June 5, 2024 • 43 mins
Shannon Watts had been a stay-at-home mom for five years when she turned on the TV to see horror unfolding at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. After witnessing the aftermath of the murder of 20 children and 6 adults on that cold day in December, Shannon knew she had to channel her rage into action. What started as a Facebook page called One Million Moms for Gun Control eventually became Moms Demand Action, one of the leading advocacy groups in the country fighting our country’s gun violence epidemic. In this episode of She Pivots, Shannon recounts growing up with ADHD and finding her passion for journalism; leaving behind her successful PR career to prioritize her kids; the lessons learned from losing the vote on universal background checks; the importance of diversity in leadership; and what’s next for her after stepping down as CEO of Moms Demand Action.
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She Pivots was created by host Emily Tisch Sussman to highlight women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. To learn more about Shannon, follow us on Instagram @ShePivotsThePodcast or visit shepivotsthepodcast.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Shannon Watts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
women who dared to pivot out of one career and
into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. We're speaking
with someone who's not only an iconic activist and leader,
(00:36):
but someone who is unapologetically woven the personal and the professional.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Throughout her career. Shannon Watts, founder of Mom's Demand Action.
Every First Friday in June, we take time to recognize
Gun Violence Awareness Day and wear orange to honor survivors
and build community with those working to end gun violence.
Shannon's work to reduce gun violence has led to more
progress than we've ever seen. She's been named a Time
(01:02):
Magazine one hundred Most Influential People, a Forbes fifty over
fifty change Maker, and Glamour Woman of the Year. But
Shannon found this work after pivoting not once.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
But twice.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
She started her career as a young speech writer for
Governor Carnahan and Missouri, not realizing that one day she'd
flex or political muscles to fight gun violence. After building
a successful career in crisis communications, Shannon proudly left to
be a stay at home mom. It wasn't in until
December fourteenth, twenty twelve, when Shannon watched alongside all of
(01:35):
us as twenty children were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary
that she made her next pivot. She started a Facebook
group with the message that all Americans can and should
do more to reduce gun violence. The online conversation turned
into grassroots movement, which turned into Mom's Demand Action. During
this time, I also started working on gun violence prevention
(01:57):
in my pre pivot days, I worked Sandy Hook families,
particularly bringing young people into the movement, and we immediately
heard about Shannon's work. Shan I never actually met in
person at the time, but we both worked on trying
to get Congress to pass universal background checks, which we'll
talk about later in the episode. Shannon's inspiring pivots don't
seem to be stopping, and she also talks about what's
(02:19):
next for her after stepping down as CEO of Mom's
Demand last year. Guns are a uniquely American problem that
sometimes feels hopeless when we see headline after headline, but
we can make a difference Shannon is a testament to that,
and I hope this episode inspires you all to get
involved to protect people from gun violence. You can visit
our website for organizations to get involved with their contribute
(02:42):
to enjoy.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Can you just tell us a little bit about growing public?
Where did you grow up?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I was born in Rochester, New York. I was born
on January first, in nineteen seventy one, and I ended
up being an only child. Had a fun nineteen seventies upbringing.
You know, it's kind of the decade of lash Key
kids and free range children.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I would leave in the morning at seven, and I
would come home at night at seven, and my parents
really didn't know where I was or what I was doing.
And a lot of people I talked to who grew
up in the seventies have that same experience, and I
think in part when I look back at what I
was inspired by, you know, Rochester, New York is the
home of so many activists, and it's what we are
(03:36):
taught to revere.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
We would go on field trips. We would go to
Susan B. Anthony's house, we would go see where Frederick
Douglas made speeches. We would see where Harriet Tubman passed through.
And when I think about my childhood, I think about
those two things. Sort of the freedom I had to
grow up and make mistakes and learn, but also what
(03:58):
I was taught about value use and what was important.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
What did you think you wanted to be when you
grew up.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I don't know. I mean I was really precocious, So
I have had ADHD my whole life untreated ADHD. My
parents had me diagnosed in the nineteen eighties, and you know,
it's pretty severe if your parents took you in for
a diagnosis in the nineteen eighties, you know, I began
failing out of school in middle school. I was getting
(04:25):
into trouble for a lack of impulse control. It was
really when I went through puberty that so much in
my life started to change. And I don't think my
parents knew what to do with that. But even after
I was diagnosed, I think because of stigma, you know,
they did not agree with the treatment plan, so I
just never was treated and it made it really difficult
(04:46):
for me to learn. I knew that I was bright,
but I was also being told at the same time
that I was sort of a failure. Or a disappointment,
or that I didn't have the capacity to compete with
my peers. And I barely made it through high school.
Thank god for the economics teacher who passed me, because
otherwise I would not have I didn't even get a
(05:06):
cap and gown because I didn't think I was going
to graduate. How did I get into college? I ended
up going to community college for a year, and I
think my brain started to solidify at that point. You know,
I started to understand the workarounds that I needed to
do in order to succeed in this system that was
not set up for me. And I can remember when
(05:28):
I was basically failing out of high school. You know,
my dad came to me and said, why why don't
you become an airline attendant? And that's certainly nothing wrong.
I mean, that sounds like a very glamorous life. Honestly
to me, I might have I might wish I had
become an airline attendant in retrospect, but I just felt
like they were saying to me that I couldn't go
(05:49):
to college, that I couldn't do it. And my personality
is such that no matter how hard it was to
get through school, I was going to figure that out.
My parents had such low expectations for me, and I
was so stubborn and determined that I wanted to go
to college. No one went to college on my mother's
side of the family, that was a woman. I come
(06:10):
from a very very impoverished family on my maternal side,
coal miners in western Kentucky, who many of them didn't
even go to high school, and my mom did not
go to college. And so I got all a's that
first year in community college, much to my parents' surprise,
and about a year later, I transferred to the University
of Missouri.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Despite her parents' low expectations and her struggles with ADHD.
Shannon grew up an avid reader.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
As an only child. That was sort of my lifeline
was to Anna the Green Gables or you know, Nancy
Drew or eventually, as I got into high school Watergate.
I became obsessed with Watergate. I have no idea why
there is not a Watergate book that has been written
that I have not read, and that really inspired inside
of me a love for journalism. And so when I
(06:57):
decided to transfer from community to college to college college,
I decided to go to the best state journalism school
in the country.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So it ended up working as a public affairs officer
for the Missouri state government. How did that come about.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well, it is not a surprise that I did struggle
to get through college as well, again because of this
untreated ADHD, and I wasn't even able to major in journalism.
I had to major in sociology because I couldn't get
into the j school ultimately, but I still loved journalism
and I still loved everything that was a part of
that world. And so when I graduated, I was writing
for a local newspaper. I was selling ads for a
local newspaper in Columbia, Missouri, and there was a you know,
(07:34):
back then, we looked in the newspaper for job ads,
and there was an ad that said that Governor Carnahan's administration,
a democratic administration, was hiring for a speech writer. That
sounded very glamorous to me and like something I could do.
And so I applied, and I was one of over
one hundred applicants, and I made it through the process
(07:55):
and I was offered the job. I made a whopping
nineteen thousand, eight hundred dollars a year, but it was
a very sought after position. And you know, the lessons
I learned in that job have served me throughout my
entire life.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
But this was politics in the nineteen nineties, and those
lessons she learned in the halls of the Jefferson City
Capital went beyond policies and press conferences.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I mean, as a young woman in the state House,
you were constantly being hit on, regardless of political party.
I called it spring break for middle aged men, Like
these men were coming in from all over the state
of Missouri to gather just for this few months, right
to make laws allegedly, But what they were really doing
was partying. I mean, drinking in their offices and in
(08:38):
the hallways and being feted by lobbyists and making the
moves on interns like it was debauchery. So that kind
of also made me think, you know, if these guys
can do it, anybody can do it.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
But did that make you lose your faith in government?
