Civil Rights Institute Names Interim President

BIRMINGHAM, AL — A Birmingham native and national civil rights activist has been named the interim president and chief executive officer at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. DeJuana L. Thompson, founder of Woke Vote and Think Rubix Principal, was introduced in her new role Monday.

Thompson, who first volunteered at BCRI as a youth guide in 1999, will succeed Denise Gilmore, BCRI's former director of transition.

"When I started to think about the opportunity to step into this role, I began to think of the Fred Shuttlesworths, the Rosa Parks all of the Foot Soldiers who stood so we can stand today and I thought to myself, ‘this is the moment that I have been birthed for, just like they were birthed to carry the Civil Rights Movement of their generation,'" Thompson said in a news conference Monday. "I myself along with other organizers and activists and mothers and students were on the frontlines all over this country asking for and demanding justice up against systems we felt were not seeing us and hearing us."

Thompson, political and social strategy consultant, is a co-founding partner with Think Rubix, a creative problem-solving and engagement firm based in Washington, D.C., and Birmingham. Her political experience has included local politics, serving as a committee assistant to the Birmingham City Council, and nationally, as a 2015 Obama Administration presidential appointee and served as senior adviser in the U.S. Small Business Administration.

She also was national deputy director for community engagement and the national African American engagement director for the Democratic National Committee. Through her agency, Woke Vote, she continues political work by engaging, mobilizing and bringing African American voters throughout the South to the polls.

Thompson was honored by Elle, Glamour and BET as one of the top Black female leaders in 2020, received the 2013 Outstanding Alumnus Award from Berea College and was awarded a key to the city of Birmingham in 2010.