Tanisha Sullivan, a Hyde Park attorney who heads the Boston branch of the NAACP, on Tuesday launched a run for Massachusetts secretary of state.

“We are at an inflection point in our democracy, and the challenges before us demand urgent, collective action,” Sullivan said in announcing her campaign. “In light of obstructionism that continues to stand in the way of federal action on voting rights, it falls to state leaders to protect and expand the right of every Massachusetts resident to participate in our government, and to show what a truly inclusive, representative democracy looks like.

The incumbent, Bill Galvin, has not yet said whether he is running for another term. He has served in the job since 1995. The elected position involves overseeing elections, securities, public records, and the state archives.

Sullivan was raised in Brockton. Her father, Steve Sullivan, headed the John D. O’Bryant School in Boston before retiring in 2014. Her mother, Thelma, published a directory of Black-owned businesses in New England and ran a home daycare.

Tanisha Sullivan, who has worked within the state’s life sciences industry, including at the Cambridge-based biotech company Genzyme, is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Boston College. She took on the role of president of the NAACP’s Boston branch in 2017.

She is running as a Democrat, setting up a contested primary if Galvin, a former state representative from Boston before winning election as secretary of state, opts to run for re-election.

Galvin told GBH News earlier this month that he plans to announce his political plans after state lawmakers set a primary date for the 2022 election cycle.

“No one has had more primaries than me, and I’ve won all of them,” he told the public media outlet.

Galvin last faced a Democratic challenge in 2016, from Josh Zakim, a Boston city councillor.