Patrisse Cullors

Patrisse Cullors is an artist and a writer.

She helped start a big group. This group is called Black Lives Matter. She made a special tag for it online.

She grew up in a place called Los Angeles. She saw many unfair things happen there. This made her want to help.

Patrisse works to make things better for many people. She writes books about her life. She also makes shows for TV.

Patrisse Cullors is an activist and an artist.

She grew up in Los Angeles, California. Her family did not have much money. She saw unfair things happen to her brothers. This made her want to change the world.

In 2013, she helped start a movement. It is called Black Lives Matter. She worked with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Cullors made a special tag for it online. This tag helped people talk about the movement. The group wants to protect Black people.

Cullors also works to change how jails work. She wants to stop violence in prisons. She has worked with groups in Los Angeles to do this. She also writes books about her life. One book is called "When They Call You a Terrorist." She even makes shows for TV. She says that no movement needs only one leader.

Patrisse Cullors is an American activist, artist, and writer. She is well known for helping to start the Black Lives Matter movement.

She was born on June 20, 1983, in Los Angeles, California. Her early life was shaped by many different experiences. She grew up in a neighborhood called Van Nuys. This area was part of the San Fernando Valley. Her family faced many hard times with money. Her mother, Cherice Foley, raised her children. Her stepfather, Alton Cullors, worked in a car plant. Later, he left the family.

Cullors learned about fairness and social change very early. As a teenager, she joined the Bus Riders Union. This group was led by a man named Eric Mann. She also joined a special program at Grover Cleveland High School. This program focused on social justice. She later went to college to study religion and philosophy at UCLA. She also earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California. These studies helped her understand the world. She also found meaning in different spiritual traditions like Ifá.

In 2013, Cullors helped create a major new movement. She worked with two other organizers named Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. They started Black Lives Matter after a court case involving Trayvon Martin. Cullors created the famous hashtag to help the movement grow online.

The movement was built to be decentralized. This means it was run by many different groups together. In 2015, a large network of chapters was formed. Cullors became a very public face for this work. She used social media to show the world important issues.

Cullors has worked on many different goals for justice. She wants to change how jails and police work. She co-founded a group called Dignity and Power Now. This group helped create a board to watch over the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. She also works for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Her ideas are inspired by many thinkers. She looks to people like Angela Davis and bell hooks for ideas. She also studies the work of thinkers like Karl Marx. She believes in using nonviolent direct action to make changes.

Cullors has shared her story through many different projects. In 2018, she published a book called "When They Call You a Terrorist." It became a bestseller in the United States. The book tells the story of her life and her activism. She wrote a second book in 2022 called "An Abolitionist's Handbook."

She also makes shows for television and film. She worked on a series for YouTube called "Resist." In 2021, she stepped down from her main role in the Black Lives Matter Foundation. She wanted to focus on her writing and her new TV deals. She believes that no movement needs only one leader.

Patrisse Marie Khan-Cullors Brignac is an American activist, artist, and writer. She is most famous for co-founding the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement seeks to address violence and systemic inequality facing African Americans. Cullors also advocates for prison abolition and LGBTQ rights. She uses critical theory to guide her activism. Critical theory is a way of looking at how power and social structures affect people. Throughout her life, she has used art and writing to share her message.

Cullors was born on June 20, 1983, in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in Van Nuys, a working-class neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. Her upbringing involved many challenges. Her mother, Cherice Foley, raised the children after her stepfather, Alton Cullors, left the family. Her biological father, Gabriel Brignac, was not in her life until she was eleven. He struggled with drug-related issues and died in a homeless shelter in 2009. Cullors also witnessed her brothers being treated harshly by police officers. These experiences helped shape her views on justice and authority.

Her path to activism began during her teenage years. She joined the Bus Riders Union, which was led by Eric Mann. Through this group, she participated in an organizing program at the Labor Community Strategy Center. This program introduced her to social movements and revolutionary ideas. She later attended a social justice magnet program at Grover Cleveland High School. Cullors pursued higher education at UCLA, earning a degree in religion and philosophy. She also earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California.

In 2013, Cullors helped launch a global movement. She worked alongside community organizers Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. They founded Black Lives Matter following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. While Garza used the phrase in a Facebook post, Cullors created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. This digital tool helped the movement spread rapidly. The organizers intended to build a decentralized movement. This means the organization is governed by a collective of members rather than a single central authority. By 2015, a formal network of chapters had been established.

Cullors has dedicated much of her career to specific policy changes. She served as the executive director of the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence in L.A. Jails. This group fought for civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. She also co-founded Dignity and Power Now, an organization that successfully advocated for a civilian oversight board. Her work often focuses on abolition. As an abolitionist, she argues for moving away from systems like prisons and police toward different ways of maintaining safety. She also supports reparations, which are forms of restitution to address historical harms caused by colonialism.

Her political ideas are drawn from many different thinkers. She cites black feminists like Audaud Lorde and bell hooks to understand her identity. She also looks to Angela Davis for theories on anticapitalist movements. Cullors has identified herself and Garza as "trained Marxists." This means they study the ideas of Karl Marx to understand economic systems. She also draws inspiration from the work of Frantz Fanon regarding colonial violence. Despite these complex theories, she emphasizes nonviolent direct action as her preferred method of protest.

Cullors has used many media platforms to tell her story. In 2018, she published her memoir, "When They Call You a Terrorist." The book reached number 12 on The New York Times Best Seller list. It details her adolescence and the origins of her activism. In 2022, she released "An Abolitionist's Handbook," which serves as a guide for activists. She has also worked in television, producing the YouTube series "Resist." In May 2021, after six years of leadership, she resigned from her role at the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. She stated she wanted to focus on her books and a television deal with Warner Bros. She noted that no single leader is necessary for a movement to succeed.