Thank you to Kim Drew Wright’s husband Wen for sharing the video of Kim’s funeral the other day at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. See below for the video, which I’ve uploaded to YouTube so everyone can watch it easily, and for the transcript of remarks by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07), who was a close personal friend of Kim’s. For those of you who don’t know about Kim, here are a few links just to give an idea.
- The Power of Women Supporting Each Other | Kim Drew Wright | TEDxGraceStreetWomen (“What happens when women support each other unconditionally? Join, Kim Drew Wright on her spoken word journey through ‘Women Will,’ as she describes the highs and lows of founding a grassroots group, the Liberal Women of Chesterfield County & Beyond, which won political ground and gained international attention, while surviving her daughter’s on-set of PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) along with her own diagnosis of breast cancer. She gave her TEDxGraceStreetWomen talk during the last week of a 20-week chemotherapy treatment. Kim is an inspiring example of what showing up to support others looks like.”)
- These liberal women are angry, engaged and ready to vote (“Kim Drew Wright wanted a balm for her post-election pain. Instead, she made a movement.”)
- Kimberly “Kim” Drew Wright Obituary (“Kimberly “Kim” Drew Wright, 53, of Chesterfield, Va., passed away peacefully after a courageous battle with breast cancer on Friday, July 5, 2024…Kim formed Liberal Women of Chesterfield County, a grassroots political organization. She was a fierce advocate for justice, for the PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) community, and for the power and beauty of humans supporting each other, especially women lifting each other up. She loved her political activism, along with traveling, being an avid writer, and a published author. Above all else she loved her husband and children. Nothing was more important to her than her family.”)
By the way, although I didn’t know Kim personally, I followed her activities in the news and on Facebook. Also, as someone who also got heavily involved in political activism back in 2005 (starting up the blog “Raising Kaine,” then cofounding the “Draft James Webb” movement, etc.), in reaction to the reelection of another appalling Republican president – George W. Bush – I certainly felt a connection to what Kim was doing, in some ways similar and in other ways very different to the things many of us were doing back in 2005, 2006…2008, etc. The main thing is, the NEED for political activism and involvement never really goes away, as there are always BAD things to fight AGAINST, as well as GOOD things to fight FOR – and that will never change, I don’t think, as long as there are forces for evil in this world, such as we see now with the Trumpist/far-right-“populist” movement…
So…deepest condolences to Kim’s family and her many, many friends. No question, Kim lived a highly consequential life, one in which she made a difference for the better on many levels – including politically, as a leader of the “resistance” to the first (and hopefully the LAST!) Trump administration. For that, as well as for her grace and courage facing a devastating illness (and her willingness to share, honestly and with a sense of humor, what she was going through), I say THANK YOU to Kim – and to everyone she inspired to fight for our democracy, for our planet, and for a better future for everyone.
With that, here are Rep. Spanberger’s remarks at the funeral:
“I remember the first day I ever saw Kim Drew Wright. And I do mean SAW her – she was a whirlwind, she was an organizer, she was this person who moved through an extraordinary crowd. And it was an extraordinary crowd. Some of you might have been there. It was a few months after the 2016 election. It was a meeting for this new group. It was at a church. The parking lot was so full that people were parked up and down the road. And when you walked in there were people everywhere and there were snack tables all along the walls. It seemed people had had brought food and they had brought their nervous energy and everyone was buzzing about in a bit of a frenzy fueled by Costco rollup seven layer dips and an assortment of homemade cookies, breads and desserts.
And there she was, this woman calling us to attention. There were so many of us that she stood on a on a table or maybe it was a chair, but she stood there so we could see her, so we could hear her. She was powerful, she was beautiful, she was confident and importantly, she was everything we needed her to be in that moment. Just as she would be more than we ever needed in the months and years to come. She welcomed us. She spoke of the emotions permeating the room and then she went about telling us what she was building – this group, this extraordinary group of women, of people committed not just to reacting but to acting, taking action to make change in our politics, in our elections, in our representation, taking control.
And then she did something I will never forget something that had a power to it I didn’t fully understand in that moment. She pulled out a PowerPoint presentation, and she presented a PowerPoint of logos. She presented us with the proposed logos and branding for the Liberal Women of Chesterfield County. And thankfully, she and others later consented to adding that nice little ‘and beyond’ to account for all of us from Henrico and Richmond and Powhatan and everywhere else that wanted to be part of the movement. She was creating the LWCC logo, she explained, would be our unifying symbol; it would be the car sticker in the parking lot that makes someone feel welcome, it would be the tote bag that started a conversation between strangers at the grocery store. It would be the t-shirt that became our armor fortifying us, uniting us, bonding us and messaging to everyone that we were taking action.
And she would be our leader, she would unite us in belief that we could make change. She would laugh at the reality of the challenges before us – winning back the House of Delegates, flipping the Seventh District, creating community, building friendships and giving purpose to so many people. We believed in her and she made us believe in us. Kim made me believe that with an army of women clad in their LWCC armor, that I could do anything, that we could do anything. And I’m standing here today as a member of Congress and a candidate for governor because of Kim! Because, frankly, it’s likely that quite a few of you here today really didn’t think we could flip that congressional seat. You didn’t think we could do it, but with a leader like Kim she made us believe. And importantly, she kept us grounded, she laughed, was self effacing.
She recognized even as she became this major activist and organizer highlighted in the paper and on TV, that what made her special and important to us is how extraordinarily earnest and human she was. Through her writing and through her humor, she shared herself, she inspired us, she made us laugh. And when she got sick, she showed us what strength really is, what grace really is and at times what joy really is.
A couple years ago, I played in the Congressional softball game, which is an annual event that raises money for breast cancer research and funds awareness campaigns about breast cancer detection, particularly in younger women like Kim. I was going to play in her honor. So in advance of the game where she and other women were honored by all of us players, she did an interview with the local TV station. It was a serious interview about her diagnosis, her experiences, the importance of awareness and detection. And when the interviewer noted that Representative Abigail Spanberger was playing for her, Kim just laughed and said, ‘I’ll try not to heckle her’. And in closing out the interview, she remarked upon the purpose of the event – raising money, raising awareness. And she said, I don’t really care who wins as long as there’s peanuts and beer.
And today, as we honor her, as we mourn her, as we celebrate her, let us think about the levity that she brought to our hearts – sharing a laugh, making us laugh at just the right time. Let us think about the way she led us in action and in organization. Let us think about the way she made us believe in ourselves while grounding ourselves. She made us a community of friends, engaging citizens and people who take action. And she taught me that we can do just about anything when we believe in each other, when we love fiercely, when we laugh earnestly, when we work hard, and when we have really good swag – I mean t-shirts, tote bags, bumper stickers, all of it.
To Kim’s family, to Wen and to Kim’s children – thank you for sharing her with us. I know she spent so much time focused on this work, focused on LWCC. But please know that she did it for you. She did it to be part of an effort that would make this world a better place, the world that you all deserve. We are forever grateful for everything she’s done and everything that we all continue to achieve in her honor.”
P.S. In “The Return of the King” by JRR Tolkien, there’s a great line that sums up what Kim Drew Wright did: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” And then there are also the following, profound lines:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Which, again, is what we all need to do – and what Kim Drew Wright most certainly did starting in late 2016.
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