Patrisse Cullors, Social Activist
Best-selling Author of When They Call You A Terrorist and Co-Creator of the Viral Twitter Hashtag and Movement, #BlackLivesMatter

Artist, organizer, educator, and popular public speaker, Patrisse Cullors is a Los Angeles native; co-founder and executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network; and founder of grassroots Los Angeles-based organization Dignity and Power Now. For the last 20 years, Patrisse has been on the frontlines of criminal justice reform and led Reform LA Jails’ “Yes on R” campaign, a ballot initiative that passed by a 73% landslide victory in March 2020.

Patrisse co-founded the global Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 after sparking the viral Twitter hashtag. The movement has since expanded into an international organization with dozens of chapters around the world campaigning against anti-black racism. Cullors’ work for Black Lives Matter recently received recognition in Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2020” list and Time magazine’s 2020 “100 Women of the Year.” In January 2016, Patrisse Cullors published her memoir, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, which became an instant New York Times Best Seller.