History isn't made on one Election Day, or even one election cycle.
History is made by the candidates, the organizers, the advocates, the volunteers who have worked for years - for generations - to build our communities. To build movements. To build power. 🧵
In 2009, when I won my first race for Boston City Council, I was the first woman of color elected in the Council's 100+ year history, and one of only two women on the Council that term - alongside eleven men. (2/x)
Today, the Council is more diverse than at any point in our City's history - majority women, majority people of color - and we have a historically diverse field of candidates for both City Council and Mayor, including many of my partners in good from City Hall. (3/x)
No matter the results tonight, those candidates and current officeholders, their families, their staff and supporters have changed our city forever and for good, through their commitment, their courage, and their sweat equity. (4/x)
Boston will be better for it.
Different questions will be called.
The lived experiences of more Bostonians will be lifted up.
& more people in our city will see themselves reflected in the halls of power.
I am so proud of the city our family calls home. (5/x)
To everyone on the ballot, the staff on their 100th cup of coffee, the volunteers knocking a few last doors - one of my favorite poems, To Be of Use by Marge Piercy:
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Out of love for Black community, culture/arts & wellness, visionary community builder @Sifublack in partnership w @juliaforboston est. Black Joy Day, which was officially celebrated in Boston today. In this thread are tools, images, gifts that inform my joy. Share some of yours.
New Edition always makes my playlist. Today's list also included Jonathan McReynolds, Chloe, H.E.R., Jazmine Sullivan, Nina Simone, Brandy, The Temptations, Remy Ma, Mary J. Blige & John Coltrane.
Rockin' my baldie, a black turtleneck, hoop earrings & my nose ring always brings me joy. Those last 3 words remind me, Anita Baker was on my playlist too y'all!
Today, when I phoned him, I called him Dad. For years, I called him by his first name & celebrated my Mom on Mother's and Father's Day. Grace, his sobriety & time have allowed us to heal. When he was absent & unhealthy, I both missed & resented him.
But he never stopped trying to reach me, writing me, sending me books, informing my love of literature, poetry & my Black consciousnes. He made sure I knew that I was loved & missed.
7 yrs ago, he walked me down the aisle at my wedding. Today, he & his son in law, (also a Cancerian) laugh often & deeply with one another, so do we. To those in estranged relationships, know that, healing & forgiveness are possible... and glorious, too!
George Floyd’s murder has everything to do with white supremacy, the disparate criminalization of substance abuse disorders and America’s inability to see Black people's humanity.
He didn’t give his life to become a martyr. His life was violently stolen.
Today, I’m sharing photos that capture joyful moments in George Floyd’s life.
Images of Black death flood our timelines daily. This is your reminder to celebrate and hold close moments of Black joy. Our skin is not a crime. It is the robe of nation builders.
George Floyd’s murder a year ago wasn’t the first time America saw a modern lynching.
Maybe it was the highly visible, consecutive lynchings. Maybe it was the fact that, in the midst of a pandemic, many were besieged by these images and, for the first time, couldn’t look away.
End qualified immunity. Pass anti lynching law. Voting rights. Reparations. Cancel student debt. Baby bonds. A race conscious, modernized CRA to stop redlining. A healing state instead of a carceral one. An end to Black maternal mortality & the push out of Black girls in schools.
This is only some of what must happen. Undoing centuries of precise *legislated* hurt and harm done to Black Americans, it won't be undone by any one law change. It's going to take multiple bills, political will and courage at every level of govt.
The work for equal and full citizenship rights for Black folks, the work of Black liberation is daunting, especially in the face of unrelenting trauma, but I/we don't have the luxury of not doing it. It is simply a matter of life and death.
231,000 women are currently incarcerated in the United States.
I'm calling on @POTUS to use his executive authority to grant clemency to 100 of them in his first 100 days.
🧵 Here are their names:
Akouavi Afolabi
Minnie Coleman
Peggy Fulford
Rosalie Garcia
Kathryn Garten
Terry Williams
Jessica Antunez
Eva Atencio
Roberta Bell
Chyann Bratcher
Charlene Castrejon
Katrina Danforth
Brenda Fine
Ranette Hauser
Valerie Lowe
Tami Miller
Stella Nickell
Rebecca Parrett
Larisa Sakhanskiy
Angela Shavlovsky
Stacy Weischedel
Michelle West
Monique Brady
Michelle Duval
Amarley Ellis
Concetta Jackson
Christina Korbe
Marie Mason
Lisa Renze
Sharon Sexton
Patricia Teeter
Anastassia Bogomolova
Evelyn Bozon Pappa
Eucaris Ceballos
Robin Chaney
While carrying the calloused, corrupt & science denial water of Donald J. Trump, the R's in the Senate obstructed real COVID-19 relief for the American people for nearly a year,
Along with obstructing the restoration of voting rights, investments in infrastructure, the banning of no knock warrants, police chokeholds, reducing the cost of Rx drugs, & anti lynching leg. to name just a few, & now Impeachment
They've demonstrated a deficit of empathy or commitment to their neighbors, constituents, colleagues, country, & our democracy.