BFP’S ORIGIN STORY

The Black Freedom Project [BFP] was established in late 2019 by a coalition of Black-led (and centered) organizations and advocates, growing out of intersecting struggles to end the war on Black people and further build a Black Liberation movement. 
Collectively we resolve to grow and mobilize grassroots power by expanding Black-led organizing infrastructure, base-building capacity, supportive relationship-building and campaign collaboration.

OUR VISION

THE BLACK FREEDOM PROJECT (BFP) COALITION ENVISIONS A WORLD WHERE THE MOST MARGINALIZED BLACK PEOPLE IN NEW YORK STATE ARE:

(A) Able to fully realize their humanity.

(B) Have access to opportunities to democratically and equitably engage in the political, financial, labor, educational and other institutions that shape their lives.

(C) Can live free from the constant threat of State and/or extralegal violence and other forms of suffering.

(D) That is fully accessible physically, socio-politically and economically.

BFP’S MISSION

The Black Freedom Project [BFP] will build the infrastructure needed for Black-led and Black-centered, base-building organizations across New York State. BFP will serve as a vehicle for the expansion of organizing capacity that will enable New York State-level Movement for Black Lives [M4BL] formations to collectively advance a statewide organizing agenda and dismantle systems and policies that create barriers to thriving communities.

OUR PRIORITIES

(A) Resource and build the capacity of Black-led and -centered, base-building organizations to increase the power and reach of Black communities to launch and win local campaigns;

(B) Build a network of Black-led and -centered organizations and Black organizers to win material change for Black communities statewide and for multiple regions;

(C) Cooperatively create an action and policy agenda that wins structural change and supports base-building groups in actualizing that shared agenda;

(D) Engage in thoughtful and meaningful electoral strategy;

(E) Identify and deepen pockets of Black power throughout the state in addition to building power in Albany and; Build Black power, which we define as the ability to promote, protect and defend our interests.

BFP’S VALUES & PRINCIPLES

The following Values and Principles guide our work and practice together:

VALUES
(A) The liberation of all Black folks. Integrity and accountability to the Black community;

(B) Affirming and centering Black womxn, transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary folks, and all marginalized genders;

(C) Intentional inclusion of all Black folks within our expansive and diasporic/migrant identities of diverse nationalities, gender, sexuality, generation, spiritual practices, academia, class and abilities;

(D) Belief in the practices of empathy, compassion, principled struggle and intergenerational healing of Black folks; Restorative justice, transformative justice and generative justice;

PRINCIPLES
(A) Holding space with the intentions to connect, learn with one another, meet folks within their scope of context, cultivating a culture of support and black love towards liberation;

(B) Reparations and redistribution of wealth for the Black community; Abolition and a commitment to dismantling institutions that incarcerate and criminalize Black people and;

(C) Building Black political power and legislation that benefit the lives of all Black folks in New York State.

BFP MEMBERSHIP PRIORITIES

(A) Base-building organizations

(B) Geographic diversity (organizations from under-represented areas of New York State)

(C) Transgender leadership

(D) Organizations that organize around under-represented campaign issues and areas

Meet BFP Staff & Membership

Shatia Strother
Project Coordinator, Black Freedom Project

Lorenzo Bradford
Research Coordinator, Law for Black Lives (L4BL)

Julian Hill
Co-Chair, Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100)

Anthonine Pierre
Deputy Director, Brooklyn Movement Center (BMC)

Mark Winston Griffith
Brooklyn Movement Center (BMC)

Juanita Lewis
Organizing Director, Community Voices Heard- Hudson Valley (CVH-HV)

Lumumba Bandele
National Strategies & Partnerships Director, The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)

Monifa Bandele
Senior Vice President, Moms Rising

Phylicia Brown
Director, Black Love Resists

Juanita Lewis
Volunteer

Lumumba Bandele
Volunteer

Monifa Bandele
Volunteer


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