But she also acknowledges that there are challenges moving from symbol to substance. Of the critiques to defund the police, Garza references the criticism Black Lives Matter received for years. Given the tremendous power Garza and her team inspire, it was fascinating to hear her definition of power at the Lesbians Who Tech Summit: For me, power means getting to make decisions over your own life. gads.async = true; We are magic. This isn't unique to President Obama, or any historic first in a role. In this spirited conversation with Mia Birdsong, the movement's three founders share what they've learned about leadership and what provides them with hope and inspiration in the face of painful realities. I think the same is true today. pubID: '3211', adServer: 'googletag', bidTimeout: 4e3, params: { aps_privacy: '1YN' } Black Future Labs plans to use the results of the Black Census Project to determine pressing legislative and policy issues. The phrase went viral via social media and spawned a movement. But that means weve got to get serious about building power. In the midst of all of the grief and rage and pain, there's a hopefulness. for(var i=0; i= 2; // retina display The Black Futures Lab, a venture of Black Lives Matter founder Alicia Garza, is sponsored by the Chinese Progressive Association, a partner of the People's Republic of China in the U.S. (Photo . var ue_id = "H7H9FCNA7870XN0WV9HE"; Things are pretty dicey over at "Law & Order," NBC's 16-year-old police series. Garza began working with Just Cause Oakland,[8] where she met her former partner Malachi Garza, a transgender man and a community activist. A UC San Diego alumna and co-creator of the Black Lives Matter movement, Garza believes Black communities deserve what all communities deserveto be powerful in every aspect of their lives. I think the fact lends itself to a deep understanding of who has been left out and who's been left behind. "How do you start a movement?" is the question most frequently asked of Garza, the co-creator of Black Lives Matter. Absolutely! It just required us to pay attention., For companies not as attuned as Garzas, she urges a top-down approach of looking critically at the C-Suite. She lives and works in Oakland, California. write of Black Lives Matters herstory.. If we dont say what we mean and mean what we say, what are we actually fighting for? she asks. I really believe that we deserve to be powerful in every aspect of our lives, and for too many of us, power is elusive. Chances are that there are people in your company who are waiting for you to actmany of whom are being impacted by these very issues that you may be hesitant to address. She is a principal of this really cool organization called Black Futures Lab, which is a kind of think tank. Change is a long arcsometimes it feels like change is right around the corner, and other times it feels like it's farther away than we would like. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Power means being able to determine where resources go, who they go to, where they dont go, and who they dont go to. If Black lives did matter and mattered equally, there would not be a need to say so. I think our job right now is to make sure that we keep this momentum going where everybody feels like this is a movement that is theirs. a[a9]._Q.push([c, r]) Garza advises that companies not make these calculations in a silo. 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. "https://":"http://";i+=f?g:k;i+=j;i+=h;c(i)}if(!e.ue_inline){if(a.loadUEFull){a.loadUEFull()}else{b()}}a.uels=c;e.ue=a})(window,document); In this re-release of an episode first recorded in July 2019, Jonathan sits down with Alicia Garza, Co-founder of Black Lives Matter and Director of Strategy & Partnerships for National Domestic Workers Alliance, to discuss the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement, Alicia's work with the Black Futures Lab, and how Democratic Party candidates, campaigns, and elected officials need to be . New AI may pass the famed Turing test. How do you stay grounded and positive despite the challenging times we are living through? . But overall, I work hard every day to get us a little closer to the change we need. Alicia Garza is an organizer, writer and freedom dreamer. And that does give me hope. All rights reserved. Alicia Garza: I wrote this book because it's the book I would have wanted when I was first starting out as an organizer. And we didnt need a consultant to tell us how to do that. Advertisement "Democracy is increasingly hard to define, especially in today's political context. To date, the project has reached over 18,000 black people in America, including many people who identify as black, but not African-American. You can't say some Black lives matter or they kind of matter or they matter sometimes. So I think it's important that we look at equity across the board, which will improve representation, yes, but I don't think we start there. ", "Announcing Fast Company's first-ever Queer 50 list", "Alicia Garza is No. I wrote a post saying that we deserve to live, she continued. So often folks are marginalized in all the spaces that were in. And that it's forcing people across all walks of life, all sectors in our economy, and every corner of the planet really, to assess whether we are where we need to beand what we need to do to get to where we're trying to go. So much of American culture is built on consumerism. var source = getCookieWithoutJQuery("source"); Even though this time is really intense, it makes me hopeful because this is the second time around. What is your philosophy of the components needed to create actual change? googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; A year later, the shooting of Michael Brown, another unarmed Black teen, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, galvanized Black Lives Matter to become a national organization. [65], Alicia Garza will be the keynote speaker at UC San Diego's 2021 Commencement ceremonies, held on June 1113, 2021. This country has always been deeply divided, and the work ahead of us is the sameit's to face that history, and our present, courageously, so