A movement that was birthed out of the COVID-19 quarantine has raised millions of dollars to support Kamala Harris’ quest as the first Black woman president of the United States.

“Win With Black Women” (WWBW) is a mantra and group conceptualized by Jotaka Eaddy, a social impact consultant in politics and technology who founded Full Circle Strategies. She understood the importance of community early on as a high school student looking to attend a conference geared towards those seeking law careers, Fortune reports. Raised in a humble environment in South Carolina, the $3,000 cost for the conference was out of reach for her parents. However, through the support of Black women church-goers she was able to attend.

“Black women in my church and in my community sold chicken dinners and held bake sales to raise money to send me to that conference and to put me on an airplane that many of them have still never been on,” Eaddy said, according to Fortune.
She went on to make history as the first Black woman student body president at the University of South Carolina. She also displayed a commitment to advocacy, even writing a paper showing her stance against the death penalty while in middle school, according to a press release shared by her alma mater. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons, which abolished the juvenile death penalty, was impacted by her significant efforts in this area, which included a four-year post as a national program director at the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Eaddy’s work has also benefited other sectors, such as technology and business, per her LinkedIn. Her trajectory includes roles USAction, where she was tasked with providing technical assistance to state partners and managing various events and programming, among other responsibilities. Between 2008 and 2014, she transitioned to the NAAP as a senior advisor to the president and CEO and led political matters as well as strategic initiatives. Among her benchmarks includes working with 500 national and local organizations alongside staff and leaders while guiding 250,000 participants during NAACP’s One Nation Working Together March on Washington.

The University of South Carolina also notes she was involved with directing policy and engagement for a fintech firm and has remained central in calls to action for diversity, equity, and inclusion within major technology companies and venture firms. This includes advising Goldman Sachs’ One Million Black Women initiative, which strives to impact 1 million Black women through $10 billion in investment capital and $100 million in philanthropic efforts, its website mentions.

“I’m working at the intersection of politics, advocacy and technology, with a goal of creating transformative change throughout the world. That’s what I wake up thinking about,” she explained in the University of South Carolina press release. “How can I take people pushed to the margins and put them at the center? How can I help create and drive policies that make a difference in lives of people who often are underestimated?”

Her position was instrumental in founding “Win With Black Women” in 2020, which is a network of individuals with a shared mission of increasing political action while supporting Black women seeking political offices. It has attracted the support of Meghan Markle, Dionne Warwick, Ava DuVernay, Cicely Tyson, and Oprah Winfrey, who moderated “Unite For America,” a special live-stream event in partnership with “Win With Black Women” and Founders For Kamala in support of Harris for president.

 

Additionally, WWBW has built a network of more than 100,000 volunteers while generating over 250 billion impressions across social and media platforms, its website states.

“Win With Black Women” gained significant attention in 2024 by raising $1.6 million in a single evening, coinciding with Kamala Harris’ July announcement of her candidacy for the 47th president of the United States — all accomplished through a Zoom call. The call had 44,000 participants, with an additional 50,000 watching from other platforms, and spurred other Zoom gatherings, thus helping to label 2024 as “the year of the  ‘Zoom election,'” per Forbes.

Eaddy’s efforts gained a head nod from Winfrey.

Remembering that first Zoom call after Harris’ announcement, she told Winfrey during the “Unite For America” live event, “Just to be united and that night, Black women everywhere, we knew one thing. We wanted to gather in our joy, and we knew that we needed to get to work… What we knew was that it was a moment in our country to show what Black women have always done.”
She added, “That love letter is a letter that started years ago before any of us in this room were even born. It was started by Black women years ago who knew this moment would be here, but they worked and they knew they wouldn’t see. But one day we would, and I just think that it is an honor for all of us to usher in this moment knowing that those who watered this mighty field are now allowing us to eat of the fruit of the trees.”