Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement Alicia Garza will speak at 草莓社区 (EMU) during the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding鈥檚 25th Anniversary Celebration banquet on June 5, 2021.
鈥淭his is an unparalleled privilege that Alicia Garza accepted our invitation to be our keynote speaker; what an honor,鈥� said Patience Kamau, anniversary committee chair.
The celebration, a three-day event from June 4-6, is all virtual.
“We know our prospective guests will be attending from many different time zones, which means live attendance may not be possible,” said Kamau. “All sessions will be recorded and we ask that you register in order to receive the links to recordings after the event.”
It will also feature sessions with CJP co-founder John Paul Lederach, 2019 MacArthur Fellow and restorative justice attorney sujatha baliga, Ahimsa Collective founder Sonya Shah, an alumni gathering and oral histories with women critical in founding CJP and former executive directors of the center. On Sunday, Executive Director Jayne Docherty gives a “State of the Center” address.
‘A lot to learn’
After postponing the 2020 celebration, Kamau and Docherty were thrilled at Garza’s willingness to reschedule a year in advance.
鈥淲e have a lot to learn from Alicia Garza,鈥� said Docherty. 鈥淢ore students enrolling in our programs are bringing a focus on undoing the continuing legacy of racism, white supremacy, genocide of native peoples, and other forms of oppression in the United States.鈥�
is one of the three co-founders of Black Lives Matter. Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors started the first chapter in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin鈥檚 murderer, George Zimmerman. According to their , the global Black Lives Matter network 鈥渋s a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission is to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.鈥�
The movement gained prominence in 2014 for activism in Ferguson, Missouri, after the murder of Mike Brown by police officer Darren Wilson. Now, the movement has over 40 chapters in four countries.
Garza: Racism the ‘least understood’ phenomenon in this country
Garza, who is based in Oakland, California, currently serves as the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which advocates for domestic workers in the U.S. In 2019, she helped launch Supermajority, a membership-based organization that aims to build equity and power among women in America through advocacy, community building, and electoral participation.
She is also the principal at Black Futures Lab, a project to build 鈥淏lack political power鈥� and influence and transform black communities. One of their initiatives, the Black Census, polled over 30,000 African Americans on the issues they face and tangible solutions to those problems. The census is 鈥渢he largest survey of Black people conducted in the United States since Reconstruction,鈥� according to their .
鈥淚 think race and racism is probably the most-studied social, economic, and political phenomenon in this country, but it鈥檚 also the least understood,鈥� Garza said in a . 鈥淭he reality is that race in the United States operates on a spectrum from black to white. It doesn鈥檛 mean that people who are in between don鈥檛 experience racism, but it means that the closer you are to white on that spectrum, the better off you are, and the closer to black that you are on that spectrum, the worse off you are.鈥�
As as a 鈥渜ueer Black woman,鈥� she brings an intersectional lens to her justice work, addressing racial issues alongside those of gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
Garza鈥檚 first book, (Doubleday, 2021), was published earlier this year. Her writings have been featured in the , , , and many more. Among other awards, she was recognized as one of the most influential African Americans by .