DeJuana Thompson

DeJuana L. Thompson (born c. 1982) is a political strategist and organizer.

Thompson graduated from Ramsay High School and went on to complete a bachelor of arts in speech communication at Berea College in Berea Kentucky in 2005.

She began her career as a liaison for the Birmingham City Council to neighborhood officials. She was given the Coretta Scott King Leadership Award in 2007. In 2008 she founded her own direct action and event planning firm Promoting Excellence.

During Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign she managed a Get Out the Vote campaign in Northern Florida. In 2010 she worked as deputy field director for Artur Davis' campaign for Governor of Alabama. Afterward she was hired as deputy chief of staff for Davis' congressional office. She was awarded a Key to the City of Birmingham the same year. In 2011 she was hired as national marketing manager for the Washington D.C.-based Student National Medical Association.

Thompson worked on President Obama's re-election campaign in 2012, serving with Organizing for America as the statewide director for Florida. After that she was appointed Associate Director of Liaisons for Obama's 2013 inaugural committee. That summer she worked as a deputy field director for Cory Booker's senate campaign in New Jersey and for Lenda Sherrell's congressional campaign in Tennessee. In 2015 she was hired as senior advisor for public engagement for the U.S. Small Business Administration. A year later she was appointed national deputy director for community engagement for the Democratic National Committee.

In December 2016 she merged her Promoting Excellence firm into Think Rubix, which has offices in Birmingham; Washington D.C.; Oakland, California; and Brooklyn, New York. Thompson completed a Dial fellowship in 2019 at the Emerson Collective in Palo Alto, California. In 2020 she founded the Woke Vote campaign to empower historically disengaged voters.

In March 2021 Thompson was named interim director and CEO of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. She is also continuing to work toward completing a master;s degree in political management at George Washington University.

References

• Johnson, Roy S. (January 12, 2018) "After raising $2 million to 'Woke' black millennial voters last year, Birmingham native targeting 2018 elections." The Birmingham News
• Worthy, Ariel (April 5, 2018) "Ramsay HS Alum, DeJuana Thompson, Shines as Global Political Strategist." The Birmingham Times
• Johnson, Roy S. (March 22, 2021) "Woke Vote founder DeJuana Thompson named BCRI interim president, CEO." The Birmingham News
• Wright, Erica (March 23, 2021) "DeJuana Thompson, Founder of Woke Vote, Named BCRI Interim President/CEO." The Birmingham Times

External links

• Woke Vote website
• DeJuana Thompson at emersoncollective.com