Looking Back, Looking Forward: Black Lives Matter, the Pandemic, and the Future
2020 was defined by two transformative and intertwined events: a global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter uprising. In the face of tragedy, people looked out for their neighbors, fed their communities, and triumphantly protested against police violence in the name of liberation.
CBH and BPL’s Justice Initiatives are pleased to co-present this panel exploring the many grassroots, community-based responses that cropped up over the past year and that are continuing to provide connection during an otherwise alienating time. What are mutual aid groups accomplishing that institutional powers have not? How are they reshaping our understanding of what actually keeps our neighborhoods safe and thriving—instead of police? And how does their work follow in the footsteps of a history of activism and community organizing in NYC?
Join historian Johanna Fernández, author of the acclaimed book The Young Lords: A Radical History, Brooklyn activist-entrepreneur Zenat Begum, and Jabari Brisport, activist and now New York State Senator, for this look backwards and forward, moderated by The Intercept’s Akela Lacy.
This partner program is presented by BPL’s Center for Brooklyn History and Justice Initiatives, in connection with the CBH project “Brooklyn Resists” which looks at the past and present of Black protest and resistance in Brooklyn.
Participants
Johanna Fernández is the author of The Young Lords: A Radical History, a history of the Puerto Rican counterpart of the Black Panther Party. She teaches 20th Century US history and the history of social movements at Baruch College. Her recent research and FOIL litigation against the NYPD led to the recovery of the “lost” Handschu files, the largest repository of police surveillance records in the country, over one million surveillance files of New Yorkers compiled by the NYPD between 1954-1972, including those of Malcolm X. She is the editor of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal. With Mumia Abu-Jamal she co-edited a special issue of the journal Socialism and Democracy, titled The Roots of Mass Incarceration in the US: Locking Up Black Dissidents and Punishing the Poor.
Zenat Begum is a native New Yorker, owner of Playground Coffee Shop, founder of Playground Youth, and an alumni of The New School. Zenat intentionally seeks to center BIPOC, marginalized bodies, the arts, and community engagement in order to foster change in a shapeshifting and gentrifying BedStuy.
Pronouns: she/her
Senator Jabari Brisport represents New York’s 25th State Senate district and is a third-generation Caribbean-American from Brooklyn. He first got involved in political activism through the fight for marriage equality and the early Black Lives Matter movement. Until becoming the first LGBTQ+ person of color to serve in New York’s legislature this past January, he was a math teacher at a public middle school in Crown Heights.
Akela Lacy is a Politics Reporter at The Intercept. She has also worked at Politico and the Pulitzer Center. She is from Philadelphia, lives in Brooklyn, and was previously based in Washington, D.C.
2020 was defined by two transformative and intertwined events: a global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter uprising. In the face of tragedy, people looked out for their neighbors, fed their communities, and triumphantly protested against police violence in the name of liberation.
CBH and BPL’s Justice Initiatives are pleased to co-present this panel exploring the many grassroots, community-based responses that cropped up over the past year and that are continuing to provide connection during an otherwise alienating time. What are mutual aid groups accomplishing that institutional powers have not? How are they reshaping our understanding of what actually keeps our neighborhoods safe and thriving—instead of police? And how does their work follow in the footsteps of a history of activism and community organizing in NYC?
Join historian Johanna Fernández, author of the acclaimed book The Young Lords: A Radical History, Brooklyn activist-entrepreneur Zenat Begum, and Jabari Brisport, activist and now New York State Senator, for this look backwards and forward, moderated by The Intercept’s Akela Lacy.
This partner program is presented by BPL’s Center for Brooklyn History and Justice Initiatives, in connection with the CBH project “Brooklyn Resists” which looks at the past and present of Black protest and resistance in Brooklyn.
Participants
Johanna Fernández is the author of The Young Lords: A Radical History, a history of the Puerto Rican counterpart of the Black Panther Party. She teaches 20th Century US history and the history of social movements at Baruch College. Her recent research and FOIL litigation against the NYPD led to the recovery of the “lost” Handschu files, the largest repository of police surveillance records in the country, over one million surveillance files of New Yorkers compiled by the NYPD between 1954-1972, including those of Malcolm X. She is the editor of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal. With Mumia Abu-Jamal she co-edited a special issue of the journal Socialism and Democracy, titled The Roots of Mass Incarceration in the US: Locking Up Black Dissidents and Punishing the Poor.
Zenat Begum is a native New Yorker, owner of Playground Coffee Shop, founder of Playground Youth, and an alumni of The New School. Zenat intentionally seeks to center BIPOC, marginalized bodies, the arts, and community engagement in order to foster change in a shapeshifting and gentrifying BedStuy.
Pronouns: she/her
Senator Jabari Brisport represents New York’s 25th State Senate district and is a third-generation Caribbean-American from Brooklyn. He first got involved in political activism through the fight for marriage equality and the early Black Lives Matter movement. Until becoming the first LGBTQ+ person of color to serve in New York’s legislature this past January, he was a math teacher at a public middle school in Crown Heights.
Akela Lacy is a Politics Reporter at The Intercept. She has also worked at Politico and the Pulitzer Center. She is from Philadelphia, lives in Brooklyn, and was previously based in Washington, D.C.