Meet Deon
Deon Haywood is an activist, human rights advocate, wife, mother and grandmother, and community leader from New Orleans.
For more than 30 years, she has advocated for the rights of Black women and girls, poor and working class folks, sex workers, substance users, and LGBTQ+ communities in the Deep South.
“In the tradition of Callie House, Queen Mother Moore, and other foremothers, Women With A Vision organizes with the belief that caring for the people is inseparable from speaking truth to power. That is why this grassroots New Orleans group of Black women has won policy fights that others thought impossible.”
Following Hurricane Katrina, Haywood was named executive director of Women With A Vision (WWAV), the groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention organization that pioneered harm reduction in the Deep South. Under Deon’s leadership, WWAV’s work blossomed, connecting HIV/AIDS prevention and education to reproductive justice, youth advocacy, harm reduction, and more. In 2012, WWAV helped organize sex workers to stand up for their rights and defeat Louisiana’s archaic “Crimes Against Nature by Solicitation'' statute that victimized poor, Black women and LGBTQ+ individuals by placing them on the sex offender registry. This defeat was a milestone victory for constitutional rights in Louisiana as those affected were removed from the sex offender registry in 2013 and were able to begin rebuilding their lives.
Through her relentless advocacy, Haywood has grown WWAV into a leading voice on the criminalization of Black women and girls in the American South, advancing community-led policy solutions on international and national stages and at home in Louisiana. She has been honored for her work at the intersection of HIV/AIDS, harm reduction, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive justice, and racial justice, by the Center for Constitutional Rights, SisterSong, Ms. Foundation, National Organization of Women (NOW), ACLU Louisiana, the Human Rights Campaign, the Red Door Foundation, Philadelphia FIGHT, Planned Parenthood, Forum for Equality, BET.com, Frontline Defenders Dublin Platform, and more. In 2018, she was appointed to the New Orleans Human Relations Commission to advance this body’s work on Human Rights and Equity.