The Purpose of Power

Chapter One

Where I m From

Frantz Fanon said that each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it. This is the story of movements: Each generation has a mission that has been handed to it by those who came before. It is up to us to determine whether we will accept that mission and work to accomplish it, or whether we will turn away and fail to achieve it.

There are few better ways to describe our current reality. Generations of conflict at home and abroad have shaped the environment we live in now. It is up to us to decide what we will do about how our environment has been shaped and how we have been shaped along with it. How do we know what our mission is, what our role is, and what achieving the mission looks like, feels like? Where do we find the courage to take up that which has been handed to us by those who themselves determined that the status quo is not sufficient? How do we transform ourselves and one another into the fighters we need to be to win and keep winning?

Before we can know where we re going which is the first question for anything that calls itself a movement we need to know where we are, who we are, where we came from, and what we care most about in the here and now. That s where the potential for every movement begins.

We are all shaped by the political, social, and economic contexts of our time. For example, my parents: My mom and dad were both born in the 1950s and came of age during the 1960s and 1970s. My dad was raised in San Francisco, California, by a wealthy Jewish family who became rich through generational transfers of wealth and by owning and operating a successful business. My mother, on the other hand, was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, the daughter of a long-distance truck driver and a domestic worker. Compared to my father s family, they were working class, but compared to other Black families, they were solidly middle class. Toledo was the home of the

Alicia Garza is an organizer, political strategist, and cheeseburger enthusiast. She is the principal at the Black Futures Lab and the Black to the Future Action Fund, co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, director of strategy and partnerships at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and host of the Lady Don t Take No podcast.

In a year when a long overdue reckoning with racism is once again in the spotlight, Garza s call to action . . . is urgent and critically necessary. Time 

The Purpose of Power is a must-read. Anyone interested in turning the page of our contemptible past toward a brighter future should put this book on their reading list. Congresswoman Barbara Lee

Black lives matter was Alicia Garza s love letter read around the world. The Purpose of Power is another love letter that should be read around the world. It speaks to all that molded Garza, all that molds organizers, all that molds movements. Ibram X. Kendi, author of #1 New York Times bestseller How to Be an Antiracist

I can think of no greater guide to the difficult work of building movements than Alicia Garza and no greater tome of wisdom for this age than The Purpose of Power, a precious offering to a nation navigating unprecedented crises, for whom movements remain our only saving grace. Ai-jen Poo, executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and author of The Age of Dignity

Damn. The Purpose of Power changes everything. I suppose I shouldn t be shocked at this book s audacity, because it s written a young Black woman who literally changed everything. Very few books become national monuments. Even fewer help shape social movements. The Purpose of Power is that rare book that is a monumental movement. It is a liberatory offering. Damn. Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy

The Purpose of Power cements Garza as a generational leader whose unflinching yet generous wisdom will shape our approach to activism for years to come. Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us

The Purpose of Power is a necessary political history, an expansive theory of liberation, and a personal testament to the power of movement building. Garza helps guide us to greater understanding and faith in our prospects for revolutionary change.