Meena Harris never intended to start a movement. The attorney, CEO and founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign—and coincidentally, also the niece of the only black female presidential candidate running in 2020—was just trying to make a statement when she launched a line of t-shirts that read “Phenomenal Woman” in 2016, paying tribute to her favorite poem by Maya Angelou—a phrase inspiring to women, but particularly for black women everywhere.
“It was never supposed to be a thing,” Harris recalled, speaking with The Glow Up by phone on Tuesday. “I had no plan for this to go beyond one month, which was what it was originally; it was a one-month fundraising campaign to raise money for women’s organizations during Women’s History Month…The real inspiration and genesis for it were, I think, like a lot of people, coming out of 2016 election and feeling, frankly, despair and thinking, ‘What can I do? What contribution can I make in this moment?”
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After her “Phenomenal Woman” tees instantly went viral, the following fall, Harris used the brand’s cachet to launch the brand’s first Black Women’s Equal Pay Day campaign, galvanizing celebrity ambassadors to bring attention to the deep wage gap affecting women of color. Now in its third year, on Thursday, Phenomenal Woman launched the “Phenomenally Black” campaign to commemorate the day black women hypothetically “catch up” to the earnings of their white male counterparts.
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