Patrisse Cullors - Vanity Fair “'We Have to Keep Repeating Ourselves Just to be Able to Breathe': Black Activists on the Movement for Justice"
Vanity Fair | June 5, 2020
“DDespite the pervasive threat of the coronavirus pandemic, in which the United States has far outpaced other nations in terms of reported cases and deaths, hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled streets with demonstrations against police brutality and unchecked violence against Black Americans. Minneapolis, Atlanta, New York, as well as many small towns across the country, felt the familiar collective response to the string of murders of Black people by police and white vigilantes. This week, all 50 states have held demonstrations. Ahmaud Arbery, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and George Floyd, whose final plea of ‘I can’t breathe’ was captured on video, have galvanized the national conscience, echoing an impassioned response six years ago following Eric Garner’s death.
The cycle of death, online outrage, and civic demonstration, without any tangible resolution, is brutal in its familiarity, and especially taxing as much of the population remains under lockdown. But the halt to daily life, in which families and communities separated in order to stay alive, was not enough to pause the cruelty of systemic racism. ‘This moment—both the resistance and what people are resisting to—is a part of a long history in this country,’ Charlene Carruthers, a Black, queer, feminist organizer, explained in a phone interview with Vanity Fair. ‘This moment is reflective of the work that our ancestors did first and we are building on that.’
Carruthers and other activists throughout the country—including Clarissa Brooks, a community organizer in Atlanta; St. Louis native Brittany Packnett Cunningham; Los Angeles–based Patrisse Cullors, a cofounder of Black Lives Matter; and Rachel Cargle, an Ohio–born New Yorker—see their roles in the larger movement for Black lives as inherently building upon uprisings and organizing that came before, while also emphasizing a new generation of influence and energy. Carruthers, who is a founding member of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100) and served as its national director from 2013 to 2018, says that working alongside activists who were in some cases a decade her junior is a strength because ‘it allows a continuum in the movement.’”
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