By Malaika Jabali ·Updated January 19, 2024
Hometown Heroes is an ESSENCE print magazine series profiling changemakers in local communities who are working toward economic and racial justice. | Photography by Dana Lixenberg
Carroll Fife had no plans of running for office. Four years ago, she was strategizing with a handful of Black mothers in Oakland who found themselves confronted by armed deputies in riot gear. Fife had organized a small group—they called
