Last modified on March 16, 2022, at 23:08

Tamika Mallory

Tamika Mallory is the co-president of Women's March, Inc., founded to protest the inauguration of President Donald Trump. From 2009 to 2013 she was the executive director of MSNBC commentator Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

Mallory has a longstanding association with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whom Anti-Defamation League identifies as the nation’s “leading anti-Semite."[1]

National Action Network

Mallory's parents were founding members of Al Sharpton's National Action Network (NAN). She became active in NAN at age 11, only three years after Sharpton made a name for himself with his hate crime hoax in the Tawana Brawley case. By 1991, when Al Sharpton was helping incite Jew hatred and a pogrom in the streets of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the young Mallory was under Sharpton's tutelage at NAN. Four years later, Sharpton helped incite further race riots against Jews, resulting in street deaths during the Freddy's Fashion Mart Massacre.[2]

Farrakhan

In February 2018, Mallory attended a Chicago speech given by Farrakhan, which Farrakhan called Jews “children of the devil” and members of the “synagogue of Satan.” While no formal attempt at an explanation was made by Women's March, Inc., Mallory engaged with critics on social media about the matter. On Twitter she posted: “If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader!”[3]

Shortly before Mallory was to be the keynote speaker at a June 2018 event in Australia, the organization cancelled her appearance following protests from Jewish groups regarding two recent statements by Mallory. After returning from a trip to Israel, Mallory declared the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 a “human rights crime.”[4]

During April 2018, Mallory accused the Anti-Defamation League of racial bias. The ADL had been enlisted by Starbucks to assist the company in a nationwide sensitivity training, following a controversy that had arisen when a Philadelphia store manager called police on two black men in the store. Mallory condemned the company's selection of the Jewish organization as one of its training groups. “Starbucks was on a decent track until they enlisted the Anti Defamation League to build their anti-bias training,” said Mallory in a Twitter statement calling for a boycott of Starbucks. “The ADL is CONSTANTLY attacking black and brown people.” In follow-up comments she stated: “The ADL sends US police to Israel to learn their military practices. This is deeply troubling. Let’s not even talk abt their attacks against .@blacklivesmatter.” Starbucks had also sought guidance from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Noted speakers and participants at the January 2019 Women's March events included[5] presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand,[6] Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,[7] Rep. Ayanna Pressley,[8] Rep. Barbara Lee[9] and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.[10]


References