Mariah Parker
Mariah Parker co-founded the Athens Georgia chapter of the progressive Bernie Sanders-aligned Our Revolution. She is a 26-year-old rapper, PhD student and openly queer black woman. Mariah Parker, won an upset victory for Athens, Georgia, county commissioner, in 2018. She ran on a progressive platform that put racial and economic justice center stage, and won by a razor-thin margin of 13 votes.[1]
Stop Cop City
According to Alex Carson Community members gathered outside of the Georgia Supreme Court on the evening of September 8 2023 to display their opposition to the extreme state repression that was brought upon activists in the movement to Stop Cop City. The crowd of 70 people chanted “Drop the charges now!” and “Cop City will never be built!”. The protest was quickly put together by Community Movement Builders, the Weelaunee Coalition, and other supporting groups following the state RICO indictment earlier this week.
Mariah Parker, an organizer with the Union of Southern Service Workers, stated, “The RICO charges will only set a precedent if we allow them to silence us and crush the movement. That's what they’re for, and if they succeed in that then it will be a tactic folks use to crush movements in other places. So that's why it’s more important than ever for us to continue to fight, stand up, and show that we aren’t afraid of baseless political prosecutions.”
Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders, said in a speech, “It is the strength of the people which will make sure we can say corporations and developers will no longer control how Atlanta builds, how Atlanta divides its resources, and how Atlanta organizes itself. It is only all of us standing together which will stop the city and the state from using its resources against our folks.”[2]
"Jumpstart socialism"
Mariah Parker, Yael Bridge, Franklin Bynum, Cynthia Nixon, John Early, Jamaal Bowman.
Georgia socialists
According to Khalid Kamau:
- And Georgia had no shortage of reasons to hope. Nabilah Islam — Atlanta’s own AOC, who would later be endorsed by her — was opening the Overton window in Gwinnet, the site of 2018’s closest Congressional election. Devin Barrington Ward, a BYP 100 organizer who helped close Atlanta’s Jail and End Cash Bail in the city, was running for State Senate. In suburban Cobb County, Dr. Elizabeth Webster was running against the Republican author of Georgia’s draconian Forced Birthing (fetal heartbeat) bill. Mokah Jasmine Johnson, an anti-racist activist endorsed by the New Georgia Project Action Fund, was headed to flip a Republican-held State House seat in Athens. There were a half-dozen others like these, and more running for re-election; including DSA members Mariah Parker and Renitta Shannon, who received MADSA’s 2019 Douglass-Debs Award after being drug from the well of the Georgia State House while protesting the Forced Birthing Bill.[3]·
DSA
Mariah Parker is involved in Athens Area Democratic Socialists of America.
Our Revolution Athens Area Progressives
Our Revolution Athens Area Progressives held its first meeting Saturday, Aug. 18 2018.
Finding its origins two years ago as a part of commissioner Mariah Parker’s and activist Tommy Valentine’s commission campaigns, Our Revolution’s local chapter officially broke off from the campaigns this June to continue on as a political force in elections to come.
Our Revolution’s first meeting saw members of the organization meet with officers to discuss plans for the upcoming campaign season and what would become the ideals and aspirations of the organization.
Hosted at co-founder and District 2 Commissioner Mariah Parker’s home, some 12 members met in the living room over bagels and conversation before the meeting kicked off.
The meeting was led by the local chapter’s currently elected officers, Communications Director Chris Xavier, Democratic Party Coordinator Caroline Cook and Membership Coordinator Kyky Knight.
Comrades
Philip Tapley, Gabriel Shippy, Mariah Parker.
Gabriel Shippy July 25 2018:
With Tommy Valentine and Mariah Parker.