Week Of Righteous Resistance

By Lena K. Gardner in StandingOnTheSideOfLove.org. Minneapolis, MN – Last November, I lay down with just under a hundred other people on an interstate highway in Minneapolis. Along with thousands in cities across the country, we stopped the cars, we carried signs and we chanted and sang, saying Black Lives Matter in every way that we could. My brother called me from Texas, and said, “Hey, did you shut down I-35 today?” I responded, “Well, yes, me and a few others.” He said, “It made news down here. That’s dope. My freedom fighter sister.” That was just over six months ago, it was the start of what has been a nonstop whirlwind of actions, public witness, and personal challenge for me. It has been hard and I haven’t been alone. I have been fighting for freedom, for the freedom to be human in my Blackness, and the liberation of the most marginalized amongst us. -more-