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

by Patrisse Khan-Cullors

On our final day in Ferguson, and in response to the community, we host a discussion on patriarchy in the Movement. Darnell pulls it together. He knows that even as a Gay, feminist Black man, he will be granted more space than he has earned, he says. We speak with organizers from the area who have gathered there and talk about what it means to step back, what it means to be an ally. Meanwhile, Mark Anthony, Prentis Hemphill and Adaku Utah have converted the basement of the church to a healing justice space, and people who have been protesting for weeks walk into a room lit low with candles where a crew of healers is at the ready to provide massage, acupuncture and talk therapy. There is an art station where people can paint and draw what they cannot name or speak. There is an altar for people who have passed. There are pillows for people to rest on. We refuse to allow anyone or anything to make us less than wholly human. And in the fullness of our humanity, we need this, too, along with protests, and the deep discussions and policy pushes and theory, a place to rest, to renew. A place to restore.