Planned Parenthood announced Wednesday it would part ways with Women’s March organizer and co-chair Tamika Mallory due to her ties with anti-Semitic and racist Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
Erika Croxton, vice president of development for Planned Parenthood Northwest and Hawaii, sent an email informing supporters of the abortion provider that Mallory would no longer be the keynote speaker for the annual Seattle luncheon on April 5.
In the email, Croxton said Planned Parenthood rejects all bigotry of those whose intentions are to “undo the progress of the last half century.”
After declaring the nonprofit’s support for the Women’s March, Coxton said the group has decided to “part ways with Tamika Mallory.”
On the website’s page for the event, it says Mallory was a “champion of the civil rights movement” and “advocate for social justice.”
Mallory received backlash for defending her presence at this year’s Saviours’ Day, where Farrakhan spewed his hateful rhetoric in a nearly-four-hour speech.
The Women’s March organizer said she had been attending Saviours’ Day for the past 30 years and that the NOI has played a huge role in her life.
“It is impossible for me to agree with every statement or share every viewpoint of the many people who I have worked with or will work with in the future,” Mallory said. “As I do not wish to be held responsible for the words of others when my own history shows that I stand in opposition to them, I also do not think it is fair to question anyone who works with me, who supports my work and who is a member of this movement because of the ways that I may have fallen short here or in any other instance.”