I mean it feels like it would really make me
lose my faith.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's kind of like seeing the sausage being made, but
you know, you still enjoy the sausage, Like I thought,
the lawmaking that was happening in the state House, and
particularly Governor Carnahan. I mean, it was really heroic the
things that he was championing in a state like Missouri,
women's rights, improving education.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
I'm very pleased to report to you that under the
budget that I am introducing today, the state is right
on target and fully funding the Outstanding Schools Act, providing
schools the resources they need to give our children a
quality education. And whatever decisions we make, they will live
with the consequences for years to come. Let us resolve
(09:41):
to work together to put the small on the unimportant
things aside, focus on the common goal to leave Missouri
an even better place for our children to live than
it was for ourselves. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Even sensible gun reform and so I didn't dissuade me
from being interested in politics, but it made me think
that the people who were politicians could be of a
higher caliber.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Still, young Shannon soaked it all in, but was still
unaware that politics was it for her, completely unaware that
her time in the governor's office would later give her
the skills that would help or lead the nation's fight
against gun violence.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I was twenty three years old. I'm not sure that
I had a lot of strong opinions or even fully
formed political notions. At that point, I was more watching
and learning from the sidelines, and not just learning how
to tell story, but understanding how the process worked.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Still not sold on politics, Shannon made her first pivot
from public service to corporate America.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Just walk us through a little bit more. When you
left the public sector and you went into the private sector,
I mean you rose quickly, like you were a star.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It was interesting how my ADHD quickly became a superpower
of concentration. And not long after I left the State House,
I did a couple of other quasi governmental jobs, but
I ended up at Fleischmann Hillard, the public relations agency,
and they had a really strong arm of that public
relations firm in Kansas City, mostly focused on agriculture, but
(11:22):
Hallmark was a client some of the local headquarters in
Kansas City. And it's really where I cut my teeth
on crisis management. So there would be a chemical spill
in the middle of the night and I would get
woken up and I would have to get on a
plane and go out and understand what happened. And how
do you message this to community members? How do you
(11:42):
explain to them, we understand this is a crisis, we care,
we're working to fix it, and that became my job.
And I wasn't even thirty years old yet, but I
did have a gift, I think in part because of
my work at the state House. But I knew how
to tell a story effectively. I knew how to message,
and I knew how to help clients in part because
(12:04):
of holding the hands of state lawmakers through any kind
of journey. You know that they were on because of
their brand or their business or whatever was unfolding, and
that experience certainly is something that is valuable I think
in the corporate world.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I also feel like for people that work in crisis
are like a special breed, like you're either built to
run towards the crisis and have a very clear brain,
or it's just overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I agree, And I don't know that you would think
that someone who almost failed out of high school and
college would have that kind of brain. But yet, what
I found is that my ADHD helps me to focus
so specifically when one thing unfolds, which I'm sure we'll
talk more about when it pertains to gun violence. But
I saw this play out over and over again, and
this was just as you know, the Internet was coming
(12:53):
into play where I was able to track an issue,
find the information about it, look at the news coverage,
synthesize all of it, and spit back out a strategic
plan and cohesive messaging. And it's just something that my
brain is wired to do.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
When we come back, we dive into how Shannon's personal
life played a role in her early career and beyond.
Shannon's career was continuing to grow and grow, but so
was her family. She married her high school sweetheart fresh
out of college.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I was very young. My parents were going through divorce.
As I said, I was an only child, and I
kind of felt like my family was falling apart, and
I think I was looking for another family, to create
another family. And so I married and found out I
was pregnant three months later, had a baby again. I
got pregnant three months after that. So by the time
(13:51):
I was twenty nine years old, I had three children,
which is not something that really happens even with women
in my generation. And and my main focus really in
my twenties and thirties was being able to support my family.
And it was really sort of a blur the fact
that I was having children, that I was working full
(14:12):
time that I was married. I think all the fun
most people have in their twenty thirties in thirties, I'm
having now in my fifties. But my focus in those
days was really just how do I keep succeeding so
that I can't support my family?
Speaker 4 (14:29):
And you weren't a job that I'm imagining had kind
of unpredictable hours and unpredictable focus, Like if a crisis
came up, you would have to drop we know, wherever
you were with the family and run towards it. How
did you manage that?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, well, I was really the person who was mainly
supporting our family, and so my ex husband, my ex husband,
now he had a job, but he was able to
be home most of the time with the kids, and
that was also, I think a little bit unheard of
back then. So he started out making sure that his job,
because I was paid more, that his job was more
(15:03):
conducive to childcare and staying home on paternity leave and
picking kids up from school, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
So you were doing incredibly well in your career, your
kids are growing. In two thousand and eight, you were
named to pr Week's forty under forty list and in
the same year you decided to leave to stay home
with your kids. So tell us more about that decision.
And I mean, what was that juxtavision? Like, you know,
you're the top of your field and you say, you
(15:31):
know what, it's not for me right now.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It's sort of a pattern in my life where I
always try to go out on top, but I ended
up divorcing in my early thirties. When you get married
at twenty three, you don't really marry the person you
would probably marry in your thirties, which is why I've
encouraged all my kids to wait until they're thirty to
get married. We have a wonderful relationship. I think Gwyneth
(15:56):
Paltrow would call it conscious uncoupling. You know, we've been
able to parent our kids together for the last couple
of decades very well. But we just realized at a
certain point that we were not going to have the
marriage that either of us wanted. And so after we divorced,
I ended up meeting my now husband and remarrying. And
(16:18):
he had two older children in high school and college,
and I had children in elementary and middle school, so
it was a very complex dynamic. You know, we wanted
to make sure that our family felt like a family.
We wanted our kids to come together, and I just
knew there was no way that I could keep working
full time and do that, and it seemed like a
(16:40):
good time to take a break, and so I just
decided I would step back from the day to day,
always imagining that it would be about a five year
break and that I would certainly go back into the
workforce full time.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
What I love about Shannon's story is how she speaks
openly and honestly about putting her personal life and her
family first. When I made the decision to leave my
career in politics to be more present with my family,
I felt a sense of shame around it, as if
that reason wasn't good enough, But Shannon was steadfast in
trusting herself and her decisions.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I was much more concerned about wanting to make sure
that my kids had someone home when they came home
from school, that I was helping them through the divorce
and remarriage, that I was getting to know my husband's kids,
and also that I was spending time with my new husband.
You know, we had both been married before, and we
(17:35):
wanted to make sure that the same things that got
in the way of our first marriages didn't get in
the way of our second marriage. So that was really
my priority. And my husband was working full time. I
had a little bit of a luxury to say, Okay,
I can put this on the back burner and go
back when I'm ready, but always believing that because of
my personality, because of the career I had created, I
would go back.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Talk to us about the moment it clicked for you
to take action again against gun violence. Had it been
about five years for you at that point.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I had been home almost exactly five years, and in fact,
I had started looking at jobs. I had started sending
out my resume, and it was a very cold day
in Indiana, December fourteenth, twenty twelve. I had just dumped
like five huge baskets of laundry out on the bed
in my primary bedroom. As you can imagine, like laundry
(18:26):
is a full time job when you have five kids,
and I was just I was going to have CNN
on the background while I fulded close and suddenly there
was this breaking news chirn that there was an active
shooter inside in elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. I had
never heard of Newtown, Connecticut. But I knew based on
the footage I was seeing of people in the parking
lot and families crying, and these reporters who were already
(18:51):
on the scene, that this was horrific.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Any hooks cool, I think there's somebody shooting in here,
a New Hook school.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Okay, what makes you think that?
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Because somebody's got I thought a glimpse of somebody they're
running down.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
If she thinks that so much?
Speaker 8 (19:10):
The Mental Report, I'm Rebecca Jarvis with the latest on
the deadly shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut,
the Sandy Hook School, and it is turning out to
be worse than anyone could have imagined.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
One fifteen asked everybody to sit down, and they said
that it was a tragic day in Newtown today and
twenty children were killed.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Tell me little girl was gone.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
There was so much panic and confusion when that announcement
was whatever was about to unfold was going to sear
the psyche of Americans. So I'm sure, like so many
people listening, you know, I just kind of sat down
where I was that day and I just watched this
tragedy unfold for hours and hours and hours and I
(20:02):
was inconsolable. It's still unfathomable, even though it shouldn't because
there have been so many mascul shootings since. But you
know that twenty children and six educators were slaughtered inside
in American elementary school in seconds. Because this, you could
call him a man, but he's really he was barely
a man who had easy access to a weapon of war.
(20:26):
I went to bed that night, I woke up the
next morning, and I'm not even sure I can explain
to you the rage I felt, which is sort of
a common denominator in my life, Like my go to
emotion is anger pretty much for anything good or bad.
And I was so angry that I didn't really know
what to do with it. I had to channel it,
and I thought, okay, I'll join something like Mother's against
(20:48):
drunk driving, but for gun safety, that's got to exist.
Mad was so influential to me as a teen in
the eighties growing up. You know, they used to park
the cars, the crumpled cars full of victims block still
like in front of your high school, to say like
this could happen to you if you drink and drive,
which just was like very impactful, and I thought, there's
(21:08):
got to be a group of moms who are doing
this for gun safety. You know, I'm a mom of five.
That's how this issue speaks to me. It was in
an elementary school. I've got kids in an elementary school.
So I went in my kitchen and I looked for
this organization, and I could not find anything like it.
I found some think tanks, mostly run by men. I
found some one off city and state organizations mostly run
(21:29):
by men. Like I wanted to be part of a
badass army of women like I had seen when I
was growing up in Rochester, New York, who I think
are the special sauce of forcing change in this country.
