The co-founder of Reddit resigned from the platform’s board, asking to be replaced with a black candidate amid massive protests over police brutality and racial injustice.
Alexis Ohanian, who co-founded Reddit in 2005, said he would donate his future gains from his stock in the company to causes that help the black community. He pledged $1 million to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights campaign.
“It is long overdue to do the right thing. I’m doing this for me, for my family, and for my country,” he wrote on his website on Friday. “I’m writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: ‘What did you do?’”
He is married to tennis superstar Serena Williams, and the couple has a 2-year-old daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.
Ohanian called on other leaders to follow his lead.
“I believe resignation can actually be an act of leadership from people in power right now. To everyone fighting to fix our broken nation: Do not stop,” he said.
Reddit is one of the most-visited websites on the internet and has attracted hundreds of millions of monthly active users. Ohanian’s exit comes after some popular Reddit communities protested the platform’s hate speech policies.
Hundreds of protests have erupted across the country after George Floyd, an unarmed black man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
