Like, 16 years ago? Post was not sent - check your email addresses! His boss, Maduro, endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the 2016 election but did not endorse in 2020. “I say look at the data. The Root The Root: Top 100 List 09/15/2015 BIO: #BlackLivesMatter. It became clear that we needed to continue organizing and building Black power across the country. Opal Tometi, activist, writer, strategist, and community organizer. Her best friend from first grade was from a Jordanian family. [9] Tometi continues to collaborate with communities in Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York City, Oakland, Washington D.C. and communities throughout the Southern states. That’s the radical far left actor whom news reports said received millions from the Venezuelan regime to make movies about Venezuelan heroes such as Simon Bolivar — and as my Hollywood sources on the inside told me — somehow didn’t make them. “What is happening in Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Honduras is just a little breeze, and what is coming is a Bolivarian hurricane,” he said, referring to the Venezuelan socialist ideology. And it’s even more noteworthy that Maduro and his drug-dealing henchman, Diosdado Cabello, have both vowed to rain riots onto the U.S. Get a load of this from Breitbart: At the time, one of the most prominent leftists on the continent, Nicolás Maduro henchman and U.S.-sanctions drug trafficker Diosdado Cabello, used his Venezuelan state TV show to warn the United States would soon face similar violence. Well, I’ve covered a lot of riots — from Indonesia to Argentina to Russia to East Timor to Thailand to Venezuela, plus domestic ones in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco — as a journalist. Black Lives Matter has been that.”. She is additionally involved with Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity[17] and is a member of Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, Inc. Tometi was featured as a new civil rights leader by Essence Magazine in 2014 and by the Los Angeles Times in 2013. People were hungry to galvanize their communities to end state-sanctioned violence against Black people, the way Ferguson organizers and allies were doing. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Tometi, with Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza, founded Black Lives Matter in 2013. She has appeared in several media outlets, including Glamour,[3] Essence,[4] CNN,[5] MSNBC,[6] and BET. [2] She is the former Executive Director of the United States’ first national immigrant rights organization for people of African descent – the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). Along with Garza and Cullors, she must repeatedly rebut the same attack lines, such as BLM being a Marxist organisation. This movement was sparked by the February 26, 2012 fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin by neighborhood security guard George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. It’s also noteworthy that many of the arrests of violent rioters in Chile, as well as Columbia and Peru, where riots also happened, were of Venezuelan nationals. [citation needed]. I feel like everything’s on fire and we need to work round the clock to save the democracy we have, As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, Tometi became a campaigner for immigrant rights. And you can rise together.”, “[Tometi stresses] that the passion, input and investment of all nationalities and genders are important in the growth of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, regardless of how uncomfortable it may be.” — The Baker Orange, February 29, 2016. This groups works to improve the lives of African Americans, Afro Latinos, and African and Caribbean immigrants. She was also a founder of the Black-Brown Coalition of Arizona. Patrisse Cullors, another Black Lives Matter co-founder, also confesses to being a “trained organizer” and “trained Marxist” in a resurfaced video, adding weight to claims the group is using “social justice” as a front for more nefarious goals. Opal is a co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter. Tometi is credited with setting up the social media aspects of the movement. She reminds me that the phrase Black Lives Matter itself was seen very differently in the early days: “Some people were thinking: ‘Oh, we don’t say that! On May 7, 2016, she received an honorary doctor of science degree from Clarkson University. [13][14][15][16] She has presented at the United Nations and has participated with the United Nations Global Forum on Migration and the Commission on the Status of Women. Opal Tometi was born 1984, in Phoenix, Arizona, in the US to Nigerian parents. While in college, Tometi volunteered for an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) project that monitored the actions of those who worked to keep illegal immigrants out of the United States. He gives them hugs, kisses, uses his media megaphones to spread their anti-white propaganda, and probably sends them some narco-bucks. Read 10 interesting facts about the Nigerian woman making waves in the New York: 1 Tometi is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. And there would be no justice.”. That to me is the focus; that’s the conversation we need to be having.”, There is also criticism from the committed. Think the Latin nexus to riots are far-fetched? [12], Tometi worked as Co-Director and Communications Director, prior to becoming Executive Director of BAJI. She grew up hearing Yoruba and Esan spoken at home – and says her first trip to Nigeria as a teenager, changed her life. “These girls, I tell you, were some of the best dancers that I have ever seen, but they didn’t make the cut.” They performed city-wide at Martin Luther King Jr holidays and Juneteenth celebrations – giving Tometi not just the chance to learn more about African-American culture, but a sense of sisterhood. Before her work with Black Lives Matter, Tometi had a variety of jobs. Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi’s links to Communist Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro have been exposed, adding weight to claims the group might be a radical leftist organization trained to disrupt American society and promote a modern multicultural variety of Marxist ideology. Opal Tometi currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. [24] She is also featured in the Smithsonian's National Museum for African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Based on the comments from the Latin Americans posting these tweets, the node of connection may have been Danny Glover. She also organized the first Congressional briefing on black immigrants in Washington D.C. Tometi is now the Executive Director of BAJI. They know that the power is actually very much a multiracial movement for human rights – and that there are a lot more of us.”. [11] Tometi is a former Case Manager for survivors of domestic violence and still provides community education on the issue. We particularly highlighted the egregious ways in which Black women, specifically Black trans women, are violated. So what we’re trying to do now is be stronger than we ever were before. She has been published in the Oxford Dictionary of African Biographies, was #10 on the 2015 Root 100 list and she was named a “New Civil Rights Leader” by the Los Angeles Times in 2015 and ESSENCE magazine in 2014, for her cutting edge movement building work which bridges immigrant and human rights work to the ever-growing Black liberation movement. Other memories are more joyful. Opal Tometi and Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors are a co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter. [12], Tometi worked as Co-Director and Communications Director, prior to becoming Executive Director of BAJI. Opal Tometi was born 1984, in Phoenix, Arizona, in the US to Nigerian parents. She doesn’t need the sonorous tones of a Southern Baptist preacher to make her point – she has social media – and with Nigerian-born parents her ancestors were not among those enslaved and transported across the Atlantic several centuries ago. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. Here's Opal Tometi Biography and Profile. This success at spreading not just recognition, but a bone-deep understanding of structural racism, makes Tometi confident that BLM’s other aims will one day be achieved. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Tometi is a social media specialist with Twitter being the platform that is used most often. Seven years ago Tometi helped to create what is possibly the biggest protest movement in US history. How far gone do you have to be to endorse a flamingly fraudulent election? Here’s Opal Tometi Biography and Profile. Opal Tometi is an American human rights activist, writer, strategist, and community organizer. We’ve seen cars run through protesters, we’ve seen vigilantes come and kill people at these rallies. But, she adds, her parents were “somewhat politicised, in that they were very active in their church community and with other Nigerian immigrants”. So how does she remain optimistic and energised? Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Direct links with BLM. Opal Tometi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and a Masters of Arts degree in Communication and Advocacy. Between 15 and 26 million people participated in demonstrations following the death of George Floyd in May this year – and between then and August there were 7,750 demonstrations in all 50 states and Washington DC. The warning was made as early as 2001, at a conference I went to in New York. Why, for so many, does posting a black square on Instagram seem to constitute doing their bit? Along with Garza and Cullors, Tometi was named to the 2013 Time (magazine) 100 Women of the Year[20] and Politico 50 2015[21] Guide to Thinkers, Doers, and Visionaries. [19] She was listed in the Cosmopolitan Top 100 list of extraordinary women. [19] She was listed in the Cosmopolitan Top 100 list of extraordinary women. She has campaigned for advancing human rights, migrant rights, and racial justice worldwide. 2015. At high school, Tometi joined a step team (a percussive African American dance form), founded by two black friends who had been rejected from the nearly all-white cheerleading squad. ", "The Frederick Douglass 200: the people who embody the abolitionist's spirit and work", https://time.com/5793789/black-lives-matter-founders-100-women-of-the-year/, https://guardian.ng/life/on-the-cover/opal-tometi-black-lives-matter/, "Black Lives Matter Founders: The 100 Most Influential People of 2020", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Opal_Tometi&oldid=980143782, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 24 September 2020, at 21:13. She had taken the classes, read the theory and had experience volunteering at domestic violence shelters and campaigning against SB 1070, a strict and broad immigration act that in her view “was going to turn Arizona into an apartheid state”. The fight began long before Tometi was born, still felt overwhelming while she was a student, and is clearly far from over. Opal Tometi, one of the three co-founders of Black Lives Matter, takes me back to the birth of a movement that this summer has inspired the biggest anti-racist protests in half a century. Our goal is to support the development of new Black leaders, as well as create a network where Black people feel empowered to determine our destinies in our communities. Maduro is a pariah. As organizers who work with everyday people, BLM members see and understand significant gaps in movement spaces and leadership. She explains what the critics of BLM get wrong, how her family’s story made her an activist and why she is certain the movement will succeed, Thu 24 Sep 2020 06.00 BST To me it was dire then, never mind the time we’re in now, where I feel like everything’s on fire and we need to work round the clock to save the democracy we have.”.