DELTA DIVA DOMINATES

Jotaka Eaddy brings Visionary Message to Metroplex

By Cheryl Smith
Texas Metro News

Jotaka Eaddy is a name that will be shared with her descendants centuries from now, just like today historians call Harriet, Sojourner, Shirley, and Rosas.

She will be just “Jotaka,” but there’s so much that goes with the name because having someone like this young warrior on the battlefield, in the boardrooms, and C-Suites ensures that there will be a brighter future for all.

Eaddy will be in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Sunday, March 9, 2025, keynoting the area-wide Founders Day Celebration for her sorority, 112- year-old Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. at the Irving Convention Center, 500 Las Colinas Blvd. in Irving, TX, at 1:00 p.m.

If her presence around the country is any indication, it will be like having one of the many ancestors who have poured into her, breathing the same energy and love as she brings a message for all ages before a sold-out audience of more than 1,500 sorority members, elected officials, and organizational and community leaders; as well as many of those who support her brainchild, “Win With Black Women.”

According to one of the chairpersons of the event, Amye Hollins, the Deltas wanted someone who was “cutting edge and on the forefront of what is happening in the country and around the world,” while also focusing on the theme, “From Vision to Victory: Moving Forward with Fortitude.”

Eaddy’s work precedes her.

Hailing from a “little town in South Carolina,” Eaddy was nurtured and prepared, some say, for just a time like these.

Spiritually-grounded, socially-conscious and highly-educated, Eaddy is the brains behind Win with Black Women, where she mobilized Black women to focus on ensuring that Black Women were included in the ever-changing landscape.

Long before that initiative developed into a moment before evolving into a movement; Jotaka Eaddy was making moves.

Surrounded by women, like her mom and her grandmother who sowed seeds that ensured there was a confident young Jotaka who stood in front of the entire congregation, presenting her Easter speeches; a leader at Johnsonville High School, then fast forward 25 years later, 30 years later, when I’m giving a speech before the United Nations, I’m nervous, but I’m not so nervous because I had that confidence, and it was instilled in me in an early age that I belonged in any space.”

What difference positive reinforcement can make.

“When I think about what really got me started or what it was, it really was growing up around people who saw something in me before I even saw it in myself,” she said. “And it started with my parents, my mother, and my father, but really my mother, who told me that I ‘could do and be anything that I wanted to be.’ She always told me to ‘reach for the moon because if I slipped I will always be amongst the stars, because that’s where I belong.’”

She continued,  “And so, when someone tells you that over and over again you begin to believe it. And also my church was a very important aspect, and early on, Black women always played a role, and so subconsciously, I learned to appreciate the role that Black women played in the community.”

For Eaddy, they were leaders.

“I watched Black women lead in our church, and in my community. I watched them cheer others on in the community.”

 Easter speech, and my grandmother would make me stay up all night and memorize it. And now I have such a deep appreciation for it, because, you know, when I would get up, and I would perform that Easter speech, and my grandmother said, You just do it like you feel it, and I literally thought I was like, on stage, and I would give that Easter speech, and I would get a standing ovation, and they were like, ‘oh, baby, oh, we can’t wait to hear your speech, but that gave me a level of confidence.

That confidence led Eaddy to always be prepared, to earn the space she was in — no impostor syndrome here!

And with that confidence comes power, she realized.

“What if we simply knew our power? If we simply understood our power, if we knew,” she asked, elaborating about the importance of voting. “They are spending billions of dollars to diminish our power. It should be just the loudest alarm ever that all we simply have to do is exercise and use our vote. It would certainly make a massive difference in our day-to-day lives, all the way from who’s representing our children on school boards to who’s leading this country.”

 “And now we’re in a situation where we have an administration and outside corporate interests that are literally running our country and doing so in a way that benefits them, and continues to push those of us who are marginalized to even further margins.”
The same spirit Eaddy exudes was present on her college campus in Columbia. 

“Oh, they knew I was there. I remember when I came onto the campus of the University of South Carolina. I thought I was just going to be a number. I was like, I’m just going to just blend in,” she recalled. 

“I think after one week I was in student government. I was in the University choir, and I was second Vice President of the Association of African American Students, and in the NAACP chapter.”

Her voice then and still today makes her unforgettable. She definitely wasn’t another number.

