The National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) elected long-term member Deidre Malone as its 15th President during its 36th Biennial Conference in Richmond, Virginia last weekend.
Malone, the two-time NWPC Tennessee Caucus President, follows outgoing president Donna Lent who served eight years in the leadership role.
“It’s an honor to follow former president Donna Lent who has been extremely dedicated to NWPC and done a great deal to take its work to another level,” said Memphian Malone, founder of the Carter Malone Group, a well-known marketing firm.
“I look forward to serving with our new board of directors as we build a case across this country to elect pro-choice women to all levels of government in 2024 and years beyond.
“Women in this country need equality and we are going to spend the next two years continuing to fight for it and electing women to office who will fight for women’s rights.”
Malone ran on a platform of increasing the national profile of the National Women’s Political Caucus through increased brand awareness, strategic growth, leadership development, candidate recruitment, training and support and alliance building.
“We have to be intentional about identifying pro-choice women to run for office,” said Malone. “With the Dobbs decision allowing states to determine healthcare choices for women, we continue to go backwards, rather than forward. We have some work to do, not just in Tennessee, but across the country.”
NWPC has caucuses in 12 states with plans to expand in the next two years.
“After my election as president, I held my first board meeting and discussed a focus on expanding into at least three states a year,” said Malone. “The National Vice President of Membership is Ruby Powell Dennis, and the Vice President of Communications is (Memphian) Gale Jones Carson. Tennessee is well represented on the National NWPC Board.”
At the convention, young women from Missouri, Virginia, California, Virginia, and New York were in attendance.
“The Missouri Women’s Political Caucus brought a group of high school and college students to the convention to learn about the political process and participated as full delegates at the convention. I was honored to have Memphian and Sewanee of the South junior Dottie Ferriera nominate me for the presidency,” Malone said.
“Young women are our future and succession planning is important to the life of any organization.”
The convention honored the Tennessee Three State Rep. Gloria Johnson as a Woman of Courage. Malone introduced Johnson, who is a former NWPC Tennessee president. Other honorees include former New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and NWPC Virginia President Andrea Miller.
Others newly elected officers are:
*Leta Schlosser, Vice President of Political Planning and Appointments;
*Gale Jones Carson, Vice President of Communications;
*Ruby Powell-Dennis, Vice President of Membership, and
*Dawn Lott, Vice President of Development.
Some of the founders of the National Women’s Political Caucus include Gloria Steinem, former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Fannie Lou Hamer and more than 300 other women.
The NWPC, founded in 1971, is a national, multi-partisan, grassroots membership organization dedicated to identifying, recruiting, training, and supporting pro-choice women candidates for elected and appointed office.
