A native of Jackson, MS, Blake has a background in issue advocacy, political organizing, social media messaging, nonprofit communications and digital marketing. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State University, Blake served as a communications assistant in the Mississippi State Legislature to Rep. Sonya Williams-Barnes.

In 2014, he was in charge of regional signature collection on the Mississippi Gulf Coast for a statewide ballot initiative where he managed the gathering of over 40,000 petition signatures. During this time, he worked for Derrick Johnson, now national president and CEO of the NAACP and Dick Molpus, former Mississippi Secretary of State. In 2015, he managed the day-to-day social media response and digital content creation for Initiative 42, a statewide ballot proposition to achieve consistently adequate funding for the state’s public schools.

He has also done digital organizing and grassroots lobbying with The Parents’ Campaign, a public education advocacy group in Jackson. From 2017 until recently, he managed communications for the Women’s Foundation of Mississippi. In addition to these formal positions and roles, Blake volunteers with several organizations in Mississippi focused on sparking change.