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<\/p>\n\u201cWe each deeply believe that Twitter is not going to save us,\u201d Garza said. \u201cTwitter can be a vehicle that connects us and helps bring us together to strategize around how we\u2019re going to build the kind of power that we need to transform the world that we live in.\u201d
\nMark-Anthony Johnson, 31, director of health and wellness at Dignity and Power Now, worked closely with Cullors for more than 15 years and has known Garza for about a decade. Johnson has organized for the movement since it started as \u201cJustice for Trayvon Martin, Los Angeles.\u201d He became the California coordinator for the freedom ride to Ferguson after Darren Wilson shot unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown. According to Johnson, protesters from 16 different states and Canada witnessed how Garza, Cullors, and Tometi brought 600 different people together in Ferguson.
\n\u201cI think they\u2019re central,\u201d he said. \u201cThe character of the folks that we were bringing out I think was really important in terms of having a group that was significantly women, significantly queer, having Black transgender people in the space. And that\u2019s possible because of them and the national team that they built up around them.\u201d
\nCullors said that organizing the movement hasn\u2019t been easy, as women in leadership are still looked at skeptically. Garza said women aren\u2019t often seen as leaders, and dealing with patriarchy is a challenge.
\n\u201cI believe if Black Lives Matter was created by three Black men, Opal, Alicia and myself wouldn\u2019t have to fight so hard to remind people we are the co-founders,\u201d Cullors said.
\nTia Oso, 33, national coordinator of the Black Immigration Network and organizer Lives Matter\u2019s social platforms in 2013. She said prominent figures and media would talk about the movement, but not the people behind it. She and others used social media to remind people of Garza, Cullors, and Tometi\u2019s work.
\n\u201cTwitter and other social media outlets are where we purposefully lifted the three of them up,\u201d said Oso. \u201cIt was like, \u2018Hey, if you\u2019re going to have a conversation about Black Lives Matter and what it means as an idea, as a rally and cry\u2026 at least acknowledge who the creators are.\u2019\u201d
\nTometi said despite such road blocks, leaders like herself, Cullors and Garza are needed.
\n\u201cOur people and our movement largely are ready for the type of leadership that we embody, and we are who we are as the two of them being queer Black women unapologetically, and me being Nigerian,\u201d said Tometi.
\nAccording to Cullors, Black women have always led Black movements. Ella Baker, Diane Nash, and Fannie Lou Hamer are Black women leaders who were critical in developing movements, and their names aren\u2019t heard often. Cullors said women are on the front lines, strategizing, organizing and developing policy in Ferguson and around the country. \u201cWe\u2019re leading the movement; we\u2019re the architects of the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was originally published at MadameNoire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi co-founded the Black Lives Matter Movement when George Zimmerman was acquitted in 2013 for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin. They created the hashtag, which spread like wildfire. \u201cThis isn\u2019t the beginning of a movement, this is the continuation of a struggle that\u2019s been happening…<\/p>\n