Dear John,

For the last 13 years, I have had the privilege of leading Color Of Change as its president. During that time, we transformed the organization from a small startup of five employees into one of the nation’s most influential and impactful racial justice organizations with a budget in the tens of millions—powered by the participation of people like you.

Our goal was simple: making the voices of Black people more powerful than they had ever been. If there was one goal I was focused on every single day, over all these years, it was figuring out how to create more opportunities for Black people and our allies to make a difference: to participate in the process of social change in ways that led to real results.

Millions of member actions later, we can look back at the incredible results we won for Black people and for racial justice. We took on the criminal justice system. We took on the biggest corporations. We took on decision-makers in Washington. And we won.

We helped change the criminal justice system by playing a key role in launching the progressive prosecutor movement. We won bail reform, ended exploitative call charges for families of incarcerated people, helped facilitate a sea change in the ability of prosecutors to hold violent and corrupt police officers accountable, and held prosecutors accountable for using their unique authority to ensure justice for Black people.

There is still a long way to go before we can claim we have put racial justice at the center of our legal system, but with dozens of prosecutors held accountable, dozens of policies changed and thousands of people freed from incarceration and financial exploitation, we have set an incredible foundation of success and movement-building—all with Black people leading the way.

I am proud to have been a leader in winning corporate accountability in an era when it has proven more and more difficult to create checks on the destructive role of corporate greed in Black people’s lives and in our political system.

I have had to challenge our allies to push them to do the right thing and protect net neutrality even when it put them at odds with the telecom industry. And I have won fights directly with corporations to force major credit card corporations to cut off the flow of money to white nationalists, end exploitative profiteering off of the criminal justice system, expose blatantly discrimination against Black businesses by siphoning money from the federal Paycheck Protection Program during the pandemic, and stop engaging in countless other harms.

We forced Airbnb, Google and Facebook to conduct racial equity audits and implement racial justice initiatives. And I helped orchestrate the largest commercial boycott in American history, a $7 billion withdrawal of advertising dollars from Facebook that is just one of many tactics and pressure points we used to force changes in practice and policy across corporate social media platforms. Again, the work is far from done, but our past success in raising the issue to national attention and fighting for the role of racial justice in the regulation of technology has set a critical foundation for what comes next.

Starting with my days advancing change in entertainment with GLAAD, I have continued to believe in the importance of fighting to change the rules for how highly influential content gets made in Hollywood. From research like Race in the Writers’ Room and Normalizing Injustice, to working directly with dozens of writers and producers on TV shows, to driving forward industry conversations about the impact of racial representation, and taking a producer role myself, I have continued to fight for standards and accountability that both disrupt Hollywood’s role in stoking hostility against Black people and support Hollywood’s role in encouraging a more open and inclusive society.

In the midst of the shock and demoralization that followed the 2016 election, Color Of Change was at the center of mobilizing the resistance, working alongside peers to push back against the Trump administration, defend our communities, fight for policies and show up at the polls in 2018 and 2020. I am proud to say that a political strategy framework I created played a uniting role in bringing us together and demonstrating the potential of shared strategy.

I am proud of these wins. And I am also proud to have worked with so many partner organizations to make these wins possible—from national advocacy organizations to local, on-the-ground community groups.

But in the end, it is you—our members—who made these wins possible. That is why celebrities wanted to record videos for Color Of Change, and other organizing groups wanted to work with Color Of Change, and why decision-makers would listen to Color Of Change.

It’s because of you.

While Color Of Change will continue to fight for more and more wins, I have made the very hard decision to pass on my leadership role at Color Of Change after the election and take on new ways of fighting for justice in our country. The organization is in a place where it’s ready for me to leave. This was not an easy decision, but it will allow me to engage people in new ways—from universities to town halls, online discussion to a wider array of partnerships.

I will continue to promote the threat that unchecked corporate power poses for the lives of Black people and all people. I will also continue promoting and advising on strategies for winning the fight against corporate power and its corrupt and dangerous influence—whether in Washington D.C., Silicon Valley, Hollywood or state houses and city halls across the country.

One way I will do this is through the publishing of my book next year. The conversations that I organize around the book launch will give me the opportunity to share what I have learned about the mechanics of social change and the challenges we face in the years ahead. The book will provide tools that enable people across the country to take part in the fight for justice in more effective ways.

I came to Color Of Change because I wanted to build something new that enabled Black people to advance racial justice in ways that did not exist before and to build a new form of Black power. We have done that, and the unique role that Color Of Change and its millions of members have played in numerous winning and high-impact campaigns is a testament to the organization that we have created.

I am happy to share that longtime policy and racial justice leader Portia Allen Kyle, who currently serves Color Of Change as Managing Director, will be stepping into the Interim Executive Director role as the Board of Directors conducts their search for my replacement.

Throughout her career in politics and civil rights, Portia has been a highly effective leader with deep experience in both strategic advocacy and internal operations in nonprofit, government and academic settings.

I am grateful for her willingness to assume the Interim Executive Director role while the Board of Directors begins a nationwide search for the next Color Of Change President, which will begin in earnest after the election.

This is an exciting moment for me and I know the world-class Color Of Change team—along with all of you—is well positioned to continue the work after I leave on January 1, 2025. I will continue to see you in email, in the media and on the streets.

Until justice is real.

With gratitude,

Rashad Robinson

Color Of Change is building a movement to elevate the voices of Black folks and our allies, and win real social and political change.

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