“When I was on campus, I remember my freshman year being a part of a group of students that was fighting for the University of South Carolina to make Martin Luther King Day a holiday on campus — a day off, and our theme was, it’s a day on, not a day off,” said Eaddy, adding they felt that “we should not have to go to class on that day. It was an opportunity for us to commemorate Dr. King, to do service and to celebrate.”

Of course, they were successful and from there, she and others staged protests in support of African American studies, student funding, and more. 

“I think the most significant work I did as a college student was really speaking out against the Confederate flag at the time when I was on campus and going to school there,” she continued. The Confederate flag literally was hanging just right off of campus, and we would see it walking to and from the State Capitol around downtown.”

Not a sight she cared to have to face and as

a student Senator, she authored legislation, calling for the University’s board “to be bold” and for the flag to be removed. 

The Board then took up the issue, and the University of South Carolina became the first state institution to call for the removal of the flag.

Eaddy pointed out that it took years for that flag to come down, only after the horrific murders of the residents and the parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, “but that was something that was really important to me. To speak truth, to power.”

“And as student body president, also to be a representative to young Black women, that it was possible to be a Black woman, student body president, but also a president that represented all students,” said Eaddy.

And when she takes to the stage on Sunday, attendees are sure to see some of the pride and confidence that exudes as she flashes that signature smile.

And she says she has a lot to smile about.

“That my life would be so enriched. I’m enriched by younger women. That I learned from my peers that I walk with, and so many elders who molded and guided and most importantly loved on me, and so many of my peers,” said the traveler, who loves seeing the world.

“And I think as a result, I’m who I am, and I am a woman that understands the spirit of who we are as a people.”

That spirit comes through when she puts out the call and tens of thousands of Black women (along with other women and some men too) gather on Sunday evenings on their chosen devices; beginning back in 2020 when they said we have to do something about the political landscape that had not been too kind to a devoted constituency, the Black Woman.

“The foundation is incredibly important too,” she explained, asking in the spirit of Sankofa, “where we will go in the future?”

“And on those Sundays, the opportunity to sit with great minds, like the colored girls,  all of us together, moving in unity, but loving on each other, and learning from each other is the grace, is the sisterhood.

“That’s really important, because, as you think of the times that we are going to be approaching, and we, as women, our ability to show grace and sisterhood, and to be together in this moment is empowering. 

She continued, “It’s the love letter that I believe we write to each other from each other consistently, and I believe that particularly in this moment. In time, our ability to come together.

“To bring our collective power together, our great minds together, that is what is going to sustain us. 

“That is what is going to beat back the divisiveness. That is what’s going to beat back the darkness. It is the light. We are the light, and together we create a much brighter light. And I think that we have to hone in on that, and really be force multipliers in this moment.

That is the work she sees from so many, and especially her sorority sisters.

“It has been the most beautiful sisterhood. I love my line sisters (women initiated with her).

 “I love my chapter, and I also am honored to serve on the National Strategic Partnerships Task Force,” she said with a smile. “And so the service of Delta and Delta Women have played an integral part in my life. Starting with my Sunday school teacher, members of my own family, and particularly women in the movement. Both my peers and elders, like Dr. Dorothy Irene Height. I had an opportunity to work with her as well, and so there’s so many Delta women that I watch how they worked, how they moved and was inspired, and those that I only read about like Dr. Mary Mcleod Bethune, who hailed from South Carolina like I did, who was really all about being a connector, bringing different worlds together… and so to be a part of the sorority, its legacy, its richness, its commitment to service and social action, is very much a part of who I am, and I’m honored to be a member of the sorority. I’m honored to serve the sorority, and I’m really looking forward to celebrating.

Lastly, it’s important to note that Eaddy believes in self-care.  She has traveled to more than 60 countries, she cherishes time on the beach as well as getting together for regularly scheduled special dinners with family, friends and especially those ladies, her line sisters — who all sustain one another.

Jotaka Eaddy walks the walk.  From a family that subscribes to and supports the Black Press, to a dominant force in C-Suites and on the forefront of an ever-changing battlefield, this Superb Woman who is the founder and CEO of Full Circle Strategies and navigates around the tech world with ease, is a gift to the world.

Cheryl Smith is the publisher of Texas Metro News, Garland Journal and I Messenger. An NABJ Hall of Famer, the FAMU graduate is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.