Black Women in Entertainment for Kamala (BWIE4Kamala) is successfully utilizing Black Hollywood to mobilize support for Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign. When the vice president announced she would run for president, millions nationwide sprung into action. Overnight, several fundraisers, calls and organizations brought in millions of dollars to assist with funding her campaign.
On July 21, Evan Seymour participated in the historic Win with Black Women Zoom call, which raised over $1.5 million for Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign. Inspired by the call, Seymour formed a small WhatsApp group for women from the call to continue to network, share resources and connect to ensure Harris made it to the White House.
In less than a month, the small thread of 10 women bloomed to over 400 women who connected through their various roles as media executives, journalists, actors and influencers.
“There was no intention for the organization to get as big as it was,” Seymour told Blavity in a recent interview.
The former Apple TV+ publicist realized the power and influence within the group and began reaching out to them to boost Harris’ campaign and mobilize voters.
“There are actresses of varying degrees of fame. There are air personalities. There are publicists, attorneys, etc. So there are people with a lot of money and those with less money. Some people are famous. Some people are not famous,” Seymour said of the group’s diversity.
She continued, “We don’t gatekeep. The bottom line is we’re all in the same industry and in this fight together, as Black women in entertainment, American women. All of the layers, we’re all in this together. So we are very inclusive. I think anyone could see themselves reflected in somebody within the makeup of our group.”
Two women who represent the influence within the movement are actors Erika Alexander and Terri J. Vaughn. While the two have their own personal reasons for championing Harris on her quest for the presidency, their shared views boil down to representation, unity and progression.
“I like to think that women are an example of organic sustainability. When it comes to politics, it is a century for the feminine divine. And women leaders are at the forefront, and certainly Black women leaders have been just stunning in terms of how they’ve defended this nation from the destruction of itself,” Alexander told Blavity when asked about what made her so passionate about her works with BWIE4Kamala.
Alexander, best known for her iconic role as attorney Maxine Shaw in the transformative ’90s sitcom Living Single, is the perfect person to speak to the importance of representation that Harris embodies.
“If we look at the power of representation, such as in the Obama presidency, it influenced the hearts and minds of people who might not have ever wanted or even voted for him,” she continued, also speaking on flowers that were given to influential figures such as Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson and Barbara Jordan.
“So VP Kamala will do her part, and when she is president, it will be a huge sea of change in the world, she continued. “It really matters that the first representation of a woman not only will be a woman who is a prosecutor, who has done the work of defending the nation for the people, but also the fact that she is in the skin that she in. That she is Black and East Indian. It’s phenomenal.”
As a woman who has sat in the director’s chair many times before, Vaughn knows the impact that will be felt having a woman at the helm of the country.
“Obviously, being a woman as opposed to a man, we are all wired differently in certain ways. And we’ve had male leadership over and over again since the inception of the United States of America. We’ve had that energy over and over again. And some of it has been good, and others have not. What we haven’t had is a woman’s leadership role in that position,” Vaughn told Blavity.
She reflected on the attributes that she brings to the set as a woman director, such as having the ability to “create a family” or “rally the troops” to “complete a common goal.”
“I think, as a woman, there are so many traits that we have innately as nurturers, such as empathy. We have a way of asking and getting things where you don’t have to be demonstrative, you don’t have to be mean, you don’t have to crack a whip. So it will be great to see a woman in this position create that unity.”
Vaughn discussed how her motherly heartstrings are pulled into the initiative when she sees her daughter beam with pride as Harris takes the podium to speak.
“That is so that’s invaluable,” Vaughn said. “For all little girls to be able to see, and hear, and be inspired, and feel seen, and feel important, and feel like they matter,” she said.
Seymour has continued to assemble women within the group to focus on key objectives parallel to the Harris campaign. Alexander and Vaughn are just two of the impressive members in her arsenal. Award-winning actor Jennifer Lewis is vocal about her passion for Harris and her policies on mental health and connection to young voters. This fall, Lewis will travel to Atlanta for activations with the organization to connect with Spelman, Morehouse, Morris Brown and Clark Atlanta University students on behalf of BWIE4Kamala.
“This moment is huge, and how this plays out will really pave the way for the next generation, the next few years. We’ve got to get over ourselves. We’ve got to get past all this divisiveness, and I just want to support somebody that is supporting that,” Vaughn said before candidly ending with, “We cannot f**k this moment up.”
The post Black Women In Entertainment For Kamala: The Initiative That’s Seen Erika Alexander, Terri J. Vaughn And More Mobilize appeared first on Blavity.
