Melissa Fiero – Carter County Democratic Party’s new Interim Chair
Published 3:24 pm Monday, July 20, 2020
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Star Photo/Brittnee Nave Melissa Fiero hopes to grow Carter County’s Democratic Party.
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BY BRITTNEE NAVE
STAR CORRESPONDENT
When Melissa Fiero moved to Tennessee last year, she wanted to continue her political contributions.
Fiero’s interests in politics began after she completed graduate school in Mississippi.
“It all started back in any kind of serious way when I went to work in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which is where I graduated from graduate school, for the first African American mayor of that town, I went to work as his PR director,” she explained. “When he went for re-election, I was his co-campaign manager.”
Fiero said this was her first real taste of politics. She and her husband later moved to Texas from Mississippi. After moving, she joined the local county party where she served as the party’s secretary and later precinct chair.
Fiero volunteered under Hilary Clinton’s campaign in Austin, Texas as well as the Democratic party in general.
“I was horribly disappointed with the outcome,” she said.
To her surprise, she ended up being asked to organize the Women’s March on Austin.
“I was the lead organizer – we had six weeks to do it and we had over 100 thousand people across the state of Texas turn out for this wonderfully empowering event,” she said.
Fiero described the event as peaceful, full of great music and people, and good vibes.
“It was just such an uplifting day for me after being just so disappointed in the election,” she said.
This feeling led Fiero to continue her work further by founding an organization called “March on Texas.”
“It was an effort to support and elect progressive candidates with a focus on progressive women in Texas,” she said.
Fiero moved to Tennessee in 2019.
“It was time for me to see how I could be helpful to my party here in Carter County and East Tennessee,” she said.
Prior to the pandemic, Fiero went to her first meeting at the Carter County Democratic Party representing Amy Klobuchar as the volunteer coordinator for the Tennessee area in Klobuchar’s bid for the presidential nomination.
After speaking at this meeting, the pandemic hit and there were no other meetings, however, Fiero kept in touch with them through text and emails.
She said the group’s elected chair had been positioned with the Bloomberg campaign and you couldn’t serve as chair if you were representing someone who was a candidate but not the nominee so knowing about Fiero’s experience and background she was asked to run for the position and won.
She is now the Interim Chair.
Fiero’s job entails various duties which include informing the public on who is running, voting options, and growing the party. This also entails more participation from younger demographics.
“The future is theirs, the future of the party, the future of the country, it’s all theirs,” she said.
Fiero said that an old fashioned political rally, with social distancing, is being planned for August 15 in Elizabethton at Kiwanis Park.
The time and details are still being worked out at the moment but will be posted to the Carter County Democratic Party’s Facebook page when more is known.
To find out more about the Democratic Party in Tennessee, one can go to https://tndp.org.
“I am grateful to be in such a wonderful area with such kind and generous people, and I look forward to getting to know more folks out there who want to know what the Democratic Party stands for,” she said.
