Rhodes student, former foster youth got 16K votes in city council race. He's just getting started

On the night of Oct. 5, Brandon Washington sat nervously at a supporter’s house and shoveled candy corn into his mouth, watching local election coverage and waiting to see if he would win a seat on the Memphis City Council.

A 20-year-old sophomore at Rhodes College and former foster youth, Washington had ambitiously decided to challenge an incumbent, Ford Canale, for his Super District 9, Position 2 seat. And though he had been significantly out-fundraised, Washington had done his best to make the race competitive.

“I felt like it was a longshot, especially because I was going against an incumbent,” he said. “But I like longshots.”

He and his team had attended an array of community events. They had campaigned door-to-door, emphasizing a desire to bring change to the city. They had pointed out that Washington’s election would make history, as he would be the first Black person elected to Super District 9, Position 2.

Now, they were just hours from seeing if their efforts would bring him a victory. Anxious, Washington continued to eat candy corn, finishing two bowls of it. When early voting numbers started to trickle in, he stood and paced. He frantically refreshed the web page of the Shelby County Election Commission, hoping for updated results.

By the end of the night, the outcome was clear. Canale had received 26,724 votes, and Washington had received 16,132. He had lost.

Washington went to bed disappointed, but the next day, friends congratulated him on a strong campaign and encouraged him to look at the bright side of the results. As a college sophomore, he had kept a race against an incumbent competitive and garnered over 16,000 votes in a city with low voter turnout. He had earned more votes than most city council candidates in other races, and the majority of the 17 mayoral candidates.

Since then, Washington has viewed the outcome more favorably, and he’s already planning to run again, for the same city council seat in 2027.

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But he isn’t driven purely by ambition. Washington grew up in poverty and spent many of his teenage years bouncing from home to home. He knows what it’s like to struggle ― and he wants to make life easier for those facing the challenges he did.

Washington's escapes

For Washington, reading was an escape from the difficulties of everyday life. His family was poor, his relationship with his mother and her boyfriend was rocky, and he had to help raise his three younger siblings. But books served as a portal to another world, and he devoured the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series. When he opened books, movies would start playing in his mind and he began reading them wherever he could. At school, he was “known as a kid always walking around with his books.” At home, he would read into the night.

“I'd be like, ‘Hey, one more chapter’ ― and then it'd be five o'clock in the morning,” he said.

School, too, served as an escape. Many of Washington’s teachers were Black women and men that he felt a connection with, and they were passionate about their jobs. With their help, Washington excelled academically, and he finished middle school at the top of his class.

But school and reading couldn’t completely pull him away from his life at home. When he was 15, Washington suffered severe abuse and entered the foster care system through the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.

Not alone

This removed Washington from a fraught situation, but it wasn’t a cure-all, and he had to deal with the many challenges that come with being a foster youth. From the age of 15 to 18, he was placed in five foster homes with different rules he had to learn, and each time, he went in with little to no knowledge of the people who would be housing him.

Washington grew hesitant to form bonds; he didn’t want to make attachments that could easily be severed. He wanted desperately to belong somewhere ― to have a group he could be close to and count on. But his first foster parent repeatedly reminded him he was a foster kid; and even when other foster parents tried to integrate him into their families, he felt disconnected, unable to shake the thought that they could call and have him moved if they wanted.

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Sure, he had foster parents he liked, and he was grateful for their support. But navigating the foster care system was challenging. And his senior year of high school, when Washington switched from traditional foster care to extensional foster care ― which provides you with a living allowance instead of a traditional foster parent ― he temporarily wound up homeless. He moved in with his grandmother, then ended up having to move back in with his mother.

Washington, however, never collapsed under the weight of his struggles. Instead, they galvanized him; and throughout his time in foster care, he developed a burgeoning desire to help others through politics and advocacy. He had run into barriers and felt like his voice wasn’t being heard ― and as it turned out, this was common for people in his situation.

“Once I started connecting with other foster youth, I realized, ‘Oh, I'm not alone in this,’” he said. “All the problems that I saw growing up, or that I’ve felt in the foster care system, a lot of other foster youth are feeling this as well.”

'A passion for advocacy'

Washington started volunteering with community organizations. He participated in advocacy efforts for foster youth run by DCS and Youth Villages, the Memphis-based nonprofit that supports children and young people facing an array of mental, emotional, and behavioral health challenges. Meanwhile, he continued to excel academically. He was accepted into Rhodes College and joined Youth Villages’ LifeSet Scholars program, which helps people aging out of foster care and others who lack a solid support system earn postsecondary degrees and transition to adulthood.

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At Rhodes, he chose to major in international studies and Russian; he spent much of his freshman year juggling studying with a growing amount of advocacy work. In early May, he went to Nashville to speak at a DCS event. Then, less than two weeks later, he joined a group going to Washington D.C. to advocate for foster youth.

Youth Villages had approached Washington with the opportunity, and he had said yes without hesitation.

“He has definitely found a passion for advocacy, especially over the past year,” noted Claudia Wilder, his LifeSet specialist.

A high horse

On a sunny day in mid-May, Washington arrived at the U.S. Capitol, wearing a crisp blue suit and black tie. To say he was excited would be an understatement ― Washington was ecstatic. On his TikTok account, he posted a video of himself dancing outside the Capitol to upbeat music.

For the young Memphian, it was a seminal moment. This wasn’t just his first time in the Capitol building. It was his first time in Washington D.C., a city he had dreamt of visiting for years.

“Just going into the Capitol and realizing I was there, it took a second,” he said. “It was so surreal.”

After all the adversity he had faced and the work he had done, he was at the Capitol, preparing to speak to lawmakers and congressional aids ― people with real political power.

Everything, he felt, had led to this.

“It really was, like, ‘This is it. This is what we’ve been building towards with advocacy,'" he said.

Washington was there with other former foster youth, as well as Youth Villages staffers. The nonprofit has a presence in 26 states, and it gives people it works with the chance to share their experiences in foster care with politicians and government officials. This provides political leaders with a picture of what’s going on in their home states ― and allows the youth to talk about changes they'd like to see in the foster care system.

“Many of them are very much involved in their communities; they're involved in some of the advocacy efforts in their states,” said Shaquita Ogletree, Youth Villages’ federal policy director. “That helps us educate members of Congress who oftentimes don't get home enough to their districts to really hear on the ground, what's happening.”

At the Capitol building, Washington and the rest of the former foster youth participated in an hour-long panel, answering senator aides’ questions about foster care and issues they’ve faced. After this, he and another Tennessean from the group met with the assistant of Tennessee’s senior senator, Marsha Blackburn, and told him how they felt foster care in Tennessee could be improved.

Throughout the trip, he and the others focused on SNAP benefits eligibility. And just a few weeks later, they were thrilled to find out it had been expanded in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden on June 3.

“A lot of lawmakers don't listen to their constituents, but someone was listening. Somehow, someway, it got to the president's desk,” Washington said. “That’s a high horse I’m never coming down from.”

'Everything is for a reason'

Washington also rode an actual horse on a rainy day in Iceland over the summer. After all, he doesn't think exclusively about politics and advocacy.

He loves to travel and meet people in other countries. He enjoys writing and takes it seriously. He is an usher at the Orpheum and considers himself a “theatre nerd.”

But Washington is intent on a future in politics that’s informed by his past. And he’s confident that his city council campaign was just the beginning.

“Everything is for a reason; I don’t think there’s any coincidences in life,” Washington said. “Everything I went through is leading me to a place where I can do better ― where I can make change.”

John Klyce covers education and children's issues for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at John.klyce@commercialappeal.com.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphian Brandon Washington on overcoming troubled past, political future