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Florida high school senior Milan Morris turned more than a few heads when photos of her prom dress hit social media over the weekend.

Why? The 17-year-olds gown was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and showed images of black people such as Michael Brown and Sandra Bland who were killed during encounters with police.

It really conveyed such a strong message, Morris told the Sun Sentinel after Fridays prom. For me to be in that moment, to be bold and courageous to do that, it was a blessing.

The front of Morris dress showed an image of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen who was fatally shot in 2012 during an altercation with neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman and Morris told the paper she spoke with Martins mother, Sybrina Fulton, who was touched by the gesture.

Morris posted a pair of photos of her dress on Instagram.

One was accompanied by the caption, Yes Im black. Yes Im 17. Yes GOD is using me to convey a message thats bigger than me.

Designer Terrence Torrence created the dress and told the Sun Sentinel he got the idea of a Black Lives Matter theme about a year ago. Torrence knows Morris family, and he told the paper that when he got together with her about a prom dress a few months ago, his idea came up.

She was like, Yo, lets do it, Torrence recalled to the Sun Sentinel, emphasizing that while his dress is Black Lives Matter-themed, it isnt an anti-police statement.

Its a tribute to that movement, but its All Lives Matter, because every creature, every person on this planet matters, he told the paper, adding that it was for the youth and that Morris was perfect for it.

As a star basketball player for Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, Florida, Morris is used to headlines. She was named the Palm Beach County girls basketball player of the year by the Sun Sentinel and his heading to Boston College to play basketball and study pre-med, the paper said, adding that she wants to become an orthopedic surgeon.

While Morris told the Sun Sentinel shes taken heat for the dress by those whove called her a racist and a spotlight grabber, she said she simply wanted to highlight Black Lives Matter.

It was just really to convey the message that this needs to be addressed instead of overlooked, she told the paper.

Originally posted here:
Black Lives Matter prom dress turning a lot of heads: 'God is using me to convey a message' - TheBlaze.com

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A Q&A with Cazembe Murphy Jackson of BLM Atlanta

Cazembe Murphy Jackson, a Black Lives Matter organizer from Atlanta, Georgia, recently took his group's message of activism abroad to London. While there, he learned about some surprising parallels between organizing in the U.K. and in the U.S. as well as why some Londoners are using Donald Trump's presidency as a galvanizing force to get people out in the streets across the pond. MTV News writer Marcus Ellsworth spoke with Jackson about his trip, activism in London, and what building international solidarity means for black people.

Why was it important for an organizer out of Atlanta to go work with activists in London?

Cazembe Murphy Jackson: BLM is a global network. We are working with folks in different countries, and have been for a while, to help develop their own resistance against racism. It's really important for us to be able to understand how anti-blackness happens in different contexts and different places in the world so that we can actively build strategies to fight it in different places. The strategy can't be the same if the way that anti-blackness is experienced is not the same.

Black Lives Matter and the National Union of Students, which is the student union in London that brought me over there, have already been in a relationship for the past couple of years. [Both organizations have] had folks go over to London and they've also brought people from London to the States.

Before you went, did you have any expectations about what this journey might be like?

Jackson: The biggest thing that I thought would happen is that I wouldn't be understood or accepted fully as a trans man. Because the people who know me and love me would not be around me, I thought that I would have to face a lot of transphobia. It ended up not being true. I learned that even black people in different places in the world have this thing that bonds us together; we have such a similar experience. Even though the context of the way that racism works is different [in different countries], it still produces the same result in us, which allows us to be able to relate to other black people. Once we started talking to each other, it's like we'd all been friends our whole lives. And I found that you can definitely find community in other countries just as quickly as you can in the place [where] you're from.

What are some major concerns black organizers have in the U.K.?

Jackson: A recurring theme was that it's really hard for them to get a good turnout for their events unless they mention something about what's going on in the United States in their outreach. If someone died in police custody in the U.K., and [organizers] want to have a rally or an action to bring people out, they would also [reference] something that happened in the United States. The summit that I came over to speak at was called "Trump, Brexit, and Beyond" [even though] the summit was about the way that new acts of Islamophobia [are manifesting] against immigrants in the U.K. It could have just been [called] "Brexit and Beyond," but in order to get people in, they also had to talk about Trump.

