Dear People For the American Way member,
I have some exciting news to share with you!
A brilliant young leader named Svante Myrick will become the new president of People For the American Way on Jan. 1, 2023. I want to introduce him to you, and then allow him to introduce himself.
Svante is one of those exceptional people you meet, take an immediate liking to, and think to yourself, “Now, this is someone to watch.”
I’ve been watching Svante for more than a decade through his leadership in People For the American Way’s Young Elected Officials network. Here’s a guy who faced challenges that most of us do not have to experience—like poverty and homelessness as a child—and who went on to become a city council member while still in college, and then to be elected at age 24 as the first Black mayor of Ithaca, New York, and the youngest mayor in the whole state!
He was a popular and effective mayor, getting reelected twice. He forged a creative approach to reducing abusive policing and making communities safer at the same time. And over the past two years, he helped People For the American Way develop a policy roadmap for other mayors and local officials to follow.
Svante left public office and became People For the American Way’s executive director this January, motivated by his concern for rising authoritarianism and other threats to democracy. It reminds me of how I put my television work on pause to start People For the American Way when I had similar concerns.
Friends, I am grateful every day for People For the American Way and for all of you. And I am grateful to our outgoing president, Ben Jealous, who has taken on an exciting new challenge as executive director of the Sierra Club. We thank him for his leadership and service.
I am looking forward to the work we will do together with Svante as our president. Please be sure to read the note from him below, and the press release announcing our leadership change.
Norman Lear
----[From Svante]----
Hello friends,
It’s a wonderful thing to be introduced as People For the American Way’s next president by our founder Norman Lear. Norman started People For the American Way before I was born. And he’s still at it. And that says something about the nature of our mission and the work we do. We have to be in this for the long run.
As much as each election matters—and we have just been reminded how much they matter—elections are just part of a longer ongoing struggle that is cultural as well as political. It is the all-important struggle over what it means to be American, what we mean by “the American Way.”
I like summarizing People For’s work with the motto of the comic book icon Superman: “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” Superman was created by a couple of Jewish writers at a time when fascists were building power in Europe and its admirers were spreading antisemitism at home. Superman gave people hope as well as confidence in the power of democratic values.
Norman talks about being a young boy listening to his radio and coming across an antisemitic preacher. Fifty years later, Norman heard televangelists spreading their own kind of hatred, and he found others to join him in starting People For the American Way.
Our era has its own fascists, its own authoritarians, its own bigots and bullies. And it has people who are hurting and lost and vulnerable to manipulation by demagogues.
That’s why our era also needs us.
Norman mentioned a bit of my own story. My single mother was able to feed me, and I was able to get through school, get accepted into a great college, and find my way to make a difference—all because there were policies and people in place to support me. But there are political forces intent on dismantling those policies and putting the kind of opportunities I had out of reach for future generations.
We are here, together, to say, “that’s not the American Way.”
I will be in touch with you soon about the work we have ahead of us. For now, I thank Norman and People For the American Way board members for their vote of confidence. I thank Ben for his leadership and support over the past several years. And I thank you for all the ways you support our work.
Svante Myrick
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