Leslie Mac

Leslie MacFadyen, known professionally as Leslie Mac, is a Jamaican-American activist and community organizer. She is a co-founder of the Ferguson Response Network, the co-creator of the Safety Pin Box monthly subscription service, and has created multiple digital campaigns such as #PayBlackWomen and #SlaveryWithASmile.

Career
Mac attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism before she dropped out. She also worked as a trainer helping open the international locations of corporate restaurants chains, and later became an event planner.

In 2014, she began grassroots organizing with the help of Feminista Jones, with whom she organized a National Moment of Silence (#NMOS14) vigil in the wake of Michael Brown's shooting death in Ferguson, MO. Mac then founded the Ferguson Response Network in 2014 to help train people in peaceful protest, and transitioned into full-time organizing. She has helped organized events such as the Reclaim MLK March in Philadelphia on January 20, 2015.

Mac was an activist in the Black Lives Matter of Unitarian Universalism, and helped organize a protest that interrupted a Bernie Sanders rally in Seattle during his campaign to become the Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential election.

She developed the Twitter hashtag #SlaveryWithASmile in January 2016 to protest the publication of a children's book, A Birthday Cake for George Washington, which depicted an enslaved chef baking a cake for George Washington. Authors such as Debbie Reese, Mikki Kendall, and Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas joined the hashtag. The book was removed from circulation by Scholastic on January 17, 2016. 

Together with fellow organizer Marissa Jenae Johnson, she developed Safety Pin Box in 2016, which is a monthly subscription box for "white people striving to be allies in the fight for Black Liberation." The idea was influenced by the popular safety pin concept developed by a woman in the UK who suggested wearing pins as a sign of solidarity to racial minorities after the Brexit vote. Each box offers specific steps white allies can take to engage in anti-racist allyship.

In December 2016 Mac posted on Facebook about racism, and shortly after actor Matt McGorry shared her post on his account in support, Mac's account was banned. After media coverage of the event, Facebook restored her account and stated that the banning had been an error.

Mac created the Twitter hashtag #PayBlackWomen in July 2018 to highlight the racial disparity in pay between Black women and white men. Politicians such as Rep. Barbara Lee and Rep. Yvette Clark tweeted support of the hashtag.

Personal life 
Mac was born and raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York to Jamaican immigrant parents. Mac's goal in life is to uplift people with her words and help to fight for change for the people who have been most effected by racial injustices and more specifically black women in leadership. 

Mac is married and has been with her husband for 20 years.

Projects 

 FRN Tumblr
 Black Podcast Week
 #Toys4Tamir Toy Drive
 Ferguson Response Holiday Gift Guide
 #StepUpScholastic Campaign
 MLK Sit In
 Social Media Chair for the MLK D.A.R.E. Philadelphia March 2015
 Coordinator for the Movement for Black Lives Convening 2015
 Director of Digital Marketing & Promotions - Women's Freedom Conference
 Social Media Lead - Justice League NYC
 Chair - Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism Organizing Collective Board
 Co-Founder & Creative Director - Safety Pin Box, LLC

Awards 
 Woke 100 Women, Honoree #33, Essence (2017)
 Voices of the Year, Impact Award, BlogHer (2017)

References

External links 
Official website

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:Living people

Category:American activists
Category:American people of Jamaican descent
Category:Activists from New York City
Category:People from Flatbush, Brooklyn