A Black woman with long braids and a blue shirt poses smiling, with her hands at her hips

Alicia Garza: On the Purpose of Power

Chicago Humanities Festival

“Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter,” wrote Alicia Garza in a 2013 Facebook post after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag that emerged in response to the post, and the following movement (co-founded by Garza), remains as important today as it was then, with people across the country continuing to protest state-sanctioned violence against Black people. Garza returns to Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF) to discuss her debut book The Purpose of Power, which details the two decades of organizing experience that guides her activism. Garza is joined in conversation by writer, pleasure activist, and social justice facilitator adrienne maree brown.

This program, presented and recorded virtually as part of CHF's Fall 2020 Festival, was supported by the Doris Conant Endowment for Programs on Women and Culture and presented in partnership with 826CHI.

Alicia Garza
Alicia Garza is the co-founder of Black Lives Matter and Supermajority. Her new book is The Purpose of Power: How
We Come Together When We Fall Apart.

adrienne maree brown
adrienne maree brown is a writer, social justice facilitator, pleasure activist, healer, and doula living in Detroit. She is author of
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice
Movements. brown was a 2013 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow and a 2013 and 2015 Knights Arts Challenge winner.