I had seventy five Facebook friends. I was not exactly
a social media phenomenon, and I just thought I know
how to start a Facebook page. I'd actually just recently
(21:49):
learned how to start a new Facebook page for like
a business or a brand. So I created it in
my kitchen and I called it one Million Moms for
Gun Control. And it was like lightning in a bottle.
The direct messages, the texts, the emails, the calls. Like
I didn't think I'd be a public figure. All my
information was out there to contact me, and so what
(22:09):
I thought was an online conversation very quickly became an
offline organization.
Speaker 10 (22:16):
Market market moms demand action, not politicians. It started as
a Facebook group of concerned moms and has transformed into
a grassroots campaign with a presence.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
So how did you decide what the steps were or
the information was that you were going to be providing
to all of these people who were joining your one
million moms group.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I had absolutely no plan, to be clear. I just
was so angry that I felt I had to act.
But there were so many other women who felt the
exact same way that day. You know, if you talk
to people, they walked out of their jobs the day
of the sany Hook School shooting because they knew they
had to be doing more on this issue, or they
felt an urgency to be with their kids. It kind
(23:00):
of made anything else you were thinking about feel insignificant
because of that. So many women that day in the
days after came to me and said, I want to
do this too, I want to do it where I live.
Let me help you. The skill set I brought to
the table with storytelling and communications and messaging, but I
(23:21):
needed web developers and I needed strategists, and I needed organizers,
and I needed litigators and trademark lawyers like you name it.
These women came and they brought their skills to me
and said, I want to help you in any way
I can. So it was really this community effort to
create our strategy and our plan that I would say,
(23:46):
you know, started to solidify in the days and the
weeks that winter. I mean, we showed up in mass
all over the country on January twenty sixth at marches
and rallies, and I kind of thought, Oh, this is
what we do. We're going to show up. But legislative
sessions started just two months after the Sandyek school shooting,
and then it became apparent, oh no, we actually need
(24:07):
to show up in state houses where the gun extremists
have been writing all the policies that are resulting in
these mas school shootings. So it all happened very very quickly,
but only because of this huge amount of support that
I had from complete strangers all over the country.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
When we come back, Shannon talks about early lessons Moms
Demand Action learned after losing the vote on universal background
checks just a few months after founding, just months after
the Sandy Hook shooting, Congress was poised to vote on
(24:47):
a universal background check bill. It was a bill that
I actually worked on in my pre pivot days, and
so we.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Put a lot of our time and attention towards supporting
the passage of this bill. I can remember going to
the White House, I can remember standing behind the pres
during press conferences. We thought for sure that this was
going to pass. Right after twenty six people are killed
in an elementary school, like, Congress isn't gonna act. Of course,
that's not going to happen. They're going to do the
right thing. It may sound like it's close, but surely
(25:15):
Congress will pass this legislation. And I was in the
Senate gallery when it failed by a handful of votes
in the Senate that March, including some Democratic senators who
voted against it.
Speaker 11 (25:29):
The order of the Senate the vote on this vote.
The a'sr fifty four. The na's are forty six. Under
the previous order requiring sixty votes to the adoption of
this amendment. The amendment is not agreed to.
Speaker 12 (25:44):
My part is A deal to expand background checks was
defeated just moments ago with bi partisan opposition. It was
one in a series of votes, all amendments to a
larger piece of legislation that is now unlikely to end
up on President Obama's desk anytime soon, with more from
this that we're doing now.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And then I can remember going over to Starbucks, the
Starbucks in DC near Congress and thinking to myself, like, oh,
we just had a huge failure. If we can't do this,
maybe we can't do anything. Maybe the country isn't ready
for this to happen, and are we wasting our time?
And I was getting ready to write a statement and
(26:22):
I didn't know what that statement should say in response
to this bill failing. And at the same time, I
was getting all these texts and these dm from volunteers
across the country who were saying, it's okay, my governor
wants to pass gun safety legislation or my lawmakers want
to act in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. And then
(26:43):
at the same time, I was getting messages from volunteers
that were saying, my governor, my lawmakers actually want to
loosen our laws. So that's why it's even more important
than we stick around. So that's how we decided to
keep going, which actually became our mantra as an organization,
and many of our volunteers have had that tattoo on them,
this idea that we have to loose forward, that we
(27:03):
are going to have a lot of losses. And one
of the things that loss taught us was if we
could peel Democrats away on this issue, we would eventually win.
Because what happened was the NRA gave A ratings to
all the lawmakers who voted against that background check bill,
and these Democrats who voted with them to protect their
(27:25):
A rating learned a really important lesson that next election cycle,
which is with friends like the NRA, who needs enemies.
The na went in and invested millions of dollars in
their competitors, their Republican competitors. Not a single one of
the Democratic senators who voted against that bill, which was
called the Mansion Toomy Bill, still has their seat. So
what Democrats realized was we can vote with our constituents,
(27:45):
We can vote our conscience and still keep our jobs
because we have this army of women in red shirts
who will support us.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Around that same time you started to practice yoga and Buddhism.
Around the same time of that founding was that can
you explain what your headspace was that all of this
change is happening for you so quickly, and how you
made these decisions, like how they interacted with one another.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
There was so much change in my life. I think
I was just forty one years old when the Santay
Hook School shooting happened, and as you said, I had
recently practiced started practicing Buddhism. I was training to become
a yoga teacher, like I was living sort of this
very zen, stereotypical Midwestern white woman life. And it's a
(28:31):
little bit cliched, but it was also incredibly important to
who I became as a leader because all of the
tenets of Buddhism, like the eightfold path and just right
speech and right action. It helped me, I think to
maybe the overarching thing here is that it helped me
(28:51):
keep my ego in check and to realize that this organization,
this work was not about me. It was not even
about my leadership. It was out the volunteers and the
survivors who came into this space. It's the same thing
that helped keep me kind and compassionate online. It's the
same thing that helped me realize, you know, our message
(29:13):
has to be broadly appealing, that we have to be
emboldening and empowering women. And so I think the two
things were incredibly important to one another. And I kind
of look back and see my leadership of Mom's to
Man action as part of my practice right to follow
that eightfold path that Buddhism lays out for me.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I mean, as someone who's been you know, like in
the weeds on this issue for a decade, like what
is realistic? Like should what can we actually hope for?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Well, I think it's important to remember that we actually
have accomplished so much right. We've passed over five hundred
good gun laws, everything from background checks to red flag laws,
to disarming domestic abusers to secure storage requirements. We've also
stopped the Enemies Agenda ninety percent of the time every
year for the last decade. That's preventing teachers from being armed,
(30:06):
allowing guns inside our schools. But also we've had a
seismic shift in American politics on this issue. As I mentioned,
a quarterball Democrats in Congress had an A rating from
the NRA when I started doing this work. Today not
one does, and in fact, fifteen Republicans voted for the
bipartisan Saber Communities Act that passed last summer. It was
the first federal legislation on gun safety and a generation
(30:29):
to be signed into law by a president. So all
of these things are unbelievable that they've happened in under
a decade. You don't see that on many political issues.
And it's also how these issues play out. You know,
the idea that you're going to have wholesale, significant change
overnight is not realistic. I think incrementalism gets a dirty
(30:52):
is seen as a dirty word sometimes, but it's what
leads to revolutions. If you learn how to play the
long game, and you show up over and over again,
you will evenge will he win? And there's certainly a
lot more that has to be done on this issue
going forward at a state level, at a federal level.
But I think the fact that we've built this foundation
means that when we elect a majority of gun sense advocates,
(31:15):
we can have pretty quick change. I'll give you an example.
I mean in Virginia, which was a very red state
until it flipped in twenty nineteen, we elected a gun
sense trifecta. We've passed over a dozen good gun laws
in that state, and even though there's a Republican governor now,
none of that progress has been rolled back because it's
what the people want and they're holding their lawmakers accountable.
(31:36):
And we've elected now gun sense trifectas in places like
Massachusetts and Michigan and Minnesota, and those are the places
where we are passing strong gun laws. So we have
to keep building the foundation and electing the lawmakers who
will do what citizens want.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Shannon truly sees the issue as the multifaceted issue. It
is something she says she learned in part from Congresswoman
Lucy Macbeth.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Introduced to Lucy Macbeth in the spring of twenty thirteen,
her son, Jordan Davis, a black teen, was shot and
killed in a Florida gas station by a white man
who thought Jordan's music was too loud. And that happened
just weeks before the San Hook school shooting, which I
don't think I even heard about. And when I was
connected to Lucy, I just realized that she was such
a light and was so important to this movement, and
(32:24):
I remember saying to her like, can you be a spokesperson?
Which you know, this was just after starting mom'ster Man Action.
