# Alicia Garza
**Alicia Garza** (born 1981) is an American civil rights activist and community organizer who co-founded the [Black Lives Matter](https://www.edgepedia.org/black-lives-matter) movement after writing a Facebook post in July 2013 that ended with the words "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter."[1](https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/a-black-lives-matter-founder-on-building-modern-movements) Based in [Oakland, California](https://www.edgepedia.org/oakland-california), she went on to found the Black Futures Lab and to co-found the women's political organization [Supermajority](https://www.edgepedia.org/supermajority), and is the author of *The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart* (2020).[2](https://www.essence.com/news/black-census-midterm-elections/) • [3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | 1981, Oakland, California[3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza) |
| Signature act | Facebook post of July 2013, written the day George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin, that originated the phrase "Black lives matter"[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/) |
| Co-founders | Patrisse Cullors, who added the hashtag, and Opal Tometi; the three built #BlackLivesMatter into a global movement[5](https://time.com/5793789/black-lives-matter-founders-100-women-of-the-year/) |
| Education | Anthropology and sociology, University of California, San Diego[6](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed) |
| Later organizations | Black Futures Lab (after leaving Black Lives Matter in 2017) and Supermajority (co-founded 2019)[2](https://www.essence.com/news/black-census-midterm-elections/) • [3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza) |
| Book | *The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart*, published October 2020[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/) |
| Recognition | Sydney Peace Prize, shared with her Black Lives Matter co-founders; TIME's 100 Most Influential People of 2020[3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza) |
## Early life and education
Garza was born in Oakland, California, and grew up in a mixed-race, mixed-religion household.[3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza) She grew up as Alicia Schwartz in Marin County, a predominantly white San Francisco suburb, raised by her African-American mother and her Jewish stepfather, who ran an antiques store.[6](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king) She has said that being an outsider in an affluent suburb gave her a unique vantage point, and that she grew up with the ethos that you always fight for the underdog.[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/)
**First campaigns.** Her first activism came at age 12, in middle school, when she campaigned for comprehensive sex education and access to birth control information in Bay Area schools.[3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza) • [6](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed) She has credited [MTV News](https://www.edgepedia.org/mtv-news) with broadening her perspective in those years, through coverage of apartheid in South Africa, famine in Ethiopia, and the national debate over teen pregnancy.[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/)
She studied anthropology and sociology at the [University of California, San Diego](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-california-san-diego), where she organized around racial and gender justice and led the first Women of Color Conference in 2002.[6](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed) • [3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza) After graduating she returned to the Bay Area and worked in the social-justice sector, including on workplace equality, before moving into grassroots organizing for affordable housing in San Francisco's Black communities by building neighborhood coalitions.[8](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331564250_Dismantling_Respectability_The_Rise_of_New_Womanist_Communication_Models_in_the_Era_of_Black_Lives_Matter) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king) She has said this work changed how she thought about politics: winning is about more than being right, it is about inviting people to be part of a change they may not have known they needed.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king)
## Black Lives Matter
On the day in July 2013 that [George Zimmerman](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-zimmerman) was found not guilty of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, Garza wrote a Facebook post that ended "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter."[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/) • [1](https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/a-black-lives-matter-founder-on-building-modern-movements) Her friend, the Los Angeles activist [Patrisse Cullors](https://www.edgepedia.org/patrisse-cullors), turned the phrase into the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, and together with Opal Tometi the three created a Black-centered political will and movement-building project under that name.[5](https://time.com/5793789/black-lives-matter-founders-100-women-of-the-year/) • [9](https://blacklivesmatter.com/Herstory/) Garza has said she was not a Twitter user at the time and did not know what a hashtag was; "I thought it was a pound sign!"[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/)
The movement's transition from online signifier to mass force came after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in [Ferguson, Missouri](https://www.edgepedia.org/ferguson-missouri), in August 2014, when the hashtag came to define the unrest that followed a grand jury's decision not to indict the officer who shot him.[10](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/02/alicia-garza-on-the-beauty-and-the-burden-of-black-lives-matter) Between Zimmerman's acquittal and March 2016, #BlackLivesMatter was used almost 12 million times on Twitter, making it the third-biggest "social issues" hashtag in ten years of the platform.[10](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/02/alicia-garza-on-the-beauty-and-the-burden-of-black-lives-matter) Garza has described the resulting network as the largest protest movement in history, while insisting that "hashtags do not start movements. People do."[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/)
