Patrisse Khan-Cullors Biography

Activist, artist, speaker, and writer Patrisse Khan-Cullors (born 1983) is the author and central figure of When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (2018). Growing up in a poor community in Los Angeles, Khan-Cullors and her family faced discrimination and police persecution as everyday occurrences. During high school, she discovered her queerness. Around the same time, she began her journey toward becoming a community organizer, seeking to fight injustice. In 2013, in the aftermath of the fatal 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin (1995–2012), she, together with Alicia Garza (born 1981) and Opal Tometi (born 1984), cocreated the Black Lives Matter movement. Khan-Cullors was a recipient of the 2017 Sydney Peace Prize in recognition of the movement. Her second book, An Abolitionist’s Handbook: 12 Steps to Changing Yourself and the World, was published in 2022.