I didn't have any money to give her. I didn't
have any other spokespeople. I didn't even know what that meant,
but she said yes. And really, the whole reason our
Florida chapter started was to support Lucy during the two
trials of her son's murderer. The first one was a mistrial,
and then Lucy became a colleague. We hired her to
(32:47):
work on this issue, particularly as it pertained to religious communities,
and then she eventually decided to run for office. But
the role that Lucy has played in my life and
in the development of Mom's Manact that was so important
was that she was the person who came to me
and said, you can't just care about school shootings. You
can't just care about mass shootings. You know, I'm so
(33:08):
grateful to have this opportunity to speak about my cause
and my son, but when I do that, it's mostly
to white women. And if we don't diversify our volunteer
base and our own internal leadership, we will not succeed,
like we will not last into perpetuity. And really made
it her mission to help me do that with Mom's
me in Action, which I think we've been successful doing.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
A Democratic Congresswoman Lucy Macbeth took her gut renting tragedy,
the murder of her son Jordan, and made it her
mission to prevent other mothers from enduring the same agony.
Speaker 9 (33:41):
Here, everything I.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
Had done to protect him, it wasn't good enough. She
didn't matter because he was a young plat maile and
was simply because of the color of biscuit.
Speaker 6 (33:53):
She redirected her pain into purpose became active in the
gun control group Mom's Demand.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
I started speaking out about Jordan's tragedy. Any person that
would allow me to speak or tell my story, I
That's what I did. But this isn't an issue that's
just facing black mothers, although it happens to women who
look like me far too often. This is an American
(34:22):
crisis and a public safety issue.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
School shootings and mass shootings are about one percent of
the gun violence in this country, and it's what gets
so many of us off the sidelines. And I think
my role as a white woman has been to say
to these other white women and also some men, I
understand you're afraid. I understand you want to protect your kids,
but we have to look at this as the complex
(34:46):
issue that it is, and it deserves holistic solutions. It's
not just an assault weapons ban. It's not hardening schools.
It's keeping guns out of schools in the first place.
But it's also background checks. It's also storming domestic abusers.
It's also unlocking dollars for community violence intervention programs. Right,
gun violence is happening everywhere all the time. One hundred
(35:08):
and twenty people are shot and killed every day, hundreds
more are wounded. That's a lot of mass shootings in
one day in America that aren't happening inside schools. So
I think it's first of all, understanding the issue, understanding
the data behind the solutions, advocating for more than just
your own security and your own kids protection, and realizing
(35:29):
that you have to find a piece of the work
and take it on. I realize we don't lead single
issue lives, but I am a single issue voter. If
you don't support gun safety, you're not getting my vote,
and that is how we affect change.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
I live in a Republican congressional district, and over the summer,
my friends and I started a Mom's Demand chapter. We
started one that we didn't have in our talent and
I would love to take credit for this. I did
not start it. My friend came to me, is that
I think that we should. I think that we should
do this, And we've been organizing a bunch of moms
in our schools since, but we're starting from scratch. So
(36:02):
give us advice, like how should we be thinking about this,
How should we prioritize our time, Like how do we
feel like we're making progress enough to keep people engaged?
Because it is going to be a log paddle. I
think it's first setting the table and explaining that to people.
People get involved in activism, especially young people, which we
need right We need their desire for significant overnight change
(36:25):
to force politicians. We need their voices, we need the
way they advocate differently to be at the table. But
at the same time, we need to have a realistic
expectation of what we can accomplish. We aren't going to
have this happen in the next year or two years.
We have to have people understand that what they're doing
is building a foundation that we can work on. What
(36:46):
we want is for all lawmakers to be on the
right side of this issue, regardless of political party. So
I think that is this idea of keep going. You
may lose, you're going to learn from those losses and
win the next time. I think it's understanding the context
of history and the fact that we are getting Republicans
to vote the right way on this issue, and that
if they don't, we have to hold them accountable. Or
(37:06):
it looks as though there's no accountability for being on
the side of gun extremism. But mostly it's find a
piece of this work that you're passionate about and commit
to it. It can be cultural, like handing out secure
storage information at a farmer's market. It can be electoral,
like knocking doors during election season. It can be legislative.
Maybe you're going to show up at a gun bill
(37:28):
hearing at the state House. I think it's Alice Walker
who said activism is the rent I pay to live
on the planet. And if we are concerned about this issue,
if we are worried not just about our kids' safety,
but the safety of our communities, the safety of our country,
the safety of our democracy, which guns makes vulnerable, then
we are obligated to keep showing up and to keep
(37:49):
doing the work.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
If you're angry, frustrated, and heartbroken.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Let me hear you say a not very poster board.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Yeah, raise if you're sign a little bit. Anna ev
Era carried the sixth letter word. Our mom made it
because she is part of this group and wants to
prevent gun violence.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Their mom, Rebecca mork Is.
Speaker 8 (38:12):
The Limanned Action held a gun violence awareness event in
honor of ware Orange.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
This event for Change the Maryland Chapter A Mom's the
Man Action heading to Annapolis tomorrow pushing for stricter gun laws.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
W leming r to do is Jif Morgan, So, what
is one thing in retrospective, like doing the whole retrospective
looking back, what is one thing that at the time
you felt like was a real low point for you
and now you see it as having having really launched
the success that you've had.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Oh, there's there. I mean, there's so many of those
different inflection points. But I would say, as so many
women say, the election of Donald Trump. You know, I
really thought that would be the moment that the NA
came into its power. I don't know if you remember,
but Donald Trump one of the first things he did
was in Wayne Lapierre, the CEO of the NRAA, to
(39:02):
sit in on one of his roundtables about guns. The
day of the Sandy Hook School shooting commemoration, invited Wayne
Lapierre to the White House Christmas Party, like it looked
like this was going to be the nre's time to shine,
and in fact, thanks in large part to the work
of Mom's Man Action volunteers, the NRA lost political power
(39:23):
and wealth and unbelievable amounts during Donald Trump's administration, in
part because gun sales went down. No one is afraid
at that moment until COVID that their guns were going
to be taken away, but also because Americans started to
see through the corruption and the lies of the so
called nonprofit So I really thought that that was going
(39:46):
to be the beginning of the end for maybe gun safety,
but in fact it was for gun lobbyists.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
After over a decade at the helm of Moms Demand Action,
Shannon stepped down as CEO, passing the torch to the
next generation.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You know, I never saw the role a founder as infinite.
I saw it as very finite that my job was
to build a space for people to come together. But
I knew that it I would eventually leave. I didn't
want to do this my whole life. But also I
didn't think that served the organization, and I can remember
standing in the Rose Garden when President Biden signed the
Bipartisan Saber Communities Act into law, thinking, Oh, this is it.
(40:22):
This is the bookend to my activism as the founder
of Mom's Demand Action, and it was time for me
to step back. And we had this amazing woman in
place in our organization who was in charge of movement building,
Angela Farrell Zabala. We hired her from Planned Parenthood a
few years earlier, and I just think it's so key
to the evolution of the organization. You know, I started
this organization as a white suburban mom who's afraid her
(40:45):
kids weren't safe in their school. Angela is a black
queer woman, a mom of four in Washington, d C.
Who has seen gun violence very differently in her community.
And I'm incredibly grateful for her service. And I know
that she will take the organization in a direction that
I wouldn't necessarily have known to do, and I think
(41:05):
that benefits the organization.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
So for you, let's talk about what's next. Which office
are you going to run for?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I really enjoy helping other women run for office. I'm
on the board of Emerge America where we train and
help women successfully run for office, progressive women all across
the country, and to support my friends who are in Congress,
like Lucy McBeth, who is a Mom's man, actual volunteers
now congresswomen in Georgia. So I don't have any imminent
(41:34):
plans to run for office. I'm actually writing a book
right now, which takes up most of my waking hours.
But I will never not be involved in helping other
women run because what I have seen over and over
again is that when women are given a seat at
the table, everything changes. Everything the issues that they focus on,
(41:54):
the lives of the people they serve, even the decorum
and the dignity with which we make laws changes when
we elect women.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
Well, thank you so much Shannon for coming on and
sharing your story, and I promise that we will not
disappoint you with our local Mom's Demand Action chapter. We
will make you proud.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
I promise I'll check in on it.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Ever.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
The passionate advocate, Shannon continues to support and encourage women
through her substack Playing with Fire, which encourages us to
find the spark inside us. Every week, she shares insights
on what she's gained through her eleven years of activism, leadership,
and women's advocacy. Be sure to subscribe and follow because
she just might be coming out with a book next year.
(42:39):
You can also follow her on Twitter, where she is
a self proclaimed keyboard warrior, at Shannon R. Watts or
on Instagram also at Shannon R.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Watts.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots.
Speaker 13 (42:52):
If you made it this far, you're a true pivoter,
so thanks for being part of this community. I hope
you enjoyed this episode, and if you did leave us
a rating, please be nice tell your friends about us.
