Candace Owens addresses the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo: Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch.
Conservative activist Candace Owens has departed from her role at right-wing youth organizing group Turning Point USA as communications director to focus on her gig at Dennis Prager's "Prager U" and to work on her own spin-off movement and book.
"I am both excited and sad to announce that I will be officially moving on from my role as Communications Director for Turning Point USA," Owens wrote in an Instagram post yesterday evening. "My dream has always been simple— to wake up black America—To turn the lights on within a community that has been used and abused by the Democrat party for decades."
She continued, "With the #BLEXIT movement, the Candace Owens podcast, and my upcoming book— I no longer feel I can be a dedicated communications director to an organization that is rightfully growing rapidly."
Owens said that she will still be speaking at TPUSA conferences and will continue to chair TPUSA's annual Black Leadership Summit.
In 2017, Owens began her career under the moniker "Red Pill Black" on YouTube. Her videos reached viral success and she worked her way to guest slots on Alex Jones' Infowars outlet, going as far as to appear in-studio with Jones for a co-hosting feature. With her message that black Americans have been taken advantage of by Democrats, she eventually landed the role of Turning Point USA communications director and became a semi-regular guest on Fox News. Last year, Owen was given a major thrust into the public consciousness when rapper Kanye West tweeted, "I love the way Candace Owens thinks."
I love the way Candace Owens thinks
— ye (@kanyewest) April 21, 2018
In recent months, Owens has started a podcast with Prager's digital outlet called "The Candace Owens Show" and launched the "Blexit" movement, which encourages black Americans to step away from the Democratic Party and join the Republican ranks. She also appeared on Capitol Hill last month at a hearing on the threat of white nationalism in America, where she managed to derail what was planned to be a serious domestic terrorism discussion. Owens insisted that the Southern Strategy—the Republican Party’s well-documented post-Civil Rights Act plan for building power by exploiting racial resentment among Southern white voters—was a “myth,” a ridiculous and ahistorical claim she got from a Prager U video.
