About Us

Mission

Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Long Beach is a people-powered organization committed to dismantling state-sanctioned violence in all its forms. We advance community-driven solutions by uplifting the leadership and voices of those most impacted by systemic oppression. Through grassroots organizing, we fight for housing, healthcare, mental wellness, employment, and education as fundamental rights.

  • We stand in solidarity with families whose loved ones have been stolen by violent policing and systemic violence, and support them through their process of seeking justice, healing, and remembrance. By cultivating local leadership, providing political education, leading campaigns and projects like the Black Wellness (B-Well) Collaborative or starting the city’s first Black Neighborhood Tenant Council, and partnering in coalitions, we create culturally affirming spaces that center collective care, community safety, justice, and action. We are building power from the ground up to transform systems and create a liberated Long Beach that’s led by and for our community so that Black people—and all people—can truly thrive.

  • On the ground since 2013 in Long Beach, the Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Long Beach Chapter works to fight state-sanctioned violence in all of its systemic forms including police violence and the limited access to housing, medical/wellness, employment, and educational resources.

    Made up of community organizers and volunteers, we work in partnership in coalition spaces with Long Beach community members, grassroots leaders and groups, nonprofits, and other organizations to build awareness, provide political and social justice education, leadership development, outreach, civic engagement, community organizing, support for victims of police violence and more.

    We work in solidarity with the global, U.S. - based, Black Lives Matter Grassroots organization and movement (read Herstory and Love Note).

    We are a Black-led organization that is queer, women, and working-class affirming and seeks Black liberation, and accordingly liberation for all people. Our demands are majority local, but tie-in to regional, national, and international organizing efforts by Black Lives Matter Grassroots. We are committed to supporting, growing, and developing leadership from the Black community in Long Beach on an on-going basis.

Our Black Lives Matter, Long Beach Chapter is a local organizing effort in Long Beach, CA, in solidarity with the global, U.S.-based, Black Lives Matter Grassroots organization and movement.

  • Guidelines for Our Work

    1. * We are committed to acknowledging, respecting and celebrating difference(s).

    2. * We see ourselves as part of the Global black family and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black folk who exist in different parts of the world.

    3. * We are guided by the fact that Black Lives Matter, all Black lives, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status or location.

    4. * We are committed to embracing and making space for our trans brothers and sisters to participate and lead. We are committed to being self-reflexive about and dismantling cis-gender privilege and uplifting Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

    5. * We are committed to ensuring that the Black Lives Matter Network is a Black women affirming space free from sexism, misogyny, and male‐centeredness.

    6. * We are committed to practicing empathy; we engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

    7. * We are committed to fostering a queer‐affirming Network. And when we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking or, rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual unless s/he or they disclose otherwise.

    8. * We are committed to fostering an intergenerational and communal Network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, shows up with capacity to lead and learn.

    9. * We are committed to embodying and practicing justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with others.

    10. We are committed to centering mothers, families, and individuals directly affected by Long Beach Police Department-involved murder, violence, brutality, and harassment in our organizing work, meetings, and actions.

    11. We are committed to the political, economic, and social development of the Black community in Long Beach, and seek to continuously support and develop new Black leadership from the community.

    (* = Shared guidelines with the national Black Lives Matter Grassroots movement)

BLM Grassroots Mission

Black Lives Matter Grassroots supports, sustains, empowers, and uplifts the necessary agitations, mobilizations, organizing, education, expressions, initiatives, and advocacy of Black Lives Matter chapters, partnering organizations, groups and people in order to fulfill our sacred duty to advance Black liberation.