Election 2019: Tami Sawyer for Memphis Mayor
Tami’s passion is serving the people of Memphis. On any given day, you’ll find her attending events at schools speaking with students, posting exciting happenings across Memphis to her followers on social media to connect them to one another, challenging policies to make them work for everyone, and also just having fun. After long days, she loves to come home and recharge by reading and unplugging and is hopeful for the day she can welcome a pug to the family. She can also be spotted across town hanging out with friends and colleagues at locally-owned restaurants and coffee shops.
Tami started speaking truth to power when she was six and wrote then President Reagan to advocate for the homeless. She continued speaking up and out as she grew up, and began organizing rallies, protests, and community healing spaces after the killing of Trayvon Martin and too many local and national tragedies. In 2017, Tami founded #takeemdown901, the successful movement to remove Confederate statues in Memphis, TN. In recognition of this and other community work, Tami was named to the 2018 Ebony Magazine Power 100 list. In 2019, she was selected as the first Speaker in Residence of Clayborn Temple, the meeting site of the sanitation workers who organized the historic strike and “I Am A Man” march of 1968.
Tami currently serves District 7 in Memphis as their Shelby County Commissioner, where she is the chair of the Law Enforcement & Corrections committee and vice-chair of the Education committee. Since joining the commission, she's used her voice to challenge educational inequity, transportation insecurity, and the lack of investment in minority & women owned businesses, and she's delivered reform of juvenile court and detention to include local oversight, resources to students in underserved communities, and open & transparent communications with her constituents. In addition, she organizes, speaks, and writes about the continued movement for social justice and racial equity in the South and has been featured on major outlets such as CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, and Huffington Post. Tami serves as the Education Co-Chair of the NAACP Memphis Branch and as a board member of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. She is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Incorporated and The Links, Incorporated.
https://www.tamisawyer.com/