that we can go about the business of changing it. googletag.enableServices(); They will discuss activism then and now for civil rights, social justice, inclusion and equality, offering pathways to build a world more reflective of King's dream. Garza endorsed Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary. Her first four years were spent in San Rafael, living with her African-American mother and her mother's twin brother. Moms has a glioblastomaa very aggressive brain tumor. The protesters stopped the train for an hour and a half by chaining themselves both to the inside of the train and the outside, making it impossible for the door to close. [13] The same year, POWER organizers published a book analyzing how capitalism and imperialism were threatening the livelihoods of San Francisco and the Bay Area's working-class communities of color. "ebfg_email", "ebfg_sms"]; Feb 1, 2023. Now everybody's saying Black lives matter. If we dont say what we mean and mean what we say, what are we actually fighting for? she asks. Its what motivates me. [4], During a blockage at Bay Bridge in 2003, Garza saw Malachi in a crowd, doing a role of security. "[45], In 2018 Garza launched Black Futures Lab, whose goal is to engage with advocate organizations to advance policies that make black communities stronger. She was also featured in the Politico50 guide to the thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2015. That's clearly ridiculous but it could be effective. //]]>, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019. At first we were fighting people to even say Black lives matter, says Garza, who created the Black Lives Matter Global Network with Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. Garza was born to a single mother in Oakland California, on January 4, 1981. An essential guide to building transformative movements to address the challenges of our time, from one of the country's leading organizers and a co-creator of Black Lives Matter "Excellent and provocative . . I work to amplify womens voices, leadership and action, Digital Healthcare Company Speeds Development And Delivery Of New Drugs, Meet The Female Founder Who Just Got Investment From Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund For Her Plastic Waste Solution, Women, Money, And Stress: How To Overcome Financial Anxiety, Jasmin Larians Sculptural Inspiration For Cult Gaias Newest Flagship Locations, Check How Climate Prone An Area Is Before You Move, Belly Wealth: One Founder Tackling The Most Undiagnosed & Dismissed Womens Health Issue, These Shoes Are Made For Walking: KEENs New Footwear, New Research Shows Alignment Between American Voters On Climate Change And Inflation Reduction Act. Black Lives Matter was founded by three women. San Francisco-based Alicia Garza, an organizer with the National Domestic Workers' Alliance, took to social media after the news broke to write a love letter to black people on her Facebook. Movements and bases cannot be cliques of people who already know each other. Dec 13, 2017. those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. So of course there are going to be blind spots. The statement is uttered . if (sourcesToHideBuyFeatures[i] == source) The movement has been massively successful in organizing hundreds of thousands of people, and dollars, to fight for ideological and political intervention in a world whereBlack lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise, as the founderswrite of Black Lives Matters herstory.Whats more, it laid the groundwork for todays womens movement, the Womens March, the rise of #MeToo, and other sociopolitical, digitally native social justice movements. node.parentNode.insertBefore(gads, node); It's not just for Black people. (Here's how protests can change the world.). }); But like all things based on representation, I'm much more interested in what they do with the role, as a result of who is in it, than I am the fact that the first ever (insert the blank) is in the role. var ue_t0=window.ue_t0||+new Date(); She has organized around the issues of health, student services and rights, rights for domestic workers, ending police brutality, anti-racism, and violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people of color. Her name is Alicia Garza. Schnall: You have been very strategic in terms of creating structures through your work with Black Futures Lab and Supermajority. She is also the co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter, an international movement and organizing project focused on combatting anti-black state-sanctioned violence. Do you have diversity in power in your company? "I didn't start a movement. Alicia Garza took to social media to express her anguish and love for . [21], Garza led the 2015 Freedom Ride to Ferguson, organized by Cullors and Darnell Moore, that launched the building of BlackLivesMatter chapters across the United States and the world. Everything, actually. I think, I know, that black people deserve to be powerful. Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi are the founders of #BlackLivesMatter, a grass-roots organization. And if so, is that the world that we live in right now? I think what were confused by is how we feel about it. She points to the past struggles for desegregation and interracial marriage. Who leads your company? For one thing, the actress who plays the assistant district attorney just quit. q("i", arguments) , It is atribute to the Bay Area, where she discusses political commentary with a side of beauty recommendations [24], Garza's first book, The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, was published in October 2020 by Penguin Random House. Civic Leader. Browse the library of TED talks and speakers, 100+ collections of TED Talks, for curious minds. 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. Alicia Garza. [1] Alicia Garza is the wife of Malachi Garza . Born out of a social media post, the Black Lives Matter movement has sparked discussion about race and inequality across the world. Find other people who care about the same things that you do. 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