I think what's so powerful about Black Lives Matter is we're the first movement able to take on law enforcement and make it a popular discussion.
Patrisse CullorsRead
Myself and the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, but in truth, we are loving women whose life experiences have led us to seek justice for those victimized by the powerful.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the dedication to justice despite facing harsh criticism, highlighting the love and commitment of the movement's founders.
In this quote, Patrisse Cullors responds to the derogatory labels placed on herself and her co-founders by framing their work as one rooted in love and justice. She emphasizes that their experiences with systemic oppression have driven them to advocate for those harmed by societal injustices, showing that their actions are born from compassion rather than violence.
In practice
Use this quote during a community meeting to inspire collective action against injustice.
I think what's so powerful about Black Lives Matter is we're the first movement able to take on law enforcement and make it a popular discussion.
With support from techies, designers, artists and thousands of activists across the country, Black Lives Matter is now an online-to-offline political movement, affirming the humanity and resilience of black communities.
Many of us believed that Black Lives Matter would move this country to not only reckon with white racism but to usher in new laws and practices that would curb vigilantism and law enforcement violence. But, instead, white nationalism was nurtured and began to take root among the American people.
The black radical agenda, which pushes us closer to freedom and the agenda to which I subscribe, calls for an eradication of white supremacy and an adoption of values and traditions endowed from the black experience.
We keep calling for accountability and reinvestment and a push for all of us to imagine a world where black people are not policed but instead supported and loved and cared for. Where our families can feel safe and inspired and protected.
What does it look like to build a city, state, or nation invested in communities thriving rather than their death and destruction? To ask this question is the first act of an abolitionist.
It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.
We Americans have a chance to become someday a nation in which all racial stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically.
This is the moment when something once more begins visibly to happen, something truly new and unique... something truly historical, in the sense that history again demands to be heard.
That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.
In an organization that is unwilling to change, find the opportunity to talk and interact with people - figure out why they don't want to change. It could be habits. It could be people's personal equities and reputations are defined by the role they're in or the process they've mastered.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.