FOR CHANGE
behind the George Floyd protests
CHELSEA MILLER NIA WHITE
BY ROSE ADAMS
COURIER LIFE, JUNE 26-JULY 2, 2020 3
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 cofound
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, 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, and we feel it’d
also help the education
system.”
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 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 Chelsea Miller’s advocacy
group Women
Everywhere Believe
(WEBelieve) and for
Black Women’s Blueprint,
an organization
that hosts workshops
and advocates for policies
on behalf of Black
women. Both 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.”
‘Everyone in Brooklyn speaks up. That’s just
how my neighborhood conditioned me’