When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

by Patrisse Cullors

Monte’s first arrest for an attempted breaking and entering while he was in the middle of an episode was his first strike. While he was incarcerated, guards claimed to find a weapon in his cell. Monte denied it was his and we never knew about this, but regardless, he was convicted and therefore: strike two. This third incident in which the charge is terrorism, also in the midst of an episode where he yelled and carried on but threatened no one and hurt no one, represents strike three and that’s it. He qualifies for a living death sentence and that’s fucking that. The public defender is nonplussed as he says this, and he is not embarrassed that he has no plan to fight back. He says this is what Monte wants. He literally said that. Go tell my brother we’re hiring a lawyer, I order, and he disappears through a door, back where I suppose the holding cells are kept, where my brother is being kept. He comes back quickly. Your brother says don’t worry about it. Now I hiss: Go. Tell. My. Brother. We. ARE. Hiring. A. Lawyer. Full damn stop. This time when he disappears and returns, he is compliant. Is that humility I read on his face, I wonder? Your brother says fine, he informs my family. He says it’s okay to find a lawyer and that he might know someone, he mutters. We’re done here, I tell my mother. Being an organizer, volunteering with the Strategy Center, has made me bold. Fuck this loser. There is another way. Now we have only to find the money, which is a mountain that shoots...