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

by Patrisse Cullors

I start cursing. I am outraged. In what fucking world does this make sense? I put a call out: Have people heard about 17-year-old Trayvon Martin? I have loved so many young men who look just like this boy. I feel immediate grief, and as my friends begin to respond, they, too, are grief stricken. We meet at my home. We circle up. A multiracial group of roughly 15 people dedicated to ending white supremacy and creating a world in which all of our children can thrive. We process. We talk about what we’ve seen and experienced in our lives. We cry. At some point Al Sharpton hears about what happened to Trayvon and a huge rally is held in New York. An arrest is demanded. And at first it seems ignored. But the demand is elevated in Florida by a group of brilliant and brave young organizers, the Dream Defenders, led by Umi Agnew. They occupy the governor’s office, bringing direct action back into the fore for our generation. They use social media to amplify their voices, and they inspire a nation of organizers, including me, as I am working in LA to build out Dignity and Power Now. After weeks of protest, the killer is arrested and the world begins to know the extent to which he is a sick and deranged man, a man whose violence was known, a man who had had police called on him. A man who was not called a terrorist or put on a national database despite, before he murdered Trayvon, having committed actual violence. Before the killer’s trial begins, there are several things that we kn...