Protest

The first of the Black Panthers’ community programs, the Free Breakfast Program provided free breakfasts to poor school children in Oakland, CA to encourage health and learning and as an alternative to the statewide School Breakfast and Lunch programs which were limited in reach. Eventually, the Black Panthers’ program grew successful enough that 36 cities had a breakfast program and the administrator of California’s School Lunch Program admitted that it fed more children than the state of California. However, intervention from law enforcement agencies and party infighting led to the dissolution of many Party chapters and the closing of the breakfast programs.

Ella Baker was an instrumental civil rights activist who played important roles in the NAACP and SCLC amongst other organizations. She organized voter registration campaigns and helped fundraise to fight Jim Crow laws in the South. Ella’s Song, by the all-black women's group Sweet Honey in the Rock, was written in remembrance of Ella Baker and upholds her willingness to fight injustice. The lyrics issue a call to action and a reminder that the fight for equality is a long-term ordeal.

James P. Breeden organized the Stay-Out rally as part of the larger Freedom Day school boycott on February 26, 1964. The rally took place at the Donnelly Auditorium in Boston, MA with over 3000 community members, both African-American/Black and white, attending the event in support of the end of de facto segregation.

Stevie Wonder, as an avid supporter of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote his own version of the happy birthday song in tribute to MLK to support the push to make his birthday a national holiday. With a funky beat and lyrics commemorating Dr. King and his actions, the song came to stand as not only a birthday song but also as a civil rights anthem and song of hope for black people across the country.

In 1972, Florian Jenkins, a black artist was hired by Dartmouth College to paint a series of murals in the El Hajj Malik El Shabazz Temple. Jenkins designed the themes of each mural with Dartmouth students, taking into consideration the life of Malcolm X and the struggles that black people continue to face in life. The murals range in subject matter, from tributes to the vast indigenous cultures and traditions of Africa to images of people and events from Malcolm X’s life. The murals are a strong visual tribute to the radical black progression initiated by Malcolm X as well as the strong cultural heritage all black people hail from.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened to the public on April 26, 2018, is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence. Set on a six-acre site, the memorial uses sculpture, art, and design to contextualize racial terror. The site includes a memorial square with 800 six-foot monuments to symbolize thousands of racial terror lynching victims in the United States and the counties and states where this terrorism took place.

In April 2021, the Free Ashley Diamond collective organized a week of action for Ashley Diamond, a black trans activist that is currently incarcerated in Savannah, Georgia. Despite her winning a landmark settlement in 2016 against the Georgia Department of Corrections intended to guarantee protections for trans inmates, Diamond remains incarcerated in a men’s prison. The week of action featured a phone and email zap, zoom phone banking, and a letter writing campaign. While this week of action was indeed an example of Black Covid Care, there is still much to be done for Ashley’s safety.

After the police murder of Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus Ohio in April 2021, Black Feminist Future released a Community Altar Building Toolkit, a resource with instructions for building altars to honor the Black women and girls lost to the police state. The toolkit included information for gathering safely during COVID, pictures of example altars, and detailed potential roles that people could play during the event. The resource was the impetus for several in person altar building gatherings across the US in memoriam of women and girls killed by police as well as in resistance of the police state itself.

DC Justice Lab is a team of law and policy experts researching, organizing, and advocating for large-scale changes to the District’s criminal legal system. The organization develops smarter safety solutions that are evidence-driven, community-rooted, and racially just. DC Justice Lab centers the expressed interests, concerns, and capacity of Black native Washingtonians who are most affected by policing, prosecution, and prisons to advocate for the most just and effective policies.