**Views on organizing.** Garza distinguishes popularity from power. She argues that online fame is not political power, citing [DeRay Mckesson](https://www.edgepedia.org/deray-mckesson)'s 2016 Baltimore mayoral bid, in which he won only around 2% of the vote despite more than a million Twitter followers, as a cautionary tale.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king) She rejects the idea of a single charismatic leader, saying that mythologizing leaders obscures the average person's role in creating change, and that the goal should be building a base rather than a brand.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king) She also frames the work as long-term: the first major piece of American civil rights legislation took 40 years, she has noted, so a movement three years old should be judged against that timeline.[10](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/02/alicia-garza-on-the-beauty-and-the-burden-of-black-lives-matter) • [11](https://wp.blackyouthproject.com/exclusive-alicia-garza-on-what-is-missing-in-the-black-lives-matter-movement/)
## Black Futures Lab and later work
Garza left Black Lives Matter in 2017 and created the Black Futures Lab, which works to build Black political power.[2](https://www.essence.com/news/black-census-midterm-elections/) In 2018 the lab launched the Black Census Project, a survey intended to identify what Black communities want from policy; Garza and commentator [Angela Rye](https://www.edgepedia.org/angela-rye) campaigned for 200,000 Black Americans to complete it, which would make it the largest independent survey of [Black people](https://www.edgepedia.org/black-people) in U.S. history.[2](https://www.essence.com/news/black-census-midterm-elections/) The project's findings feed into Black to the Future, an effort to craft policy agendas and legislative plans from the census data.[12](https://blackfutureslab.org/black-to-the-future/) A related group, the Black to the Future Action Fund, gave its first presidential endorsement to [Elizabeth Warren](https://www.edgepedia.org/elizabeth-warren) in the 2020 Democratic primary.[13](https://www.axios.com/2020/02/20/2020-election-elizabeth-warren-black-future-action-fund)
In 2019 she co-founded Supermajority, a national member-based organization for women's political action, and she has also worked with the National Domestic Workers Alliance on labor rights for women of color.[3](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza) • [14](https://www.them.us/story/now-list-2020-alicia-garza-interview) Her book *The Purpose of Power* appeared in October 2020, published by One World; she has said she wrote it as a story of Black organizing and Black resistance rather than a history of Black Lives Matter alone.[4](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/) • [1](https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/a-black-lives-matter-founder-on-building-modern-movements) In 2020 politics, she said during the Democratic primary campaign that [Joe Biden](https://www.edgepedia.org/joe-biden)'s campaign was "far away" from the changes Democratic voters wanted, while urging continued organizing to push the nominee.[15](https://time.com/5867282/alicia-garza-black-lives-matter-biden/)
## Personal life
Garza describes herself as queer and was raised by her Black mother and Jewish stepfather.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king) She is married to the openly transgender male activist Malachi Garza, whom she met in 2003.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king) • [8](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331564250_Dismantling_Respectability_The_Rise_of_New_Womanist_Communication_Models_in_the_Era_of_Black_Lives_Matter) She emphasizes the inclusion of queer leaders in movements for racial justice.[8](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331564250_Dismantling_Respectability_The_Rise_of_New_Womanist_Communication_Models_in_the_Era_of_Black_Lives_Matter)
## References
1. [A Black Lives Matter Founder on Building Modern Movements, The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/a-black-lives-matter-founder-on-building-modern-movements)
2. [Alicia Garza: Politicians Always Find A Way To Reach Out When They Want Our Votes, Essence](https://www.essence.com/news/black-census-midterm-elections/)
3. [Alicia Garza, National Women's History Museum](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alicia-garza)
4. [Alicia Garza on the origin of Black Lives Matter, CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alicia-garza-on-the-origin-of-black-lives-matter/)
5. [2013: Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, TIME](https://time.com/5793789/black-lives-matter-founders-100-women-of-the-year/)
6. [The Matter of Black Lives, The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/14/where-is-black-lives-matter-headed)
7. [Black Lives Matter's Alicia Garza: 'Leadership today doesn't look like Martin Luther King', The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/17/black-lives-matter-alicia-garza-leadership-today-doesnt-look-like-martin-luther-king)
8. [Dismantling Respectability: The Rise of New Womanist Communication Models in the Era of Black Lives Matter](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331564250_Dismantling_Respectability_The_Rise_of_New_Womanist_Communication_Models_in_the_Era_of_Black_Lives_Matter)
9. [Herstory, Black Lives Matter](https://blacklivesmatter.com/Herstory/)
10. [Alicia Garza on the beauty and the burden of Black Lives Matter, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/02/alicia-garza-on-the-beauty-and-the-burden-of-black-lives-matter)
11. [EXCLUSIVE: Alicia Garza on What's Missing from the Black Lives Matter Movement, The Black Youth Project](https://wp.blackyouthproject.com/exclusive-alicia-garza-on-what-is-missing-in-the-black-lives-matter-movement/)
12. [Black to the Future, Black Futures Lab](https://blackfutureslab.org/black-to-the-future/)
13. [Black activist group gives its first presidential endorsement to Elizabeth Warren, Axios](https://www.axios.com/2020/02/20/2020-election-elizabeth-warren-black-future-action-fund)
14. [For Alicia Garza, Co-Founding Black Lives Matter Was Just the Beginning, Them](https://www.them.us/story/now-list-2020-alicia-garza-interview)
15. [Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Alicia Garza Says Joe Biden Is 'Far Away' From Changes Democratic Voters Want, TIME](https://time.com/5867282/alicia-garza-black-lives-matter-biden/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Social life and human behavior › Relationships and social issues › Social movements and social issues › Social activists and public advocates › Civil rights and equality activists › Racial justice and civil rights activists*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license