Folks really want to be able to say, "Oh, Trump is a bad guy, but we're the U.K. and we're not like that." Everyone wants to talk about how bad Trump is, but the reality is that Trump and Theresa May are two peas in a pod. Now that the U.K. is out of the E.U., she's got to find other people to make trade partnerships with. It's a very important thing for folks in the U.K. to pay attention to Theresa May [in] the same way that they're paying attention to Trump.

There was a rally in front of Parliament when [members of Parliament] were voting on whether they were going to let E.U. immigrants stay in the U.K. That was a huge rally. It was an opportunity to push Parliament to make the right decision. But when [organizers of the rally] came out, they also had to talk about Trump and his Muslim ban in order to draw people out, and it wasn't even about that.

It reminds me of living in small [American] towns, even like Chattanooga. There are over 60 people who've been killed by police in the city of Chattanooga since the 1970s. But in order for us to get a big turnout to fight against police brutality and police murder, we had to talk about Trayvon Martin or Mike Brown. I don't know what the science is around what moves people to come out, but it does seem like there's something that has to do with what is popular in America in the larger context to bring people out in smaller and more distant places.

Are there other issues that BLM focuses on in the U.S. that you also saw reflected in the U.K.?

Jackson: I don't think that I did enough talking and digging to be able to accurately say all of the things that black folks are working on in the U.K. But a lot of black people I met who are organizing are also Muslim. They're also either immigrants to the U.K. or their parents are immigrants. That makes for a really great environment for international solidarity, because they actually have family in other countries. The immigration fight and the fight against Islamophobia is really big in [those] black communities, because they live at that intersection.

I think they do a lot of organizing around police brutality and murder in police custody. There's a group called United Families & Friends, a campaign that is led by friends and family of people who have died in police custody. They help others learn what the process is for trying to get justice for your family through the state. I thought it was interesting that while there have been over, I believe, 2,000 deaths in police custody in the U.K. [on record], no police officer has ever been convicted of any wrongdoing. The majority of police in the U.K. don't carry guns, so they don't have the police-murder epidemic the way we have it here. But the people who do die in police custody, a lot of them die from the use of the batons. So people are getting beat to death. In the U.S. it's still bad, but there have been some officers who have been convicted of some things.

Another thing that's different is that they skew the numbers [of] how many people are incarcerated. We often say the U.S. incarcerates black people so much that there's more black people in jail now than there were during slavery. We think of these really large numbers to show how disproportionate the amount of black people in jail in the U.S. is. That's skewed for the U.K. because half of the people are not in jail: They're being forced to stay in mental institutions and they treat them like they're in jail. You can be arrested and be forced to go. That's used for asylum seekers, immigrants, and folks who are citizens in the U.K. When you combine the numbers [of people in jails and mental institutions], it would put the U.K. closer to the U.S.

How can people in America find ways to stand in solidarity with black folks in other countries and the issues theyre organizing around?

Jackson: I think the simplest thing that can be done to start building international solidarity is to find out what's happening in other places. I think the way we are able to care about what's happening somewhere else is [by] actually reading about it. Then, after we learn about what's happening and its context, the next step is to talk about it. We use Facebook for a lot of stuff. We use Twitter and all of these other social media platforms to talk about important ideas and theories.

I think once we start understanding what is happening, and make sure that the people around [us] also know its important, then those who are able need to build relationships with people in other places. Of course, some of that is going to require travel. That can get tricky. It can get pricey and some folks will need passports.

I got my passport through a trans passport workshop. When I was asked to take a companion with me, I ended up taking my friend Prentis Hemphill because they have a passport and are the director of healing justice for BLM. No one [else in my Atlanta chapter] could go because they didn't have a passport. We need to have passport clinics, and not just for trans people, [but also] for young black people. Because black people need to be able to see other black people thriving and surviving in other places in the diaspora other than the U.S. They need to know how magical our people are everywhere, and to know that we are everywhere.

The way that you start knowing that is by going and seeing. One of the other things I thought when I found out I was going to London was, Yo, are there black people there? And there's SO many black people there. All different kinds of black people. When we can see people in different places and we understand the context [in which] they are actually living, then it makes it possible for us to build some kind of genuine solidarity based on a real relationship and a real understanding of each other's experiences. To be able to say that we're in solidarity with people around the world, I just think we have to go deeper.

