Patrisse Cullors

Patrisse Cullors
Born	(1983-06-20) June 20, 1983 Los Angeles, California, United States
Nationality	American
Education	University of California, Los Angeles
Occupation	Radical political activist, artist, playwright
Notable work	Black Lives Matter

Patrisse Cullors (born June 20, 1983) is an African American artist and a self-described Marxist political activist from Los Angeles, California. Cullors is an advocate for criminal justice reform in Los Angeles and one of the principal founders of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Biography and personal life

Cullors was born in Los Angeles. She became an activist early in life and later earned a degree in religion and philosophy from UCLA.

Cullors recounts being forced from her home at 16 when she revealed her queer identity to her parents. She was involved with the Jehovah's Witnesses as a child, but later grew disillusioned with the male-dominated hierarchy of the church. She developed an interest in the Nigerian religious tradition of Ifá, incorporating its rituals into political protest events. She told an interviewer:

For me, seeking spirituality had a lot to do with trying to seek understanding about my conditions—how these conditions shape me in my everyday life and how I understand them as part of a larger fight, a fight for my life.

Black Lives Matter

Along with community organizers and friends Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, Cullors was one of the founders of the international Black Lives Matter movement. The three began the movement in response to frustration over the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Cullors created the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in response to Garza's use of the phrase in a Facebook post about the Martin case. Cullors further described her impetus for pushing for African American rights as stemming from her 19-year-old brother being "brutalized" while Incarcerated in Los Angeles County jails.

Cullors credits social media as instrumental in revealing state violence against African-Americans, saying that "On a daily basis, every moment, black folks are being bombarded with images of our death [...] It's literally saying, 'Black people, you might be next. You will be next."

Other activism

Cullors has served as executive director of the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails. The group advocated for a civilian commission to oversee the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in order to curb abuses by officers. By organizing former jail inmates as a voting bloc, the group hoped to sway the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to create such a commission, as well as gather enough votes to elect a replacement for Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who resigned in 2014 for separate reasons.

Cullors co-founded the prison activism organization Dignity and Power Now which was successful in advocating for the civilian oversight board.

Cullors is also a board member of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and led a think tank on state and vigilante violence for the 2014 Without Borders Conference.

Awards

Cullors is a Fulbright Scholarship recipient. She was named 2007 Mario Savio Young Activist of the Year. She has also received the Sidney Goldfarb award. She was named an NAACP History Maker in 2015. Also in 2015 Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza (as "The Women of #BlackLivesMatter") were listed as one of the nine runners-up for The Advocate's Person of the Year.

Works

In 2014 Cullors produced the theatrical piece POWER: From the Mouths of the Occupied, which debuted at Highways Performance Space. She has contributed articles about the movement to the LA Progressive.

External links

• http://patrissecullors.com/
• http://blacklivesmatter.com/