the sake of exercising it, but power for our communities and for our families. She’s run for office twice. She is an entrepreneur who has created so many organizations, Grant Makers for Southern Progress, Southern [Black] Girls and Women’s Consortium, Truth Speaks. And of course, the organization you all know so well that she created with her friend and colleague Cliff Albright, Black Voters Matter.  

And that organization has been transformative in this country working in nine states, Black Voters Matter travels in a big bus and activates in people in our community, their own understanding of their power. Registering them to vote and preparing them for upcoming elections. They played a critical role in the special election in Alabama that elected Doug Jones to the Senate. They played a critical role in 2020 in the outpouring in Georgia, the highest participation in a presidential election ever. And then just a few months later, in the special election for the Senate.  

This is hard work, but LaTosha Brown is a very special person. Civil rights activism is an organism. Some groups or people are responsible for carrying forward the intellectual challenge, some become the voice. Some become the spirit. Some become the heart. LaTosha Brown is a mixture of all of these. She is the Fannie Lou Hamer of the modern civil rights movement. She reminds us of who we are and whose we are. She brings her spirit to the work. The reason that she smiles all the time comes from a deep spiritual belief that we will win. And when you are with her, you believe it too.  

There are moments in which she has called us back from the brink with her beautiful voice that echoes the Fannie Lou Hamers and the Marian Andersons, that reminds us of the deep wells of strength, power, and creativity that live within us. And so, she is our heart, and our soul, and our spirit. And as we move into 2024, we will need her.  

Our country did not go over the cliff’s edge in 2020 but we remain at the brink, and it will require every one of us to do our part to work to save American democracy. And fortunately, fortunately, yes, you should clap for yourselves. Fortunately, you will have to inspire you, to lead you, to give you direction, to give you hope, to encourage you, to make you believe, as I believe that we will win, and we must win. You will have this year’s recipient of the humanitarian award. My friend, LaTosha Brown.