Alicia Garza

We've said from the very beginning Black Lives Matter is a network and also, as a broad set of individuals, is an organization moving to transform the way our society values black lives. It's not an 'Internet movement.'

What we've seen is an attempt by mainstream politics and politicians to co-opt movements that galvanize people in order for them to move closer to their own goals and objectives. We don't think that playing a corrupt game is going to bring change and make black lives matter.

Black Lives Matter, as a network, will not, does not, has not, ain't going to endorse any candidates. Now if there are activists within the movement that want to do that independently, they should feel free, and if that's what makes sense for their local conditions, that's fantastic.

I have to be honest: I feel like I live in a constant state of rage, and I think a lot of black people do.

I'm in favor of people getting in where they fit in. Wherever you feel you can make the greatest contribution, you should.

People think that we're engaged with identity politics. The truth is that we're doing what the labor movement has always done - organizing people who are at the bottom.

We understand that, in our communities, black trans folk, gender-nonconforming folk, black queer folk, black women, black disabled folk - we have been leading movements for a long time, but we have been erased from the official narrative.

I think that there are real concerns that we have around whose life is important and why. So if the official story is, for example, somebody was running from the police, does their life matter?

Black Trans Lives Matter, to me, is really different. I think it speaks most directly to the marginalization and disenfranchisement of trans people within the black community.

Just like we don't live in a two-dimensional world, we don't live two-dimensional lives.

If you're quiet, knowing that there's a culture of racism inside most police departments, and you're not saying anything, you are on the wrong side of history.

Coming out of the 2016 election, there was a few things that became really clear. One, that black people deserve to have vehicles that represent the breadth of our interests. Two, that we really need to do a better job of being able to communicate what conditions and experiences our communities are facing.

Certainly, we have to make sure our police forces do not have weapons of mass destruction with which they can terrorize our communities.

I'll be honest with you: I think that it's really difficult, this framing around 'good cops' and 'bad cops.' Policing, as a system, is incredibly corrupt, period.

Black Lives Matter is not just concerned with what happens in policing. The disregard, the disrespect, and the lack of dignity for black life transcends through the fabric of our society.

When we address the disparities facing black people, we get a lot closer to a true democracy where all lives matter.

I have a lot of respect for President Obama, and while I deeply disagree with some of his actions or lack of action on issues I care about, I still recognize the significance of the first black presidency and the challenges that come with that.

If I don't watch the news in a day, I think the potential for humanity is incredible. But anytime I look at the news, I'm like, 'We're in really big trouble.'

There is hope for humanity, but in order for us to get there, we really have to interrogate not just what it takes to change laws, but what it takes to change culture that supports laws that uplift humanity and also supports laws that serve to denigrate it.

I am not ready to give up this country without a fight.

Police violence is the tip of the iceberg when it relates to the conditions overall of black people across the globe.

We can make black lives matter in the labor movement by building the kinds of movements that black women need to shape a new economy and a new democracy that don't force them to choose between making a living and being a part of a healthy democracy.

We spend more time talking about what's happening on Twitter than we do talking about what kind of organising people are doing in the cities we live in.

I've learned much more about politics than I thought I ever would.

If you're to look at people's social networks, not a lot of white people have a social network that has lots of black people - it doesn't happen. It makes sense to me that online would be as segregated as offline because it's just mimicking patterns that exist in real life.

What it takes to get people from liking and sharing and retweeting to organising is a hard and long process. Technology has really changed the game in terms of how people participate and what they decide to participate in.

There is no separation between the black community and the LGBT community. As a black, queer woman myself, I often have to assert, right, that it's not one or the other but that I am all of these things.

We need to make sure that we have an honest, honest conversation and that we engage honest practices around how racism operates in this country. It's not just about people being mean to each other.

Quite frankly, black folks have always been at the core of what it's meant to make this nation human.

The night that George Zimmerman was acquitted, I think, for black people all over the world, there was a collective feeling of incredible grief and incredible rage. And that verdict not only let George Zimmerman go home to his family, but it sent a message to black people everywhere that our lives did not matter.

Whether or not you call it Black Lives Matter, whether or not you put a hashtag in front of it, whether or not you call it the Movement for Black Lives, all of that is irrelevant. Because there was resistance before Black Lives Matter, and there will be resistance after Black Lives Matter.

I don't even know what a hashtag is. You don't turn a hashtag into a movement - people turn things into a movement.

The Black Lives Matter movement has to, by its very nature, be intersectional because of the complexities of who black people are in this country and throughout the world.

The demands of the Civil Rights era weren't limited to voting rights - they strove for an end to segregation in all aspects of life, including housing, employment, and public accommodations.

The history of black women in the economy is rooted in the legacy of slavery. Enslaved black women were forced to provide care work, unpaid, for white families.

Both Alton Sterling and Philando Castile had guns on them, which is part of their Second Amendment right. It is a part of a culture that is largely protected by special-interest groups like the N.R.A., but the right to bear arms, it seems, only exists for white people.

There has to be a readjustment of resources that is being diverted to police and policing as opposed to community health services, and there certainly has to be control over the police by the communities that they are supposed to protect and serve.

There have to be consequences for police who take the law into their own hands. There has to be a shift in the use-of-force policies that are used in departments across the country.

I'll be honest with you, I really struggle with the conversation around gun control.

What is it going to take to dismantle the systems that keep me from being able to live well and that keep me and so many other people from being able to access the things that we need and deserve?

As you keep pulling back the layers of how deeply rooted anti-blackness and white supremacy are in this country, it is exhausting, and it is traumatizing.

The reason that I started the Black Futures Lab is because I have some clarity about what I think needs to happen in relationship to electoral organizing. It's not a destination. It is a set of tools that we use to engage people that we care about, en masse, around issues that are important to us.

We need the best and the brightest thinkers, strategists, coders, surveillance experts, tech geeks, and disruptors to utilize all of the tools we have available to us to build the world that we want to see. A world where black lives matter. A world where all lives matter.

For us, #BlackLivesMatter is really a re-humanization project. It's a way for us to love each other again, to love ourselves, and to project that love into the world so that we can transform it.

Saying 'black lives matter' both literally and figuratively restores people's dignity.

When people say, 'Well, I don't talk to my family because they're all conservatives,' or 'I don't talk to my family because they're racist,' I'm, like, 'No, no, no; that's exactly who you need to be talking to.'

The best advice I ever got as an organizer was that if you can organize your family, you're a good organizer.

Black Lives Matter started from a post that I put on Facebook after the acquittal of George Zimmerman. I woke up in the middle of the night sobbing, just trying to process what had happened and wanting to find community around being in a lot of grief and having a lot of rage.

My mom has this thing where she doesn't sugarcoat stuff.

Ultimately, policing in and of itself is problematic.