BLACK LIVES AND OUR COLLECTIVE FUTURE

Cat is the executive director of the Anti Police-Terror Project. Inspired by her own lived experience, Cat Brooks has spent her life organizing to bring an end to unjust systems built into the societal status quo. Cat’s current focus is harnessing the righteous rage of the streets into tangible alternatives to militarized police departments and a violent carceral state. Alternatives like Mental Health First, that move beyond aggressively begging the state for concessions and instead, firmly root power in the hands of the People to dramatically and definitively evolve their material living conditions from that of surviving to thriving.

Tracy is the co-founder and Executive Director of VietRISE. VietRISE is an organization that advances social and economic justice in Orange County by organizing working-class Vietnamese and immigrant communities. Tracy has been a community organizer for over eight years, working on immigrant justice, voter registration, civic engagement, and youth empowerment. She has dedicated the last three years to structurally transforming Orange County toward social justice by building leadership and infrastructure to organize Vietnamese communities in the county - the largest Vietnamese community in the world outside of Viet Nam.

@_TracyLa

Dr. Melina Abdullah is a Professor of Pan-African Studies at Cal State LA, Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Co-Director of Black Lives Matter Grassroots, and Mama of three children. Abdullah earned her Ph.D. from the USC in Political Science and her B.A. from Howard University in African American Studies. Abdullah has authored numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, is the creator, host, and producer of the radio program Move the Crowd and co-host and co-producer of Beautiful Struggle both on 90.7FM KPFK radio. She is a recognized expert on race, gender, class, and social movements.

Ali (pronounced like Muhammad Ali) Ture (pronounced Ter-ay) is passionate about building collective power and leveraging that power to see systems dismantled. Holding a BA in African American studies and graduating Cum Laude, Ture was radicalized after taking an African American studies class and began organizing as a junior in college. Ali is zealous about centering QTBIPOC in the struggle for liberation and wants to create a world where Black trans women domestically and internationally can have the agency to make sustainable decisions about their bodies, genders, sexuality and lives.

Gerald leads collaborative efforts with community, advocacy and faith partners across the country as the Identity and Politics Strategy Analyst for the Network for Transformative Change at the Othering & Belonging Institute. He brings together diverse voices to research, develop and promote a strategic narrative to address marginalization and structural racialization while fostering structural inclusion.

Featuring a video of a Bay Area march and vigil led by Berkeley and Oakland high schoolers against Asian Hate. Lucia Moratinos-Chu and Abby Lamoreaux organized students into the streets of Oakland from City Hall, through Chinatown, to Lake Merrit for a rally of solidarity.

Video by: @yoram.savion Sound @youngbandit0 , Aerial @desmond.oshea, Cover photo @mamap510, Dancers @destinyartscenter @daypc5678 @icecold3000 @turffeinzbread