Co-Founder, Black Lives Matter
Patrisse Cullors: Biography at a Glance
- Artist, activist, educator, public speaker, and Los Angeles-native Patrisse Cullors is the Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and Founder of the Los Angeles-based grassroots organization Dignity and Power Now.
- Cullors’ work for Black Lives Matter recently received recognition in TIME Magazine’s 2020 100 Women of the Year project, and was nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize.
- For the last 20 years, Cullors has been on the frontlines of criminal justice reform and led Reform LA Jails’ “Yes on R” campaign, a ballot initiative that passed by a 71% landslide victory in March 2020.
- The BLM movement has since expanded into an international organization with dozens of chapters around the world campaigning against anti-black racism. In January 2016, Patrisse Cullors published her memoir, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, which became an instant New York Times Bestseller.
Media
LA Times: Art fair protest calls attention to police violence at traffic stopsOfficial Site: Patrisse CullorsOfficial Site: Black Lives MatterTIME: "Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors on Her Memoir, Her Life an...Advocate: "BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors’s Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice"Book: An Abolitionist's Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World
Videos
Biography
Patrisse Cullors is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, artist and abolitionist from Los Angeles, CA. Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Patrisse has been on the frontlines of abolitionist organizing for 20 years. Since she began the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, it has expanded into a global foundation supporting Black-led movements in the US, UK and Canada and has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. The significance of the Black Lives Matter movement has been recognized by The New York Times as the “largest movement in US history.” TIME 100 also named Patrisse as one of the 100 most influential people in 2020. Patrisse has led multiple Los Angeles-based organizations, including Dignity and Power Now, Justice LA and Reform LA Jails. These organizations have won progressive ballot measures, fought against a $3.5 billion jail plan and implemented the first-ever Civilian Oversight Commission of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.Patrisse is also the faculty director of Arizona’s Prescott College, a new Social and Environmental Arts Practice MFA program, which she developed nesting a curriculum focused on the intersection of art, social justice and community organizing that is first of its kind in the nation. As an outspoken abolitionist and artist, Patrisse combined these two passions in early February 2020 when she teamed up with Noé Olivas and Alexandre Dorriz to serve as a co-founder of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart, a reimagined art gallery and studio dedicated to shifting the trauma-induced conditions of poverty and economic injustice, bridging cultural work and advocacy, and investigating ancestries through the lens of Inglewood and its community. Not stopping there, Patrisse is also a former staff writer on Freeform’s Good Trouble series as well as an actress on the show. She also co-produced the 12-part YouTube Originals series titled RESIST, that premiered November 18, 2020. In 2020, Patrisse signed an overall production deal with Warner Brothers, where she intends to continue to uplift Black stories, talent and creators that are transforming the world of art and culture.