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How One Black Lives Matter Activist Found Solidarity In The UK - MTV.com

When Milan Bolden-Morris walked into Pahokee High Schools prom, she knew her dress would get attention.

Not for the sparkles or the cut like others that night, but for the faces of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and others displayed across her dress. Faces of those whose deaths sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.

As the 17-year-old smiled for the cameras, she said she knew the dress was bigger than prom or her.

Every life on this earth is precious. God created us all as gifts, Bolden-Morris said. When a mother loses a child or a child loses a parent, especially when its under unnecessary circumstances, their lives shouldnt be overlooked.

Friday evening, Bolden-Morris wore the dress created by local designer Terrence Torrence, who said hes had the idea for a while. When he was asked to design a dress for Bolden-Morris, a Cardinal Newman senior basketball star who is the Palm Beach Post Small Schools All-Area player of the year, he said he had an idea and wanted to bounce it off of her. Bolden-Morris, who got a full scholarship to Boston College and will study pre-med, she said she loved the idea.

I already knew this dress was way bigger than me or how I looked in it or how I felt in it, she said. I knew the purpose was to bring awareness. To highlight these things going on in America.

Bolden-Morris was invited to Pahokee High prom by a family friend because she cant make it to Cardinal Newmans prom.

Torrence and Bolden-Morris both knew the dress would garner attention, but didnt know it would get this big. Snoop Dogg shared a photo of Bolden-Morris on his Instagram, and Essence and CNN wrote stories about it. Most important for both Bolden-Morris and Torrence was the call from Trayvon Martins mother, Sybrina Fulton.

I just thought, Wow, this is amazing, Bolden-Morris said. God is really using me for things that are bigger than me.

She said she was honored to have such an influential person with such courage and power to praise her for her small act. Morris said she was just the model conveying Torrences message.

Torrence, who splits his time between West Palm Beach and Atlanta, said he was so happy to hear Fulton loved the dress. Above all other comments and praise, Fultons was the most important to him. On Torrences dress, he displayed a photo of Trayvon Martin in a hoodie as the most prominent figure.

Trayvon, I remember that whole movement. It was the first time I can remember people coming together for someone killed that way, he said. I remember being in L.A. and wearing my hoodie for Trayvon.

Though many of the faces included on the dress garnered the national spotlight like Sandra Bland and Mike Brown, the faces of locals Corey Jones and Henry Bennett III rested there as well. Torrence, who grew up in Belle Glade like Bolden-Morris, said it was important to remind people police violence happens at home too.

The ones I chose, they all spoke to me. The look on their faces all had this glow, he said. At the end of the day, you want to always remember their faces and their stories. Everyone on that dress has a story.

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Cardinal Newman star player wears Black Lives Matter prom dress - Palm Beach Post

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson at the National Action Network Convention on April 26, 2017, in New York City (Aaron J. / RedCarpetImages.net for NAN)

The Rev. Al Sharptons annual power play, the National Action Network Convention in New York City, is back, and, as promised, the slate of high-powered speakers have brought the pain to Trumps front door.

As usual, the convention features the cream of the crop of political leaders, activists, media pundits and intellectualswith celebrities thrown in for good measure.

At last years 25th-anniversary convention, both Democratic candidates for president, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, appeared. President Barack Obama has spoken here twice. This year, Sanders is making a return (on Friday), and he is joined by heavy hitters such as Ras Baraka, mayor of Newark, N.J.; Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee; the Mothers of the Movement, including the mothers of Eric Garner, Trayvon Marin, Walter Scott and Sean Bell; and a gala dinner honoring Harry Belafonte.

On Wednesday, former Attorney General Eric Holder, who led a Justice Department that investigated many police departments throughout the nation and implemented reforms, was the first plenary speaker.

No justice, no peace, roared Sharpton as he rose to kick off the event, held at the Sheraton Hotel in midtown Manhattan April 26-29.

Were a few blocks south of Trump Tower and a few blocks away from Fox News, so we are in the middle of it, Sharpton quipped. But he promised that for the next three-and-a-half days, the series of panels and discussions will formulate a plan of action to deal with the current administration.

