BROOKLYN WEEKLY, JUNE 28, 2020 FIGHTING FOR CHANGE
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Meet the activists behind the George Floyd protests
NUPOL KIAZOLU
Nupol Kiazolu, the
20-year-old president
of Black Lives Matter
Greater New York, has
organized some of the largest
George Floyd protests
in the city — including a
march on June 2 from Bryant
Park to Trump Towers
that drew more than 15,000
people.
The march was non-violent
— just as all of Kiazolu’s
protests have been —
but Kiazolu clarifi ed that
while she does not believe
in violence, she doesn’t advocate
for peaceful passivity,
either.
“I’m not peaceful,” Kiazolu
told Brooklyn Paper.
“When I say, ‘No justice, no
peace,’ I mean that.”
New York City’s Black
Lives Matter chapter does
more than organize demonstrations,
Kiazolu said.
The group also drafts legislation,
hosts a youth coalition
that teaches young
people to be effective organizers,
and runs a political
action committee that
supports grassroots candidates.
“Black Lives Matter, we
don’t just protest, we work
behind the scenes and the
front lines,” she said.
Kiazolu had her fi rst
brush with activism when
she was just 12 years old,
after a neighborhood
watchman killed 17-yearold
Trayvon Martin in
Florida.
“His murder really ignited
a fi re in my heart that
I’d never felt before,” she
said.
Kiazolu held a silent
protest at her middle school
in Georgia, where she and
other students wore hoodies
to protest his killing,
she said. Teachers sent her
to the principal’s offi ce and
wrote her up for detention,
but her math teacher — a
Black woman — stood up
for her.
“This woman literally
risked her job by walking
down to the principal’s
offi ce with me with her
hoodie on in solidarity,” Kiazolu
said. Thanks in part
to her teacher’s advocacy,
the principal allowed Kiazolu
to research her fi rst
amendment rights as a student
to prove her right to
protest, which she did. “At
that point, I knew being an
activist was my calling.”
Now, Kiazolu is a student
at Hampton University,
where she studies
political science and prelaw.
She plans to become
a civil rights lawyer and
politician. And while balancing
her school work,
career ambitions, and activism
isn’t easy, she says
it’s worth it.
“Time management
and working with my team
is what keeps me afl oat,”
she said.
CHELSEA MILLER
Chelsea Miller, a
23-year-old Brooklynite,
co-founded the
advocacy group Freedom
March NYC after noticing
a critical lack of oversight
at one of the fi rst New York
City protests following
Floyd’s death.
“When I went out that
Saturday night, what I saw
was really disheartening,”
she said. “What I saw on
the ground was that there
wasn’t leadership.”
The next day, Miller
and her good friend Nialah
Edari worked tirelessly
to organize a protest that
night, which drew hundreds
of people. Soon, Freedom
March NYC began
hosting larger events — including
a massive June 4
march which led thousands
of protesters from George
Floyd’s memorial service
in Cadman Plaza to Washington
Square Park.
“That was one of the
most memorable and signifi
cant marches,” Miller
said. “There were thousands
of people who crossed
that bridge, it was non-violent
… it was an incredible
moment.”
The Brooklyn native
said her experience growing
up in Flatbush with a
single mother played an
important role in her activism.
“My activism has been
informed by being a fi rst
generation American, by
being raised by a single
mother,” she said. “For
me, my mom has always
instilled in me a resilience
and an understanding
of your power and your
voice, especially as a Black
woman.”
Miller’s mother worked
for many years at a foster
agency, but eventually left
the industry and decided
to turn the second story
of their family home into
a group home for girls,
Miller said. “I grew up with
foster sisters and the stories
of their experiences in
the foster care system,” she
explained. “To me, being
able to turn the blinders to
other people’s experiences
is something I cant do.”
The experience inspired
Miller to co-found a mentorship
program as a student
at Columbia University.
The program, called
Women Everywhere Believe,
provides training
sessions, resources, and
events for young girls of
color.
“I remember being in
college and there were a
lot of protests going on and
feeling as though my voice
wasn’t being heard,” Miller
said. “So we created Women
Everywhere Believe because
we realized that Black
women were not being centered
in the conversation
about police brutality.”
NIA WHITE
Nia White, a 17-yearold
from East New
York, said she never
guessed she would be at the
forefront of a social justice
movement as a senior in
high school.
“I defi nitely did not see
me in this position now, I
never expected to lead thousands
of people over the
Brooklyn Bridge,” she said.
“I thought I was going to be
at prom. I thought I was going
to be graduation.”
White has spent her
spring semester organizing
rallies and drafting policy
proposals with Freedom
March NYC. Last week, the
group released its policy
platform for 2020, which
pushes for a number of police
reforms, White said.
“One of the policies
I fi nd most important because
I’m young is getting
police offi cers out
of schools,” she said. “It
would defi nitely help with
the school-to-prison pipeline.”
White said she began
volunteering for organizations
advocating for Black
women after getting rejected
from several internships
and realizing how few
Black women there were in
leadership roles.
“I didn’t see anyone who
BY ROSE ADAMS
looked like me,” she said,
explaining that she was
routinely rejected from internships
at law fi rms and
political offi ces. “I wouldn’t
get the positions, and I feel
as though it defi nitely was
because I already had two
strikes against me already
— I was Black, and I was a
woman. And then my third
was that I was young, so it
was automatically, ‘You’re
out.’”
White has interned for
several advocacy groups,
and said those experiences
have helped fuel White’s activism,
she said.
“It gave the skills to
speak up and the information
as well,” White explained.
White, who plans to
work in politics in the future,
said that growing up
in East New York also gave
her the tools to call out injustice.
“In Brooklyn you always
see these types of
violent actions happening,
and it defi nitely forms
you.” she said. “Brooklyn
is defi nitely the reason I
have my voice today because
no one in Brooklyn is
silent. Everyone in Brooklyn
speaks up. That’s just
how my neighborhood conditioned
me.”
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