Say it loud

With her Tulsa Talks panels, DeVon Douglass uses her voice for change

When I asked DeVon Douglass if she thinks of herself as a community leader, she laughed. 

“Oh, no, no, no. I don’t describe myself as that,” she said. “And I don’t think there’s anybody besides my mother who would.”

Still, it’s hard to deny her seemingly effortless leadership, charisma and magnetism, and it’s little wonder why she would be a natural choice to act as moderator for the Tulsa Talks panels on police violence. 

“No matter where I go, people sometimes look to me, because I’m vocal. I’m not the type of person who’s gonna sit back and let anybody get beat up. I’m a champion of the people … I’m an underdog supporter. I don’t know if I’m a community leader, but I am a community advocate … I believe I have a gift of building bridges.”

Earlier in the evening, when I pulled up to a sandstone office building on Detroit to pick up Douglass for our interview, our happy meeting was torn asunder by a tremendous clatter of grinding metal and shattered glass. Two cars had collided in the intersection behind me, right as Douglass was walking out of the building. 

While I was eager to go ahead and get our interview started, Douglass wanted to check on the drivers to see if they needed help. Without a second thought, she was crossing the street to the site of the crash. After offering the drivers the use of her cellphone and assuring that the passengers weren’t hurt, we retreated back to my car.

It’s this inability to let people suffer without trying to help that recommends her as a leader, even more so than her ease with people and public speaking. And it’s this same desire to help that drove her to get involved in policy rather than take the bar exam following her graduation from the University of Tulsa law school in 2014.

Her choice to change her career path was solidified in 2013 when George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Douglass was interning at Americorps VISTA in New Jersey when she heard the news. 

“I started getting texts and phone calls from people ‘did you hear? Did you hear?’ I turned on the television. I was crying, and I was angry. Like, what could I do? I felt helpless.”

The next day, a co-worker gave her the book “Root and Branch” by Rawn James Jr., which documents the work of Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall leading up to Brown vs. Board of Education.

“The last few lines of the book talk about how we have to destroy racism ‘root and branch’—all of it—not just the parts we can see, not just the parts that are easy to reach … It talks about how if we don’t do it, who will? Then how much more upset would we be collectively and as individuals if the only people doing to work to liberate black people were done by non-black people? That summer really galvanized me.”

As a policy change activist and the Government Relations Chair for the Greenwood Young Professionals Group, Douglass has learned the importance of arming oneself with good information.

“We can compare stories all day … but that belongs around a campfire,” she said. “I believe in the phrase ‘data or it didn’t happen.’ When it comes to legislation, you shouldn’t be basing it off of what feels good or even what hurts. It should be based on facts.”

A few weeks ago, the feelings of despair and helplessness she experienced during the Zimmerman verdict resurfaced following the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Soon after, Douglass moderated the Tulsa Talks panels on police violence, which she organized herself. As a black woman, she sees her voice as particularly vital to her community.

“Black women have always been a part of our own liberation … Women have always led the fight. When we think about people who liberated slaves, we think about Harriet Tubman,” she said.

She explained to me that women of color have a particular challenge, as their race and gender are inextricable from each other in the eyes of other people. In this way, women of color are doubly set upon, but it also makes them more poised to speak for everyone.

“I believe there are black men who are fighting just as hard for our rights, but, more often, you have black women who are willing to do the emotional lifting, who are willing to fight for everyone—and women are tasked with taking care of children.”

As women are often charged with caring for and shaping the worldview of children in the community, she is they are essentially charged with the future of the community.

She mentions two women, Jamalha Rogers and Juliette Jacobs, who helped her cultivate a healthy sense of self-worth. “These women, both of them, said ‘You can change the world.’ It was about believing in myself, that my voice matters.” 

Douglass’s voice does indeed matter, and she’s using it to elevate the voices—and lives—of others, too.

For more from Claire, read her article on comic Marcia Belsky and her blog, "Headless Women of Hollywood."