To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram
at she Pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our
newsletter where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content,
or on our website she Pivots the Podcast talk to
(43:15):
You Next Week.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Special thanks to the she Pivots team, Executive producer Emily
eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur Hannah Cousins,
Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator Madeline Sonovak,
and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock.
Speaker 13 (43:36):
I endorse she Pivots
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Shannon Watts.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
women who dared to pivot out of one career and
into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. We're speaking
with someone who's not only an iconic activist and leader,
(00:36):
but someone who is unapologetically woven the personal and the professional.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Throughout her career. Shannon Watts, founder of Mom's Demand Action.
Every First Friday in June, we take time to recognize
Gun Violence Awareness Day and wear orange to honor survivors
and build community with those working to end gun violence.
Shannon's work to reduce gun violence has led to more
progress than we've ever seen. She's been named a Time
(01:02):
Magazine one hundred Most Influential People, a Forbes fifty over
fifty change Maker, and Glamour Woman of the Year. But
Shannon found this work after pivoting not once.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
But twice.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
She started her career as a young speech writer for
Governor Carnahan and Missouri, not realizing that one day she'd
flex or political muscles to fight gun violence. After building
a successful career in crisis communications, Shannon proudly left to
be a stay at home mom. It wasn't in until
December fourteenth, twenty twelve, when Shannon watched alongside all of
(01:35):
us as twenty children were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary
that she made her next pivot. She started a Facebook
group with the message that all Americans can and should
do more to reduce gun violence. The online conversation turned
into grassroots movement, which turned into Mom's Demand Action. During
this time, I also started working on gun violence prevention
(01:57):
in my pre pivot days, I worked Sandy Hook families,
particularly bringing young people into the movement, and we immediately
heard about Shannon's work. Shan I never actually met in
person at the time, but we both worked on trying
to get Congress to pass universal background checks, which we'll
talk about later in the episode. Shannon's inspiring pivots don't
seem to be stopping, and she also talks about what's
(02:19):
next for her after stepping down as CEO of Mom's
Demand last year. Guns are a uniquely American problem that
sometimes feels hopeless when we see headline after headline, but
we can make a difference Shannon is a testament to that,
and I hope this episode inspires you all to get
involved to protect people from gun violence. You can visit
our website for organizations to get involved with their contribute
(02:42):
to enjoy.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Can you just tell us a little bit about growing public?
Where did you grow up?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I was born in Rochester, New York. I was born
on January first, in nineteen seventy one, and I ended
up being an only child. Had a fun nineteen seventies upbringing.
You know, it's kind of the decade of lash Key
kids and free range children.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I would leave in the morning at seven, and I
would come home at night at seven, and my parents
really didn't know where I was or what I was doing.
And a lot of people I talked to who grew
up in the seventies have that same experience, and I
think in part when I look back at what I
was inspired by, you know, Rochester, New York is the
home of so many activists, and it's what we are
(03:36):
taught to revere.
Speaker 6 (03:37):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
We would go on field trips. We would go to
Susan B. Anthony's house, we would go see where Frederick
Douglas made speeches. We would see where Harriet Tubman passed through.
And when I think about my childhood, I think about
those two things. Sort of the freedom I had to
grow up and make mistakes and learn, but also what
(03:58):
I was taught about value use and what was important.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
What did you think you wanted to be when you
grew up.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I don't know. I mean I was really precocious, So
I have had ADHD my whole life untreated ADHD. My
parents had me diagnosed in the nineteen eighties, and you know,
it's pretty severe if your parents took you in for
a diagnosis in the nineteen eighties, you know, I began
failing out of school in middle school. I was getting
(04:25):
into trouble for a lack of impulse control. It was
really when I went through puberty that so much in
my life started to change. And I don't think my
parents knew what to do with that. But even after
I was diagnosed, I think because of stigma, you know,
they did not agree with the treatment plan, so I
just never was treated and it made it really difficult
(04:46):
for me to learn. I knew that I was bright,
but I was also being told at the same time
that I was sort of a failure. Or a disappointment,
or that I didn't have the capacity to compete with
my peers. And I barely made it through high school.
Thank god for the economics teacher who passed me, because
otherwise I would not have I didn't even get a
(05:06):
cap and gown because I didn't think I was going
to graduate. How did I get into college? I ended
up going to community college for a year, and I
think my brain started to solidify at that point. You know,
I started to understand the workarounds that I needed to
do in order to succeed in this system that was
not set up for me. And I can remember when
(05:28):
I was basically failing out of high school. You know,
my dad came to me and said, why why don't
you become an airline attendant? And that's certainly nothing wrong.
I mean, that sounds like a very glamorous life. Honestly
to me, I might have I might wish I had
become an airline attendant in retrospect, but I just felt
like they were saying to me that I couldn't go
(05:49):
to college, that I couldn't do it. And my personality
is such that no matter how hard it was to
get through school, I was going to figure that out.
My parents had such low expectations for me, and I
was so stubborn and determined that I wanted to go
to college. No one went to college on my mother's
side of the family, that was a woman. I come
(06:10):
from a very very impoverished family on my maternal side,
coal miners in western Kentucky, who many of them didn't
even go to high school, and my mom did not
go to college. And so I got all a's that
first year in community college, much to my parents' surprise,
and about a year later, I transferred to the University
of Missouri.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Despite her parents' low expectations and her struggles with ADHD.
Shannon grew up an avid reader.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
As an only child. That was sort of my lifeline
was to Anna the Green Gables or you know, Nancy
Drew or eventually, as I got into high school Watergate.
I became obsessed with Watergate. I have no idea why
there is not a Watergate book that has been written
that I have not read, and that really inspired inside
of me a love for journalism. And so when I
(06:57):
decided to transfer from community to college to college college,
I decided to go to the best state journalism school
in the country.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So it ended up working as a public affairs officer
for the Missouri state government. How did that come about.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Well, it is not a surprise that I did struggle
to get through college as well, again because of this
untreated ADHD, and I wasn't even able to major in journalism.
I had to major in sociology because I couldn't get
into the j school ultimately, but I still loved journalism
and I still loved everything that was a part of
that world. And so when I graduated, I was writing
for a local newspaper. I was selling ads for a
local newspaper in Columbia, Missouri, and there was a you know,
(07:34):
back then, we looked in the newspaper for job ads,
and there was an ad that said that Governor Carnahan's administration,
a democratic administration, was hiring for a speech writer. That
sounded very glamorous to me and like something I could do.
And so I applied, and I was one of over
one hundred applicants, and I made it through the process
(07:55):
and I was offered the job. I made a whopping
nineteen thousand, eight hundred dollars a year, but it was
a very sought after position. And you know, the lessons
I learned in that job have served me throughout my
entire life.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
But this was politics in the nineteen nineties, and those
lessons she learned in the halls of the Jefferson City
Capital went beyond policies and press conferences.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I mean, as a young woman in the state House,
you were constantly being hit on, regardless of political party.
I called it spring break for middle aged men, Like
these men were coming in from all over the state
of Missouri to gather just for this few months, right
to make laws allegedly, But what they were really doing
was partying. I mean, drinking in their offices and in
(08:38):
the hallways and being feted by lobbyists and making the
moves on interns like it was debauchery. So that kind
of also made me think, you know, if these guys
can do it, anybody can do it.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
But did that make you lose your faith in government?
I mean it feels like it would really make me
lose my faith.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's kind of like seeing the sausage being made, but
you know, you still enjoy the sausage, Like I thought,
the lawmaking that was happening in the state House, and
particularly Governor Carnahan. I mean, it was really heroic the
things that he was championing in a state like Missouri,
women's rights, improving education.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
I'm very pleased to report to you that under the
budget that I am introducing today, the state is right
on target and fully funding the Outstanding Schools Act, providing
schools the resources they need to give our children a
quality education. And whatever decisions we make, they will live
with the consequences for years to come. Let us resolve
(09:41):
to work together to put the small on the unimportant
things aside, focus on the common goal to leave Missouri
an even better place for our children to live than
it was for ourselves. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Even sensible gun reform and so I didn't dissuade me
from being interested in politics, but it made me think
that the people who were politicians could be of a
higher caliber.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Still, young Shannon soaked it all in, but was still
unaware that politics was it for her, completely unaware that
her time in the governor's office would later give her
the skills that would help or lead the nation's fight
against gun violence.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I was twenty three years old. I'm not sure that
I had a lot of strong opinions or even fully
formed political notions. At that point, I was more watching
and learning from the sidelines, and not just learning how
to tell story, but understanding how the process worked.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Still not sold on politics, Shannon made her first pivot
from public service to corporate America.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Just walk us through a little bit more. When you
left the public sector and you went into the private sector,
I mean you rose quickly, like you were a star.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It was interesting how my ADHD quickly became a superpower
of concentration. And not long after I left the State House,
I did a couple of other quasi governmental jobs, but
I ended up at Fleischmann Hillard, the public relations agency,
and they had a really strong arm of that public
relations firm in Kansas City, mostly focused on agriculture, but
(11:22):
Hallmark was a client some of the local headquarters in
Kansas City. And it's really where I cut my teeth
on crisis management. So there would be a chemical spill
in the middle of the night and I would get
woken up and I would have to get on a
plane and go out and understand what happened. And how
do you message this to community members? How do you
(11:42):
explain to them, we understand this is a crisis, we care,
we're working to fix it, and that became my job.
