Aisha Moodie-Mills has just been named the first Black and first female president of the Victory Fund and Institute, an organization devoted to increasing LGBT presence within the political realm.
Victory Fund board Chair Kim Hoover made the announcement in a statement earlier today. Moodie-Mills joins the organization from the Center for American Progress, where she worked as a senior fellow and researched race, sexuality and class since for the last five years.
“To us, Aisha represents the future of the LGBT movement,” Hoover said in the statement. “We are at a pivotal moment, and in order to continue our momentum, we need the insight and energy that Aisha brings to the job.”
As president of the fund, Moodie-Mills will focus her attention on communities who severely lack LGBT representation, particularly those in southern cities. She will also train members of the community on how to run for office.
“We have to go places and actually make sure that our constituents know that we care about the populations that’s there and that the people we are supporting to run reflect the demographics of the people there,” she told BuzzFeed.
Moodie-Mills has been striving for political equality since 2009, when she fought for the passage of a Washington DC marriage equality bill. Since then, she has been making an effort to listen to those who are underrepresented in the LGBT community to make sure that their voices are heard.
“What matters in Kansas City is who’s sitting on your city council that’s going to constantly be beating back religious attacks on freedom, in support of LGBT people,” she told BuzzFeed. “That’s what matters to your day-to-day quality of life. We need to stock more people like that.”