The reason Im not afraid of Donald Trump is that we already beat him twice with Obama, said Sharpton. And I think we can get things done, even within this era.

Sharpton then introduced Holder, who began his message plainly.

The most basic American rights, the right to vote, is under siege, said Holder.

Holder spoke of a movement afoot to try to suppress the vote, aided and abetted by the Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision in 2013 that gutted the Voting Rights Act. He spoke directly to Trump, saying that efforts to prevent voter fraud is really voter suppression.

It is more likely that a person will be struck by lightning than impersonate another person at the polls, said Holder. He then cited a study by an expert that found only 31 cases out of 1 billion ballots cast in the United States from 2000 to 2014 in which someone tried to commit voter fraud.

The restrictive voting laws that have been passed really combat a nonexistent problemwith serious negative collateral impacts, he noted.

Now, instead of ensuring the integrity of the voting process, [restrictive voter laws] actually do the opposite by keeping certain groups of people away from the polls, said Holder. And to quote our current president, that is how elections are rigged.

Holder enumerated the many instances of Republican-controlled state and county legislatures going on record to say how making voter ID a part of the voting process can help them win elections.

Now, lets be frank, he said to cheers. Voter fraud wasnt an issue until people of color started casting ballots in record numbers connected to the candidacy and presidency of Barack Obama.

Holder also ran down several ideas that could help turn this insidious tide, including using technology through which citizens can automatically be registered to vote at places like the DMV, and, because so many Americans move each year, making voter registrations portable.

He also said to keep an eye on the current Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions: Stay focused on a Department of Justice that I fear will stay focused on phantom crimes and take us back to an era of mass incarceration and will not stand for the right to vote.

Now is not the time to retreat in the face of a partisan assault on the most basic of American rights, he continued. The battle to ensure the voting rights of all Americans is, I believe, a defining one. It is not only a legal issue; its a moral imperative.

Watch Holder and Perez here:

For more information about the convention, which is free (except for certain events), go to the National Action Network.

Continued here:
Eric Holder Rails Against Voter Suppression at NAN Convention ... - The Root

Former Attorney General Eric Holder says its shamefulRepublicans are seeking to implement photo ID laws and other measures that make it more difficult to vote.

Holder, who is leading a national redistricting reform effort, accused Republicans of trying to suppress potential voters who are less likely to support them. He made the remarks during the National Action Networks annual convention in New York City on Wednesday.

Some Republicans have declared, If you cant beat em, change the rules. Make it more difficult for those least likely to support Republican candidates to vote, he said. This is done with the knowledge that by simply depressing the votes of certain groups, not even winning the majority vote of these groups, elections can in fact be effective.

The attempts in certain states to make even registration more difficult are shameful, he added.

Holder went on to cite a 2014 study by the Government Accountability Office showing that voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee reduced turnout among young and African-American voters.

If one were to try to find vote fraud or a rigged election system, that is exactly where it is, he said.

The comments come after Arkansas governor signed a voter ID bill last month. Iowas governor is considering a similar measure, and New Hampshire is also contemplating legislationto toughen its proof of residency requirements. There are laws in 34 statesrequiring voters to produce identification when they vote.

Holder addressed President Donald Trumps unsupported claim that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election, saying the president was fueling the perception that elections lacked integrity.

And with recent claims by Mr. Trump of rigged elections based on fraud again, without any proof, save the bluster of the candidate this mistaken belief in voter fraud becomes almost hard-wired, he said.

Such a perception, he added, makes voter suppression efforts easier.

The nations attention and laws should not be focused on these phantom, illegal voters, he said, adding that officials should instead focus on registering eligible voters.

Holder acknowledged the U.S. voting system is far from perfect. He pointed to a 2012 Pew report the same one cited by Trump to justify his claim of widespread voter fraud noting that 1 in every 8 voter registrations in the country is outdated.

This is not a result of people trying to game the system. It is an indication that the system itself is inadequate. That the system itself is at fault, Holder said.

He also called for more states to adopt automatic voter registration, so voters are automatically registered to vote whenever they have any meaningful interaction with the DMV.

Oregon became the first state in the country to implement the system last year and saw major gains in youth turnout and registration by people of color, according to one report.

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Eric Holder Rips Republicans For Trying To Make It More Difficult To ... - Huffington Post