Tamika D. Mallory

Mallory was born and raised by activists Stanley and Voncile Mallory in New York City. She grew up in the Manhattanville Houses in Manhattan and moved to Co-Op City in the Bronx when she was 14. Her parents were founding members of Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network (NAN), a leading civil rights organization throughout the United States. Their work in NAN influenced Mallory and her interests in social justice and civil rights.

Mallory is a single mother to her son Tarique. Sixteen years ago, her son’s father, Jason Ryans, was beaten, stabbed, shot and killed after stealing two firearms from a friend he sold drugs with. Mallory explains that her experience with NAN taught her to react to this tragedy with activism. Her son is now 18 and an active member of NAN.

At age 11, Mallory became a member of NAN to learn more about the civil right's movement. By the time Mallory turned 15, she was a staff member at NAN. Mallory went on to become the youngest Executive Director at NAN. She worked at NAN for 14 years. She stepped down from her position as executive director in 2013 to follow her own activism goals. Mallory explains that she still takes part in NAN’s work, by attending rallies and recruiting members. Mallory has continued her activism, working on various topics such as gun control, women’s rights, and police violence. Following the murder of her son’s father, Mallory has worked endlessly to create stronger gun restriction laws. Over the past eight years, Mallory worked closely with the Obama administration on gun control legislation. She advised Joe Biden on these issues, and together they worked towards creating bills and helping pass these bills. In 2014, Mallory was selected to serve on the transition committee of the New York City Mayor, Mayor Bill de Blasio. During that time, she helped created the NYC Crisis Management System, an official gun violence prevention program, which awards $20 million annually to gun violence prevention organizations. In 2014 she also served as the co-chair for a new initiative through the Management System, the Gun Violence Awareness Month.

Mallory holds many other leadership positions as well. She is the president of her own firm, Mallory Consulting, a strategic planning and event management firm in New York City. She is currently on the board of directors for Gathering for Justice, an organization aimed at ending child incarceration and working to eliminate racist policies that reproduce mass incarceration.

Mallory, alongside Bob Bland, Carmen Perez, and Linda Sarsour organized the Women's March, a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017. This march advocated for women's rights, immigration reform, LGBTQIA rights, healthcare reform, environmental reform, racial justice, and racial equality. It was the largest single-day protest in US history. The leaders of this march mobilized in Washington D.C, with at least 500,000 people attending that march and an estimated five million worldwide participators.

Organization and planning

The Women’s March idea formed after the election of Donald J. Trump. A grandmother in Hawaii, Teresa Shook, created a facebook event for a march in Washington D.C. following the inauguration, while Bob Bland, a mother in New York City also created an event. Within a day hundreds of thousands of individuals were “attending” the march on the facebook event. This surge of individuals interested served as a catalyst for the organizing that led to the 2017 Women’s March. Bland and Shook’s events were merged into one, and the planning began. Bland reached out to Mallory, Perez, and Sarsour, in order to include voices of color in the organizing of the intersectional march. This march seeks to integrate many different leaders and voices into the planning, in order to create a decentralized structure that incorporates everyone from every walk of life. While this march was in direct response to Trump's election - and the day after his inauguration, the point of the march was not solely about Trump, but also about social issues in the United States that have long been ignored. This march gave women, minorities, people of color, LGBTQIA, and others a space to actively voice their concerns, fears, and feelings. Mallory explains that she took on this responsibility because "I wanted to ensure that Black women’s voices are upheld, uplifted and that our issues are addressed, but this cannot happen unless we take a seat at the table." Mallory's work within the Women's March was geared towards creating space for unrepresented voices in social activism. Many marches before this one have failed to recognize the intersectional aspects within social justice, such as race, class, gender, nationality, and sexuality. This march recognizes all aspects of intersectionality. Mallory explains that the organizers worked to make the march as inclusive as possible - in order to promote the most change. One of the largest supporters of the march was Planned Parenthood. Mallory explains that they partnered up with Planned Parenthood because they "provide women with life saving health services."

Going Forward

After the march, the organizers published a "10 Actions for the First 100 Days" campaign, in order to continue the momentum of social activism. The first action was to write a postcard to your Senators about issues that you are concerned about - they provided a template on the website and ways to send these postcards. The second action was to host or go to a "huddle," an informal meeting with others near you, to discuss ways to transform feelings into local and national action. The third action was to attend or host a "Hear Our Voice" event, a formal version of action 2, in order to stimulate continuous change. Seven actions have been published - with three more to come. The Women's March on Washington website has all of the details.

Controversy

Bari Weiss has criticized Mallory for what Weiss argues is her support of, or associations with, activist and convicted murderer Assata Shakur and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.