And I wasn't even thirty years old yet, but I
did have a gift, I think in part because of
my work at the state House. But I knew how
to tell a story effectively. I knew how to message,
and I knew how to help clients in part because
(12:04):
of holding the hands of state lawmakers through any kind
of journey. You know that they were on because of
their brand or their business or whatever was unfolding, and
that experience certainly is something that is valuable I think
in the corporate world.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
I also feel like for people that work in crisis
are like a special breed, like you're either built to
run towards the crisis and have a very clear brain,
or it's just overwhelming.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
I agree, And I don't know that you would think
that someone who almost failed out of high school and
college would have that kind of brain. But yet, what
I found is that my ADHD helps me to focus
so specifically when one thing unfolds, which I'm sure we'll
talk more about when it pertains to gun violence. But
I saw this play out over and over again, and
this was just as you know, the Internet was coming
(12:53):
into play where I was able to track an issue,
find the information about it, look at the news coverage,
synthesize all of it, and spit back out a strategic
plan and cohesive messaging. And it's just something that my
brain is wired to do.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
When we come back, we dive into how Shannon's personal
life played a role in her early career and beyond.
Shannon's career was continuing to grow and grow, but so
was her family. She married her high school sweetheart fresh
out of college.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I was very young. My parents were going through divorce.
As I said, I was an only child, and I
kind of felt like my family was falling apart, and
I think I was looking for another family, to create
another family. And so I married and found out I
was pregnant three months later, had a baby again. I
got pregnant three months after that. So by the time
(13:51):
I was twenty nine years old, I had three children,
which is not something that really happens even with women
in my generation. And and my main focus really in
my twenties and thirties was being able to support my family.
And it was really sort of a blur the fact
that I was having children, that I was working full
(14:12):
time that I was married. I think all the fun
most people have in their twenty thirties in thirties, I'm
having now in my fifties. But my focus in those
days was really just how do I keep succeeding so
that I can't support my family?
Speaker 4 (14:29):
And you weren't a job that I'm imagining had kind
of unpredictable hours and unpredictable focus, Like if a crisis
came up, you would have to drop we know, wherever
you were with the family and run towards it. How
did you manage that?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, well, I was really the person who was mainly
supporting our family, and so my ex husband, my ex husband,
now he had a job, but he was able to
be home most of the time with the kids, and
that was also, I think a little bit unheard of
back then. So he started out making sure that his job,
because I was paid more, that his job was more
(15:03):
conducive to childcare and staying home on paternity leave and
picking kids up from school, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
So you were doing incredibly well in your career, your
kids are growing. In two thousand and eight, you were
named to pr Week's forty under forty list and in
the same year you decided to leave to stay home
with your kids. So tell us more about that decision.
And I mean, what was that juxtavision? Like, you know,
you're the top of your field and you say, you
(15:31):
know what, it's not for me right now.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
It's sort of a pattern in my life where I
always try to go out on top, but I ended
up divorcing in my early thirties. When you get married
at twenty three, you don't really marry the person you
would probably marry in your thirties, which is why I've
encouraged all my kids to wait until they're thirty to
get married. We have a wonderful relationship. I think Gwyneth
(15:56):
Paltrow would call it conscious uncoupling. You know, we've been
able to parent our kids together for the last couple
of decades very well. But we just realized at a
certain point that we were not going to have the
marriage that either of us wanted. And so after we divorced,
I ended up meeting my now husband and remarrying. And
(16:18):
he had two older children in high school and college,
and I had children in elementary and middle school, so
it was a very complex dynamic. You know, we wanted
to make sure that our family felt like a family.
We wanted our kids to come together, and I just
knew there was no way that I could keep working
full time and do that, and it seemed like a
(16:40):
good time to take a break, and so I just
decided I would step back from the day to day,
always imagining that it would be about a five year
break and that I would certainly go back into the
workforce full time.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
What I love about Shannon's story is how she speaks
openly and honestly about putting her personal life and her
family first. When I made the decision to leave my
career in politics to be more present with my family,
I felt a sense of shame around it, as if
that reason wasn't good enough, But Shannon was steadfast in
trusting herself and her decisions.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I was much more concerned about wanting to make sure
that my kids had someone home when they came home
from school, that I was helping them through the divorce
and remarriage, that I was getting to know my husband's kids,
and also that I was spending time with my new husband.
You know, we had both been married before, and we
(17:35):
wanted to make sure that the same things that got
in the way of our first marriages didn't get in
the way of our second marriage. So that was really
my priority. And my husband was working full time. I
had a little bit of a luxury to say, Okay,
I can put this on the back burner and go
back when I'm ready, but always believing that because of
my personality, because of the career I had created, I
would go back.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Talk to us about the moment it clicked for you
to take action again against gun violence. Had it been
about five years for you at that point.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I had been home almost exactly five years, and in fact,
I had started looking at jobs. I had started sending
out my resume, and it was a very cold day
in Indiana, December fourteenth, twenty twelve. I had just dumped
like five huge baskets of laundry out on the bed
in my primary bedroom. As you can imagine, like laundry
(18:26):
is a full time job when you have five kids,
and I was just I was going to have CNN
on the background while I fulded close and suddenly there
was this breaking news chirn that there was an active
shooter inside in elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. I had
never heard of Newtown, Connecticut. But I knew based on
the footage I was seeing of people in the parking
lot and families crying, and these reporters who were already
(18:51):
on the scene, that this was horrific.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
Any hooks cool, I think there's somebody shooting in here,
a New Hook school.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Okay, what makes you think that?
Speaker 5 (19:02):
Because somebody's got I thought a glimpse of somebody they're
running down.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
If she thinks that so much?
Speaker 8 (19:10):
The Mental Report, I'm Rebecca Jarvis with the latest on
the deadly shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut,
the Sandy Hook School, and it is turning out to
be worse than anyone could have imagined.
Speaker 9 (19:22):
One fifteen asked everybody to sit down, and they said
that it was a tragic day in Newtown today and
twenty children were killed.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Tell me little girl was gone.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
There was so much panic and confusion when that announcement
was whatever was about to unfold was going to sear
the psyche of Americans. So I'm sure, like so many
people listening, you know, I just kind of sat down
where I was that day and I just watched this
tragedy unfold for hours and hours and hours and I
(20:02):
was inconsolable. It's still unfathomable, even though it shouldn't because
there have been so many mascul shootings since. But you
know that twenty children and six educators were slaughtered inside
in American elementary school in seconds. Because this, you could
call him a man, but he's really he was barely
a man who had easy access to a weapon of war.
(20:26):
I went to bed that night, I woke up the
next morning, and I'm not even sure I can explain
to you the rage I felt, which is sort of
a common denominator in my life, Like my go to
emotion is anger pretty much for anything good or bad.
And I was so angry that I didn't really know
what to do with it. I had to channel it,
and I thought, okay, I'll join something like Mother's against
(20:48):
drunk driving, but for gun safety, that's got to exist.
Mad was so influential to me as a teen in
the eighties growing up. You know, they used to park
the cars, the crumpled cars full of victims block still
like in front of your high school, to say like
this could happen to you if you drink and drive,
which just was like very impactful, and I thought, there's
(21:08):
got to be a group of moms who are doing
this for gun safety. You know, I'm a mom of five.
That's how this issue speaks to me. It was in
an elementary school. I've got kids in an elementary school.
So I went in my kitchen and I looked for
this organization, and I could not find anything like it.
I found some think tanks, mostly run by men. I
found some one off city and state organizations mostly run
(21:29):
by men. Like I wanted to be part of a
badass army of women like I had seen when I
was growing up in Rochester, New York, who I think
are the special sauce of forcing change in this country.
I had seventy five Facebook friends. I was not exactly
a social media phenomenon, and I just thought I know
how to start a Facebook page. I'd actually just recently
(21:49):
learned how to start a new Facebook page for like
a business or a brand. So I created it in
my kitchen and I called it one Million Moms for
Gun Control. And it was like lightning in a bottle.
The direct messages, the texts, the emails, the calls. Like
I didn't think I'd be a public figure. All my
information was out there to contact me, and so what
(22:09):
I thought was an online conversation very quickly became an
offline organization.
