Patrisse Cullors: Activist and Co‑founder of Black Lives Matter

Background and early activism

Raised in a working‑class neighborhood of Los Angeles, Cullors began her organizing career in local campaigns addressing police brutality, incarceration and youth advocacy. Her organizing drew on direct community work and collaborations with other groups fighting mass incarceration and municipal policing policies. She is openly queer and has been active in LGBTQ rights as part of her broader social justice work.

Black Lives Matter and public roles

In 2013, together with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, Cullors helped develop and popularize the slogan and movement that became known as Black Lives Matter. What began as a phrase and social‑media hashtag grew into a decentralized network of local chapters, street protests and policy campaigns focused on police accountability, racial equity and criminal justice reform.

Focus, writings and activities

Cullors has advocated for a range of reforms and approaches including alternatives to incarceration and what she describes as abolitionist strategies aimed at reducing reliance on policing and prisons. She is also an artist and public speaker and co‑authored a memoir, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, which sets personal experience alongside movement history.

Impact and debates

Cullors's work helped place issues of state violence and racial inequality at the center of national conversation in the 2010s and 2020s. At the same time, Black Lives Matter's rapid growth brought questions about leadership, governance and financial transparency that generated public debate and calls for clearer structures within large, decentralized movements.

Notable distinctions

• Co‑founder of a globally recognized movement addressing anti‑Black violence.
• Author of a widely read memoir connecting personal history with activism.
• Advocate for prison abolition, racial justice and LGBTQ rights.

For an overview of the movement she helped start and its ongoing initiatives, see Black Lives Matter.