Ask 10 Black people “what is Black liberation?” and you’re likely to get 10 different answers. We think that’s a good thing, and Blackroots Alliance exists to help pull the threads within the diverse experiences of the fight for Black Liberation and weave new, forward-thinking narratives and practices that raise the tides of liberation for all Black people. It is our mission to be an organization committed to the safety and liberation of all Black people, promoting Black leadership and Black-centered community transformation as we work collectively to build socioeconomic power, heal our communities, and fundamentally transform our society.

Our collective long-term experience, derived from different organizing methodologies and lived leadership experience as people directly-impacted by the issues we are fighting, makes us uniquely qualified to do this work. With decades of experience organizing Black communities, our Alliance has a thorough and nuanced understanding of what it takes to build power in Black communities. Through collective analysis and other tools available to each member, our Alliance has fleshed out its understanding of the socioeconomic forces at play in various areas of the City, County, and State, and is therefore well equipped to design effective, locality-specific strategies for pursuing the policy changes we seek. But we have also learned a lot of lessons along the way, and our founders created Blackroots Alliance to be a network where Black leaders are able to be held, healed, and helped towards new heights of impact.

We are writing the guidebook to Black Liberation while we are living it out. For us, Black Liberation is a balance of individual and collective wholeness. We envision a world where Black communities are connected around a Black policy; where we are working together to elevate our social, racial, and economic consciousness, and where we can wield power that ensures our self-determination so that all Black people can live their best lives. We recognize that we are all working out our personal journeys towards liberation, so we have agreed that we will be rooted in a shared set of values and analyses around race, gender, and class and we will work to shift the consciousness of our communities around those values. We are intentional about operating from an abundance mindset and not scarcity, and we support institutions by supporting the capacity of the people who run them.

If you see yourself reflected in our mission, please consider joining our network.