Speaker 10 (22:16):
Market market moms demand action, not politicians. It started as
a Facebook group of concerned moms and has transformed into
a grassroots campaign with a presence.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
So how did you decide what the steps were or
the information was that you were going to be providing
to all of these people who were joining your one
million moms group.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
I had absolutely no plan, to be clear. I just
was so angry that I felt I had to act.
But there were so many other women who felt the
exact same way that day. You know, if you talk
to people, they walked out of their jobs the day
of the sany Hook School shooting because they knew they
had to be doing more on this issue, or they
felt an urgency to be with their kids. It kind
(23:00):
of made anything else you were thinking about feel insignificant
because of that. So many women that day in the
days after came to me and said, I want to
do this too, I want to do it where I live.
Let me help you. The skill set I brought to
the table with storytelling and communications and messaging, but I
(23:21):
needed web developers and I needed strategists, and I needed organizers,
and I needed litigators and trademark lawyers like you name it.
These women came and they brought their skills to me
and said, I want to help you in any way
I can. So it was really this community effort to
create our strategy and our plan that I would say,
(23:46):
you know, started to solidify in the days and the
weeks that winter. I mean, we showed up in mass
all over the country on January twenty sixth at marches
and rallies, and I kind of thought, Oh, this is
what we do. We're going to show up. But legislative
sessions started just two months after the Sandyek school shooting,
and then it became apparent, oh no, we actually need
(24:07):
to show up in state houses where the gun extremists
have been writing all the policies that are resulting in
these mas school shootings. So it all happened very very quickly,
but only because of this huge amount of support that
I had from complete strangers all over the country.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
When we come back, Shannon talks about early lessons Moms
Demand Action learned after losing the vote on universal background
checks just a few months after founding, just months after
the Sandy Hook shooting, Congress was poised to vote on
(24:47):
a universal background check bill. It was a bill that
I actually worked on in my pre pivot days, and
so we.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Put a lot of our time and attention towards supporting
the passage of this bill. I can remember going to
the White House, I can remember standing behind the pres
during press conferences. We thought for sure that this was
going to pass. Right after twenty six people are killed
in an elementary school, like, Congress isn't gonna act. Of course,
that's not going to happen. They're going to do the
right thing. It may sound like it's close, but surely
(25:15):
Congress will pass this legislation. And I was in the
Senate gallery when it failed by a handful of votes
in the Senate that March, including some Democratic senators who
voted against it.
Speaker 11 (25:29):
The order of the Senate the vote on this vote.
The a'sr fifty four. The na's are forty six. Under
the previous order requiring sixty votes to the adoption of
this amendment. The amendment is not agreed to.
Speaker 12 (25:44):
My part is A deal to expand background checks was
defeated just moments ago with bi partisan opposition. It was
one in a series of votes, all amendments to a
larger piece of legislation that is now unlikely to end
up on President Obama's desk anytime soon, with more from
this that we're doing now.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
And then I can remember going over to Starbucks, the
Starbucks in DC near Congress and thinking to myself, like, oh,
we just had a huge failure. If we can't do this,
maybe we can't do anything. Maybe the country isn't ready
for this to happen, and are we wasting our time?
And I was getting ready to write a statement and
(26:22):
I didn't know what that statement should say in response
to this bill failing. And at the same time, I
was getting all these texts and these dm from volunteers
across the country who were saying, it's okay, my governor
wants to pass gun safety legislation or my lawmakers want
to act in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. And then
(26:43):
at the same time, I was getting messages from volunteers
that were saying, my governor, my lawmakers actually want to
loosen our laws. So that's why it's even more important
than we stick around. So that's how we decided to
keep going, which actually became our mantra as an organization,
and many of our volunteers have had that tattoo on them,
this idea that we have to loose forward, that we
(27:03):
are going to have a lot of losses. And one
of the things that loss taught us was if we
could peel Democrats away on this issue, we would eventually win.
Because what happened was the NRA gave A ratings to
all the lawmakers who voted against that background check bill,
and these Democrats who voted with them to protect their
(27:25):
A rating learned a really important lesson that next election cycle,
which is with friends like the NRA, who needs enemies.
The na went in and invested millions of dollars in
their competitors, their Republican competitors. Not a single one of
the Democratic senators who voted against that bill, which was
called the Mansion Toomy Bill, still has their seat. So
what Democrats realized was we can vote with our constituents,
(27:45):
We can vote our conscience and still keep our jobs
because we have this army of women in red shirts
who will support us.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Around that same time you started to practice yoga and Buddhism.
Around the same time of that founding was that can
you explain what your headspace was that all of this
change is happening for you so quickly, and how you
made these decisions, like how they interacted with one another.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
There was so much change in my life. I think
I was just forty one years old when the Santay
Hook School shooting happened, and as you said, I had
recently practiced started practicing Buddhism. I was training to become
a yoga teacher, like I was living sort of this
very zen, stereotypical Midwestern white woman life. And it's a
(28:31):
little bit cliched, but it was also incredibly important to
who I became as a leader because all of the
tenets of Buddhism, like the eightfold path and just right
speech and right action. It helped me, I think to
maybe the overarching thing here is that it helped me
(28:51):
keep my ego in check and to realize that this organization,
this work was not about me. It was not even
about my leadership. It was out the volunteers and the
survivors who came into this space. It's the same thing
that helped keep me kind and compassionate online. It's the
same thing that helped me realize, you know, our message
(29:13):
has to be broadly appealing, that we have to be
emboldening and empowering women. And so I think the two
things were incredibly important to one another. And I kind
of look back and see my leadership of Mom's to
Man action as part of my practice right to follow
that eightfold path that Buddhism lays out for me.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
I mean, as someone who's been you know, like in
the weeds on this issue for a decade, like what
is realistic? Like should what can we actually hope for?
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Well, I think it's important to remember that we actually
have accomplished so much right. We've passed over five hundred
good gun laws, everything from background checks to red flag laws,
to disarming domestic abusers to secure storage requirements. We've also
stopped the Enemies Agenda ninety percent of the time every
year for the last decade. That's preventing teachers from being armed,
(30:06):
allowing guns inside our schools. But also we've had a
seismic shift in American politics on this issue. As I mentioned,
a quarterball Democrats in Congress had an A rating from
the NRA when I started doing this work. Today not
one does, and in fact, fifteen Republicans voted for the
bipartisan Saber Communities Act that passed last summer. It was
the first federal legislation on gun safety and a generation
(30:29):
to be signed into law by a president. So all
of these things are unbelievable that they've happened in under
a decade. You don't see that on many political issues.
And it's also how these issues play out. You know,
the idea that you're going to have wholesale, significant change
overnight is not realistic. I think incrementalism gets a dirty
(30:52):
is seen as a dirty word sometimes, but it's what
leads to revolutions. If you learn how to play the
long game, and you show up over and over again,
you will evenge will he win? And there's certainly a
lot more that has to be done on this issue
going forward at a state level, at a federal level.
But I think the fact that we've built this foundation
means that when we elect a majority of gun sense advocates,
(31:15):
we can have pretty quick change. I'll give you an example.
I mean in Virginia, which was a very red state
until it flipped in twenty nineteen, we elected a gun
sense trifecta. We've passed over a dozen good gun laws
in that state, and even though there's a Republican governor now,
none of that progress has been rolled back because it's
what the people want and they're holding their lawmakers accountable.
(31:36):
And we've elected now gun sense trifectas in places like
Massachusetts and Michigan and Minnesota, and those are the places
where we are passing strong gun laws. So we have
to keep building the foundation and electing the lawmakers who
will do what citizens want.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
Shannon truly sees the issue as the multifaceted issue. It
is something she says she learned in part from Congresswoman
Lucy Macbeth.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Introduced to Lucy Macbeth in the spring of twenty thirteen,
her son, Jordan Davis, a black teen, was shot and
killed in a Florida gas station by a white man
who thought Jordan's music was too loud. And that happened
just weeks before the San Hook school shooting, which I
don't think I even heard about. And when I was
connected to Lucy, I just realized that she was such
a light and was so important to this movement, and
(32:24):
I remember saying to her like, can you be a spokesperson?
Which you know, this was just after starting mom'ster Man Action.
I didn't have any money to give her. I didn't
have any other spokespeople. I didn't even know what that meant,
but she said yes. And really, the whole reason our
Florida chapter started was to support Lucy during the two
trials of her son's murderer. The first one was a mistrial,
and then Lucy became a colleague. We hired her to
(32:47):
work on this issue, particularly as it pertained to religious communities,
and then she eventually decided to run for office. But
the role that Lucy has played in my life and
in the development of Mom's Manact that was so important
was that she was the person who came to me
and said, you can't just care about school shootings. You
can't just care about mass shootings. You know, I'm so
(33:08):
grateful to have this opportunity to speak about my cause
and my son, but when I do that, it's mostly
to white women. And if we don't diversify our volunteer
base and our own internal leadership, we will not succeed,
like we will not last into perpetuity. And really made
it her mission to help me do that with Mom's
me in Action, which I think we've been successful doing.
