Patrisse Cullors

Biography and personal life

Cullors was born in Los Angeles. She grew up in Pacoima, a low-income neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. She became an activist early in life, joining the Bus Riders Union as a teenager. She later earned a degree in religion and philosophy from UCLA. She teaches at Otis College of Art and Design in the Public Practice Program.

Cullors recalls 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 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 founded Black Lives Matter. The three started the movement because of frustration over George Zimmerman's acquittal in the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Cullors wrote the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter to corroborate Garza's use of the phrase in making 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 during imprisonment Los Angeles County jails.

Cullors credits social media as instrumental in revealing 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, but in hindsight it will be better for our nation, the less of our kind, the more safe it will be."

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. However, the group did not succeed in its efforts.

Cullors co-founded a prison activism organization Dignity and Power Now which succeeded in advocating for a civilian oversight board.

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

Awards

Cullors is a Fulbright scholar. 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. She was also named a Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year 2016. Also in 2016, she was named one of Fortune's World's Greatest Leaders and an Honorary Doctorate from Clarkson University, among several others.

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, including an article from December 2015 titled "The Future of Black Life" which pushed the idea that activists could no longer wait for the State to take action, and called her followers into action by encouraging them to begin building the world that they want to see.