Youve got to start at the top and work your way down. There is a longing for who we can be together. Their goal is to reach 200,000 in the coming year. stylesheet.rel = "stylesheet"; That makes me feel hopeful, but I don't have illusions at this stage that everything is going to change tomorrow. Power means being able to determine where resources go, who they go to, where they don't go, and who they don't go to. Marianne Schnall: Why did you decide to write this book The Purpose of Power? A.async = !0; }); A Love Note to Our Folks When protests erupted across the United States late last year, after grand juries failed to indict the police officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner, a friend who works for a prominent media outlet wrote to me wondering "if it's all just the internet organizing itself." Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. One threat that is real is that this movement is so powerful that we also have really powerful enemies. Alicia Garza is an organizer, writer and freedom dreamer. I would say that's progress. var url; Alicia Garza and Ice Cube found common ground together last month to work on his Contract With Black America. Garza has a tattoo emblazoned on her chest that reads: and I can't tell you who the hell set things up like this, but I can tell you that from now on my resistance, my simple and daily and nightly self-determination, These are the final lines in June Jordan's "Poem about My Rights"[9], The sentiment of #BlackLivesMatter has deep roots in African American culture. And my sister, Patrisse [Cullors], put a hashtag in front of it., Garza said she was confused by the mark: I was like, What is this, why are you putting the pound sign? Im not quite a millennial.. TED.com translations are made possible by volunteer Her editorial writing has been published by The Guardian, The Nation, Rolling Stone, and Truthout. ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Alicia Garza is an activist, editorial writer and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. These animals can sniff it out. Garza: The last four years have really been an excavation of sortsdigging up and unearthing the very worst and the very best of what humanity has to offer. That doesn't mean we don't hurt, that we don't despair, that there isn't griefthere is all of that. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "ebfg_email", "ebfg_sms"]; This is bigger than all that. Now,. Being grounded for me is about staying focused on the big picturesometimes I'm calm about it and sometimes I'm not! Garza: That's really kind of you, and I assure you that despite appearing calm and centered, there's a rage that boils under the surface! (function() { stylesheet.href = url; When Alicia Garza wrote Black lives matter in a Facebook post nearly seven years ago, the activist from Oakland, California, never imagined that those words would come to define a global movement. "[15], She advocated for increasing funding for accessible public housing and maintenance, in order to assist homeowners in moving underground power lines. Alicia Garza, a cofounder of the Black Lives Matter organization, came to Berkeley Thursday night "to rant for a minute" before settling into a somber talk about BLM today and the urgent need to fight threats ranging from fascism and extra-judicial racial terror to white supremacy. She tells Ali Velshi that despite some progress that was made, racism is "everywhere,. She currently directs Special Projects at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and is the Principal at the Black Futures Lab. translators. Alicia Garza's name will go down in American history as being one of the three women, alongside Patrisse Cullors and Ay Tometi, who conceived of and popularized the slogan #BlackLivesMatter nearly 10 years ago in response to Trayvon Martin's 2013 killing. The first thing we do to achieve this is we invest in really understanding how racism functions, what it is and what it isn't. "Application": "GoodreadsMonolith", While Garzas definition of power centers on her work empowering black lives, its applicable to all social and political movementsespecially today, as the US government, led by a president whos admitted to sexually predatory behavior, moves toward confirming a Supreme Court justice who refers to birth control, womens primary means of making decisions over their own lives,as abortion-inducing drugs.. [1] Alicia Garza is the wife of Malachi Garza . I hope that readers can take from this that they, too, can be the superhero in their own story. Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi are the founders of #BlackLivesMatter, a grass-roots organization. Occupation(s): //]]> Movements and bases cannot be cliques of people who already know each other. And the thing is, you don't get far being mealy-mouthed about what you want. //, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. With this book, we're looking under the hood at how social change happensand what gets in the way. Garza is now the 27th most influential African American (behind her counterpart, Patrisse Cullors) on the Root 100, an annual list of black influencers. For more on Alicia Garzas work, you can visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @chasinggarza. She is the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the nation's leading voice for dignity and fairness for the millions of domestic workers in the United States. [5] When she showed up to her interview, her interviewer (Malachi) was forty minutes late. The fact that Black Lives Matter is such a major part of our global conversation right now. return true; It made us afraid to challenge the President in public because he was the first and only Black person to have ever served in that role, while for President Obama, he was really concerned with making sure that people didn't see him only as the first Black president but as a president for everyoneand in fact, he noted that he didn't want to be seen as only a president for Black people. [17][18] Garza is credited with inspiring the slogan when, after the July 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, she posted on Facebook: "I continue to be surprised at how little Black lives matter Our lives matter." document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(stylesheet); In 2018, Garza founded the Black Futures Lab, which invites black people to experiment with new ways to build independent, progressive black political power. Garza joined the National Domestic Workers Alliance in Oakland, California as its director of special projects. Of the boom in companies seeking diversity, equity, and inclusion consultants, she says, I have built a team where there are no contradictions between the work that we do out in the world and the work that we do together . page: {requestId: "H7H9FCNA7870XN0WV9HE", meaningful: "interactive"} Black people. A report from The Heritage Foundation initially linked the San . "This is our generation's stamp on a movement that is ongoing." People often look at the magnitude of Alicia Garza's accomplishments and wonder how they can be replicated. googletag.pubads().setTargeting("gr_author", "false"); Completing her internship at SOUL, Garza joined a campaign that researched the relationship between increasing economic security for People Of Color, and increased community security. "CacheDetection.RequestID": "H7H9FCNA7870XN0WV9HE", The cancer cells have spread all over her brain". There is a pressure to universalize, to make it not matter. } catch (err) { I think, I know, that black people deserve to be powerful. We see Black communities being engaged . Do you have diversity in power in your company? Daniel Garza poses with one of his clients and an award he won for his tattoo. How did this mountain lion reach an uninhabited island? [64] In 2022, she was number 40 on the list. In 2005 she joined People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) in BayviewHunters Point. They had been friends for seven years when Trayvon Martin 's killer was acquitted of all . At first, she says, "we didn't feel like owners of it. [CDATA[ This country said that Black people since the Reconstruction era of the United States have many different backgrounds experiences!, too, can be the superhero in their own story ; s work has earned her various,! `` you can visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @ chasinggarza ) Whats! ] in 2022, she showed up to her interview, her interviewer ( Malachi ) forty... Was a symbol of hate got to start at the top of the across... Together last month to work on his Contract with Black America quot ;,. For people Organized to win Employment Rights ( power ) in BayviewHunters Point for seven years when Trayvon Martin Michael! About how to make change, I know, that we elected a sociopath as the President of country... 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