Speaker 6 (33:30):
A Democratic Congresswoman Lucy Macbeth took her gut renting tragedy,
the murder of her son Jordan, and made it her
mission to prevent other mothers from enduring the same agony.
Speaker 9 (33:41):
Here, everything I.
Speaker 5 (33:42):
Had done to protect him, it wasn't good enough. She
didn't matter because he was a young plat maile and
was simply because of the color of biscuit.
Speaker 6 (33:53):
She redirected her pain into purpose became active in the
gun control group Mom's Demand.
Speaker 5 (34:00):
I started speaking out about Jordan's tragedy. Any person that
would allow me to speak or tell my story, I
That's what I did. But this isn't an issue that's
just facing black mothers, although it happens to women who
look like me far too often. This is an American
(34:22):
crisis and a public safety issue.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
School shootings and mass shootings are about one percent of
the gun violence in this country, and it's what gets
so many of us off the sidelines. And I think
my role as a white woman has been to say
to these other white women and also some men, I
understand you're afraid. I understand you want to protect your kids,
but we have to look at this as the complex
(34:46):
issue that it is, and it deserves holistic solutions. It's
not just an assault weapons ban. It's not hardening schools.
It's keeping guns out of schools in the first place.
But it's also background checks. It's also storming domestic abusers.
It's also unlocking dollars for community violence intervention programs. Right,
gun violence is happening everywhere all the time. One hundred
(35:08):
and twenty people are shot and killed every day, hundreds
more are wounded. That's a lot of mass shootings in
one day in America that aren't happening inside schools. So
I think it's first of all, understanding the issue, understanding
the data behind the solutions, advocating for more than just
your own security and your own kids protection, and realizing
(35:29):
that you have to find a piece of the work
and take it on. I realize we don't lead single
issue lives, but I am a single issue voter. If
you don't support gun safety, you're not getting my vote,
and that is how we affect change.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
I live in a Republican congressional district, and over the summer,
my friends and I started a Mom's Demand chapter. We
started one that we didn't have in our talent and
I would love to take credit for this. I did
not start it. My friend came to me, is that
I think that we should. I think that we should
do this, And we've been organizing a bunch of moms
in our schools since, but we're starting from scratch. So
(36:02):
give us advice, like how should we be thinking about this,
How should we prioritize our time, Like how do we
feel like we're making progress enough to keep people engaged?
Because it is going to be a log paddle. I
think it's first setting the table and explaining that to people.
People get involved in activism, especially young people, which we
need right We need their desire for significant overnight change
(36:25):
to force politicians. We need their voices, we need the
way they advocate differently to be at the table. But
at the same time, we need to have a realistic
expectation of what we can accomplish. We aren't going to
have this happen in the next year or two years.
We have to have people understand that what they're doing
is building a foundation that we can work on. What
(36:46):
we want is for all lawmakers to be on the
right side of this issue, regardless of political party. So
I think that is this idea of keep going. You
may lose, you're going to learn from those losses and
win the next time. I think it's understanding the context
of history and the fact that we are getting Republicans
to vote the right way on this issue, and that
if they don't, we have to hold them accountable. Or
(37:06):
it looks as though there's no accountability for being on
the side of gun extremism. But mostly it's find a
piece of this work that you're passionate about and commit
to it. It can be cultural, like handing out secure
storage information at a farmer's market. It can be electoral,
like knocking doors during election season. It can be legislative.
Maybe you're going to show up at a gun bill
(37:28):
hearing at the state House. I think it's Alice Walker
who said activism is the rent I pay to live
on the planet. And if we are concerned about this issue,
if we are worried not just about our kids' safety,
but the safety of our communities, the safety of our country,
the safety of our democracy, which guns makes vulnerable, then
we are obligated to keep showing up and to keep
(37:49):
doing the work.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
If you're angry, frustrated, and heartbroken.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
Let me hear you say a not very poster board.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Yeah, raise if you're sign a little bit. Anna ev
Era carried the sixth letter word. Our mom made it
because she is part of this group and wants to
prevent gun violence.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Their mom, Rebecca mork Is.
Speaker 8 (38:12):
The Limanned Action held a gun violence awareness event in
honor of ware Orange.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
This event for Change the Maryland Chapter A Mom's the
Man Action heading to Annapolis tomorrow pushing for stricter gun laws.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
W leming r to do is Jif Morgan, So, what
is one thing in retrospective, like doing the whole retrospective
looking back, what is one thing that at the time
you felt like was a real low point for you
and now you see it as having having really launched
the success that you've had.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Oh, there's there. I mean, there's so many of those
different inflection points. But I would say, as so many
women say, the election of Donald Trump. You know, I
really thought that would be the moment that the NA
came into its power. I don't know if you remember,
but Donald Trump one of the first things he did
was in Wayne Lapierre, the CEO of the NRAA, to
(39:02):
sit in on one of his roundtables about guns. The
day of the Sandy Hook School shooting commemoration, invited Wayne
Lapierre to the White House Christmas Party, like it looked
like this was going to be the nre's time to shine,
and in fact, thanks in large part to the work
of Mom's Man Action volunteers, the NRA lost political power
(39:23):
and wealth and unbelievable amounts during Donald Trump's administration, in
part because gun sales went down. No one is afraid
at that moment until COVID that their guns were going
to be taken away, but also because Americans started to
see through the corruption and the lies of the so
called nonprofit So I really thought that that was going
(39:46):
to be the beginning of the end for maybe gun safety,
but in fact it was for gun lobbyists.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
After over a decade at the helm of Moms Demand Action,
Shannon stepped down as CEO, passing the torch to the
next generation.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You know, I never saw the role a founder as infinite.
I saw it as very finite that my job was
to build a space for people to come together. But
I knew that it I would eventually leave. I didn't
want to do this my whole life. But also I
didn't think that served the organization, and I can remember
standing in the Rose Garden when President Biden signed the
Bipartisan Saber Communities Act into law, thinking, Oh, this is it.
(40:22):
This is the bookend to my activism as the founder
of Mom's Demand Action, and it was time for me
to step back. And we had this amazing woman in
place in our organization who was in charge of movement building,
Angela Farrell Zabala. We hired her from Planned Parenthood a
few years earlier, and I just think it's so key
to the evolution of the organization. You know, I started
this organization as a white suburban mom who's afraid her
(40:45):
kids weren't safe in their school. Angela is a black
queer woman, a mom of four in Washington, d C.
Who has seen gun violence very differently in her community.
And I'm incredibly grateful for her service. And I know
that she will take the organization in a direction that
I wouldn't necessarily have known to do, and I think
(41:05):
that benefits the organization.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
So for you, let's talk about what's next. Which office
are you going to run for?
Speaker 1 (41:13):
I really enjoy helping other women run for office. I'm
on the board of Emerge America where we train and
help women successfully run for office, progressive women all across
the country, and to support my friends who are in Congress,
like Lucy McBeth, who is a Mom's man, actual volunteers
now congresswomen in Georgia. So I don't have any imminent
(41:34):
plans to run for office. I'm actually writing a book
right now, which takes up most of my waking hours.
But I will never not be involved in helping other
women run because what I have seen over and over
again is that when women are given a seat at
the table, everything changes. Everything the issues that they focus on,
(41:54):
the lives of the people they serve, even the decorum
and the dignity with which we make laws changes when
we elect women.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
Well, thank you so much Shannon for coming on and
sharing your story, and I promise that we will not
disappoint you with our local Mom's Demand Action chapter. We
will make you proud.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
I promise I'll check in on it.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Ever.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
The passionate advocate, Shannon continues to support and encourage women
through her substack Playing with Fire, which encourages us to
find the spark inside us. Every week, she shares insights
on what she's gained through her eleven years of activism, leadership,
and women's advocacy. Be sure to subscribe and follow because
she just might be coming out with a book next year.
(42:39):
You can also follow her on Twitter, where she is
a self proclaimed keyboard warrior, at Shannon R. Watts or
on Instagram also at Shannon R.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Watts.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots.
Speaker 13 (42:52):
If you made it this far, you're a true pivoter,
so thanks for being part of this community. I hope
you enjoyed this episode, and if you did leave us
a rating, please be nice tell your friends about us.
To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram
at she Pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our
newsletter where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content,
or on our website she Pivots the Podcast talk to
(43:15):
You Next Week.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Special thanks to the she Pivots team, Executive producer Emily
eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur Hannah Cousins,
Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator Madeline Sonovak,
and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock.
Speaker 13 (43:36):
I endorse she Pivots
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