Marquita Bradshaw

Marquita Bradshaw is a Tennessee native and Memphis-based environmental justice advocate. A tenth-generation South Memphis resident, she grew up in a family active in the fight against pollution from the Memphis Defense Depot Superfund site. She earned a Bachelor of Liberal Studies in journalism and communication studies from the University of Memphis. She is the executive director of Sowing Justice, an environmental justice nonprofit, and has served as environmental justice committee chair of the Sierra Club's Tennessee chapter. In 2020 she became the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Tennessee — the first African American woman to win a major-party statewide nomination in Tennessee — and she is again the Democratic nominee in 2026.