By Yolanda Caraway and JaDonna Harris
Trinity Times Correspondents

As Jotaka Eaddy greets two reporters in her office in a beautiful building in the heart of Washington, she acknowledges how far she’s come from the “dirt road” in Johnsonville, South Carolina, where she grew up with a healthy dose of racism directed at her and her family.

Eaddy’s childhood in that “small town with one red light” in the South provided her with the drive she would need to transcend the bigotry of her race and gender to become the activist and businesswoman she is today, dubbed “the Olivia Pope of the Silicon Valley” by Forbes Magazine.

As one of the founders of #WinWithBlackWomen, Eaddy has spent a lifetime leading the charge for the empowerment of Black women.

It’s a journey she plans to continue through her activism and as a business leader and hopes she can serve as a role model to the women of color students at Trinity Washington University.

In her childhood Eaddy was surrounded by a “whole lot of love” from her immediate and extended families – which included her neighbors, members of her church and the schools she attended. 

But she first experienced racism in that town, when a little girl who sat next to her on the school bus said one day, “I can’t play with you anymore. My daddy said you’re a n—-r.” 

Eaddy recalls having the feeling that what her friend said to her was wrong, but she realized she did not understand the full gravity of that word. 

Now as an adult she sees how hard her parents fought for her and the other exceptional Black students in her town to have the same opportunities as the white children, she told Trinity Times.

Considered a gifted and talented child, Eaddy was guided by a loyal network of people who believed in her.

Family, neighbors, and church members donated and raised money to help her attend summer space camp at NASA, various civil rights and other conventions around the country, and to travel the world in countries that include Spain, Italy and France.  

“It has always been important to me to live a life to honor those who sacrificed so much for me to be able have these wonderful experiences,” Eady said, adding that she personally knows the value of having a network that believed in her.

One event that she’ll never forget was the day the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson visited her high school. She remembers to this day his chant of “I am somebody,” and how his message of lifting-

up Black people resonated and motivated her to want to help others.  

Eaddy graduated from the University of South Carolina, where she became the college’s first Black woman student government president. It’s also where she first became passionate about criminal justice reform. 

After college, she directed the national lobby and international advocacy campaign against the juvenile death penalty, contributed to the 2005 landmark Roper v. Simmons case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled it was unconstitutional to impose capital punishment for crimes committed while under the age of 18.  

Eaddy then became a senior advisor to the NAACP’s president and CEO, as senior director for voting rights, where she led the civil rights organization’s strategy to defend and expand voting rights.

Then, big business leaders came calling, forcing her to examine her ambition and integrity.

That call came in an offer to work for a tech start up in Silicon Valley, a decision that took her eight months to make, doubting her value and riddled her with a fear of failure.

“I always felt that Black people who went into big business were sell-outs,” Eaddy said, noting that she also didn’t know anything about technology at the time.

However, with the encouragement of family, friends, and mentors she realized that she, in fact, was the problem and came to understand that she was getting in her own way.  

So, Eaddy recalibrated her path, leaped into the unknown, and found empowerment in the world of technology. 

She now encourages young Black people to do the same, in technology and other nontraditional fields, to “trust yourself, take a leap,” knowing the rewards have the potential of being great.

“In every job I’ve had I’ve learned new skill sets and lessons that I took with me to each new endeavor,” Eaddy said. 

These are the lessons she encourages Black women to learn:

• Networking and relationships matter.  
• Staying centered – always remember what matters most.
• Stay grounded – don’t get distracted by the noise and the shiny stuff – they will eventually go away.  What remains constant is your value and purpose; your fundamental connection to that thing that is bigger than you are as an individual.

“I’ve watched Jotaka evolve over the past years – both in her skills and her passion for lifting up Black people, particularly Black women,” said Minyon Moore, a political activist and the first Black woman to serve as a White House political director under President Bill Clinton. “Jotaka has a gift. She instinctively knows what needs to be done in any critical moment, and she knows how to organize to get the work done.”

In 2019 Eaddy’s experience in regulatory and legislative initiatives led her to create Full Circle Strategies, a consulting firm that serves to bridge the gap between Washington and Silicon Valley by creating partnerships.  

These partnerships have resulted in education policy and social impact initiatives that have reached more than three million consumers within the tech industry and beyond.

During the contentious 2020 presidential campaign Eaddy took her activism to a whole new level, after hearing an elected official make a racist remark about then presidential candidate Joe Biden’s decision to put a Black woman on his ticket. 

“Enough was enough – I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “As a Black woman, I felt it was time for us to come together and use our collective wisdom and strength and stand up against this blatant racism and sexism.”

That afternoon Eaddy started calling Black women around the country – including activists, educators, elected officials, heads of organizations, businesswomen, pretty much everyone in her rolodex and asked them to take part in a conference call that she would host the next evening and to invite their friends.  

More than 300 women took part in that conference call and that was the creation of a collective called #WinWithBlackWomen.  

During the next few months, this group worked tirelessly to get a Black woman on the presidential ticket and sent a delegation to meet with Biden.  

#WinWithBlackWomen has been recognized as a force in Democratic politics and went on to work on special elections, the nomination of the first Black woman Supreme Court justice and every important issue of importance to the Black community.  

“Jotaka has so many accomplishments that are very motivating for younger Black women and has made so many changes for Black woman and representing Black women in a positive way,” said Deriana Womack, a rising junior at Trinity. “I also really admired #WinWithBlackWomen making such a big impact in history for women and most importantly Black women.”

Eaddy is a fitting role model for women of color at the university, Womack said, because she personifies the mission of the school.

“In addition to her impactful work with the NAACP, it makes me proud to see (Eaddy) hosting TV specials about issues affecting Black women on OWN and actively engaging in high-level strategy sessions to encourage President Biden to negotiate the release of Brittney Griner,” said Neosho C. Ponder, an adjunct professor at Trinity. “Jotaka is the epitome of media and social change.”

Eaddy’s mission includes the constant struggle for respect for Black women in all spaces. “We have to demand the respect, we have to speak truth to power,” she said, “and we constantly have to remind ourselves, each other, and the world, of who we are and the power that we yield.”