“This book is the story of an organizer who comes apart and is put back together many, many times…. It is not the story of Black Lives Matter, but it is a story that includes it, that attempts to help make sense of not only where it came from, but also the possibilities that it and movements like it hold for our collective future.”
–Alicia Garza,
Introduction of The Purpose of Power
Long before #BlackLivesMatter became a rallying cry for this generation, Garza has spent the better part of two decades learning and unlearning some hard lessons about how to come together when things around us are falling apart. The lessons she offers are different from the “rules for radicals” that animated earlier generations of activists, and diverge from the charismatic, patriarchal model of the American Civil Rights Movement. From this, she offers reflections on how making room amongst the woke for those who are still waking can inspire and activate more and more people to join the fight for the world we all deserve.
This is the story of one woman’s lessons from years of bringing people together to create change. Most of all, it is a new paradigm for change for a new generation of changemakers, from the mind and heart behind one of the most important movements of our time. Hashtags don’t start movements — people do.
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Reviews
“This beautiful, important and timely memoir is insightful, compelling and necessary in this critical moment of reckoning with our history.”
author of Just Mercy
“The book reveals Garza as not only a superb strategist but a master storyteller. This layered book is for anyone that understands that surviving with dignity is a practice, but fighting for both dignity and survival is a skill.”
Alicia Garza
Alicia believes that Black communities deserve what all communities deserve — to be powerful in every aspect of their lives. An innovator, strategist, organizer, and cheeseburger enthusiast, Alicia founded the Black Futures Lab to make Black communities powerful in politics. She is the co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, the Strategy & Partnerships Director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and the co-founder of Supermajority, She shares her thoughts on politics and pop culture on her podcast, Lady Don’t Take No. She warns you — hashtags don’t start movements. People do.
