Photo:COURTESY OF PATRISSE CULLORS-BRIGNAC
Patrisse Cullors-Brignac is one of the three co-founders of one of the most powerful and demanding movements today: Black Lives Matters. Inspired by the acts of Harriet Tubman and the legacies of the Black Power movement, Cullors-Brignac told HuffPost that Black Lives Matter seeks to develop leaders. “The work of Black Lives Matter is the work of building Black power,” she said. “BLM supports the further development of a cadre of new black leaders, as opposed to that one charismatic savior.”
Cullors-Brignac, who is also the director of the Truth and Reinvestment campaign at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and co-founder of Dignity and Power Now, said she sees blackness as a unifier. “It is more than just phenotype,” she said. “It is a politic. It is a belief system. Blackness is where I find and unearth my deepest desires.” She told HuffPost that she believes that American politics need to undergo a “radical transformation” in order to abandon the anti-black racism that plagues the country.