Our very own Carla Wallace accepted a Torch award from the Louisville Democratic Party at this year's Women Deliver Democracy event. Here are her remarks:

​ I appreciate being here with sister honorees and ALL of you. Women leading Resistance. YES! Thank you for having me. Big Shout out to my LSURJ crew in the room. I see you.

All of us here already know how serious this moment is. Authoritarianism is stalking the land. This is NOT a pendulum swing. And it is not just Trump. Authoritarian forces have deep roots in a system that puts profits before people, and uses racism (and fashions it to include misogyny and transphobia) to divide those of us who have a SHARED interest, in a society where ALL of us don't just survive, but flourish.
  
Everything we care about is on the line.

And here is the hard part. The heartbreaking part. The Democratic Party, in the hands of the centrists, helped grease the rails that got us here. 

YES. By supporting neo liberalism—turning so much over to the unfettered cruelty of corporate greed–the Democratic Party has helped shred the safety net, undermine unions and wages, let our earth be plundered, fund genocide and war. Millions of people have been devastated by so-called welfare reform, tax cuts for the rich, bail outs for the banks. The 1994 Crime Bill (yep, Clinton) has driven mass incarceration. We lock up more of our people–overwhelmingly poor, disproportionately Black…than any other country in the world. KY alone incarcerates people at a higher rate than ALL but one other country in the world.  

All of this has led to the biggest gap EVER between those at the top and everyone else. And it's left too many white voters hurting and looking for someone to blame. Immigrants, Black people, Trans People, Women. The forces in charge rode ALL that, ALL the way to the White House.

EVERY TIME we tack to the right, the so-called WINNING strategy -  and support candidates who stand for nothing but more of the same - we collude in our own downfall.

I know that there are those of you in this room working to shift all this. I appreciate you. I encourage you. It's not easy.

Speaking of which….Should we have to beg this Party’s mayoral candidate to stop giving breaks to industries in Southwest Louisville making our people sick, and die? Should 35-year-old Tyrah Adams have died in an alley where cleaning it mattered more than her life? A mayor who allows someone with a tail-light out to be ripped from their family, turned over to ICE and possibly die in a detention center? 

We should not have to convince certain Democratic Metro Council people that we do not need to put half a billion or more into a new jail. Let’s invest in what keeps people out of jail–housing, youth programs, non-carceral mental and substance use treatment. And please, call BS (or call me) when they try to tell you we should do both. It is just a cover for funneling those millions to corporate cronies. 

Short story about what is possible when we actually talk with and listen to the voters. In 2023, SURJ threw down in the governor’s race. Over 600 SURJ members on the ground in Kentucky and across the country reached just shy of half a million voters, had over 71,000 conversations, and secured over 10,000 commitments to vote. We talked to voters in majority-white, working class counties, most of them rural, who were either unlikely to vote or unlikely to vote for a Democrat. Everywhere we worked, we won. In 2019, Beshear lost Letcher County. But in 2023, in large part due to our efforts, he won there by 5 points. 

Some of you might be grumbling about DSA or about the Working Families Party. I am a democrat and also a proud member of both. Instead of fighting candidates who understand that a system that puts profits over people is inherently incompatible with democracy, let’s embrace that energy and cheer them on. 

At this moment, we need a broad united front against fascism that includes ALL of us.

None of us get the luxury of sitting this out. That means we have to vote for those democrats who might not (yet) be the peoples’ champions we know they should be. But in this unity, must also be the seeds of reckoning.

Kentucky was BLUE once you all. Unless there are some serious shifts in this party, it never will be again. I think it is possible. I believe in you. Let’s grow an agenda that shows up with the people again, not with the developers, the prison builders, the polluters—but with the people—ALL the people.

Together, there is so much that is possible for Kentucky and beyond.

​At Louisville SURJ we believe in system change. To make change at the system level, we need a lot more people power. Elections are one place where we can engage people in a conversation about what kind of community we need and want. We focus on the issues that we are engaged with in our campaigns, like immigrant justice and de-carceration, and build a broader base of people ready to act for change.

The LSURJ Community Defense Network leads the work to accompany vulnerable communities being targeted by ICE, or LMPD, facing repression for exercising the right to protest, or attacked for being transgender. We are also fighting for alternatives to incarceration, and against the building of a $500,000,000 to two billion dollar new jail. We want funding for noncarceral mental health, eviction prevention and affordable housing instead.

The Mayor, Metro Council and Judges have a lot of power over all these issues. We need people in those positions who will actually do what is needed.

These candidates understand why camp clearings must stop, why we need transitional housing as well as truly affordable housing. They agree that a new jail will not solve our problems, and why we must prioritize investing in noncarceral care and housing. These candidates are committed to, and in several cases, come from the communities most on the margins. They have shown that they will fight for ALL of our neighbors, and for ALL of us to have what we need to care for our families and be safe from carceral and/or police violence.  

Our process of endorsement included a survey to candidates about these issues, and an examination of their track record on listening to and engaging the community, and their relationship to the work to expand justice for all.  

Based on this process, and the record and commitments to a community where everyone matters, LSURJ presents the following:

Mayor Shameka Parrish Wright

Metro District 3  Shaun Spencer
Metro District 5 Aprile Hearn
Metro District 9 Andrea Parr
Metro District 11 Melina Hettiaratchi
Metro District 17 Merideth Booth
Metro District 21 Betsy Ruhe

Judicial Elections will be in the November general election and we will bring those endorsements to you this Fall.

Where do I vote? https://jeffersoncountyclerk.org/wheredoivote/

General Voting Information https://elections.jeffersoncountyclerk.org/

​In person and Absentee Voting https://elections.jeffersoncountyclerk.org/inhouse_absentee/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, April 2, 2026

FROM: Black Leadership Coalition of Kentucky (BLACK), Fairness Campaign, VOCAL-KY, Louisville Showing Up for Racial Justice (LSURJ), ACLU-KY, Louisville Urban League

FOR MORE INFORMATION: louisvillesurj.org and 502 558-7556
Katelyn Hall, a member of our Louisville community, is dead at the hands of Louisville police after Katelyn’s family called them for help in a crisis. While sidestepping questions about consequences for her killers, Mayor Craig Greenberg says that, in the future, LMPD needs to do better in response to mental health calls.

We have heard over and over from the mayor that LMPD will do better, but the department’s actions reinforce the same institutional racism embedded in the way policing functions, and now another Louisvillian has died at the hands of those who were supposed to help her.

​There is no evidence of the changes the mayor has repeatedly promised. As the community mourns another young woman senselessly killed, we remember Breonna Taylor and the lack of consequences for her killers or the systems that trained and shielded them. We also remember the many others who preceded and continue to follow her.

According to news reports, Hall was threatening to harm herself, not police or anyone else, when police shot her. How can any emergency responder justify killing a person to keep them from killing themselves?

We demand that the mayor bring the community a full accounting of what happened, the changes he claims to be making to address calls for help during a mental health crisis, and what consequences there will be for the officers involved.