Jehmu Greene
Founder, Barbara’s Legacy
Co-Founder & CEO, We Defend Truth
Jehmu Greene is the Founder of Barbara’s Legacy, a new initiative honoring Barbara Jordan and dedicated to amplifying the impact and voices of women of color thought leaders. With a curriculum designed from her 25 years at the forefront of progressive advocacy, Barbara’s Legacy trains, nurtures, and directly supports women of color to best position them to thrive as impactful thought leaders. A Distinguished Fellow at the Athena Center for Leadership at Barnard College, Jehmu is also a Fox News Political Analyst where she has unapologetically defended progressive values and policies on the network for the last ten years. Together with Jose Vargas, Alicia Menendez, and Jake Brewer, she co-founded Define American, an organization that uses media and culture to elevate the immigration reform conversation and was recently named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in America.
In 2017, Jehmu was the only woman of color to run for Chair of the Democratic National Committee. She ran on a platform of ideas, innovation, and uncomfortable truths. While her campaign garnered only half a vote from institutional Democrats, she changed the narrative of the race and inspired young people and women of color across the country to run for party leadership positions and win. She is also a Founding Board Member of VoteRunLead, a non-partisan organization that has trained more than 35,000 women to run for office. As a National Trainer for VoteRunLead, Jehmu travels the country training women to tell their stories and run as they are.
Jehmu previously served as the U.S. president and global Chief Marketing Officer of WakaWaka, working to bring solar power to people living without access to electricity; president of Rock the Vote, where under her leadership young voter turnout in a presidential election had the highest increase ever recorded; and president of the Women’s Media Center where she designed the Name It, Change It campaign to fight sexism against women candidates and trained progressive women to amplify their voices in the media. From Botswana to Ukraine, Jehmu has traveled the world training young people and women on how to amplify their voices and increase their political power. She was appointed to the U.S. Commission for UNESCO by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
An award-winning media and advocacy strategist, evangelist for social good, guacamole aficionado, and proud Texan, Jehmu splits her time between Austin, NYC and Instagram: @jehmu