Former state rep Kiah Morris has a new job.
Morris, a Democrat from Bennington, was recently named the movement politics director for Rights & Democracy Vermont, a left-leaning nonprofit organization with an office in Burlington.
“We’re really looking at the ways that we can help people move from a place of protest into places of decision-making power,” Morris said Monday of her new full-time position.
“It’s more than just recruitment and training candidates,” Morris said, “it’s building a base and a network as well that will help support folks once they’re in office.”
Morris, elected a state representative from Bennington in 2014, had been Vermont’s only black woman in the Legislature before deciding not to run again in 2018, citing online racial harassment and her husband’s ill health.
Prior to the post with Rights & Democracy, Morris served as the director of the Vermont Coalition on Ethnic and Social Equity in Schools.
Asked if she had concerns about getting involved in politics again, Morris replied, “To be clear, this is not a political position in the sense that I am not seeking elective office for myself or seeking directly to have political power rather than supporting grassroots efforts.”
She added, “It’s going to be more about utilizing the experiences I had and the practical knowledge and wisdom that I’ve gained from that experience to be able to help others navigate what is a rapidly changing world.”
James Haslam, Rights & Democracy executive director, said Monday that the position is a new one for the nearly 5-year-old organization.
“We think of movement politics as a particular kind of approach to political change,” he said. “It’s thinking more holistically about how people can be engaged in participating in democracy through the year.”
The job, he said, involves not only recruiting candidates to run in the upcoming elections, but engaging people in the political process. Haslam said he has worked with Morris since election to office back in 2014.
“She was one of the first people I met with when I went to Bennington starting Rights & Democracy,” he said. “When she applied, we were very excited.”
