Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Advocates for People With SMI

For Patrisse Cullors, the fight for people experiencing mental illness is intensely personal.

Her brother lives with schizoaffective and bipolar disorders. He was diagnosed while in jail, where he said he was brutalized by sheriff’s deputies. Rather than getting the help he needed, he spent 40 months in state prison, Cullors said.

“It was traumatic to see him in desperate need of help and with nobody except law enforcement to turn to,” she said. “My brother was my first best friend. I wanted to be his biggest advocate. And I have been.”

Cullors co-founded Black Lives Matter in 2013, along with Alicia Garza and Ayo Tometi. As an activist, artist, and writer, she has started numerous grassroots initiatives aimed at empowering communities, and a great deal of her work centers around ending the criminalization of people with serious mental illness. Last year, she, Garza, and Tometi were awarded the 2021 APA Chester M. Pierce Human Rights Award, which recognizes individuals and organizations that promote the human rights of people with mental health needs.

According to APA’s website, the award was originally established in 1990 to raise awareness of human rights abuses. It was renamed in 2017 to honor Chester M. Pierce, M.D., in recognition of his dedication to innovative research on humans in extreme environments. He was an advocate against disparities, stigma, and discrimination, and a pioneer ofglobal mental health.

“I’ve been fighting on behalf of, and being an advocate for, people with serious mental illness for almost a decade now,” Cullors said. “The mental health care crisis is a significant part of my work. It is central to what I do.”

In 2012, Cullors founded Dignity and Power Now, a Los Angeles-based grassroots organization that works to challenge the carceral system in Los Angeles County. Since its founding, it has grown in size and influence, challenging the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the sheriff’s office, and the jail system in Los Angeles County to take more seriously the impact of incarceration on people with serious mental illness, Cullors said. It has numerous initiatives, including Reform LA Jails, which is fighting to reduce the number of people cycling in and out of jail, end police abuse, and support mental health care in the county. The organization is also part of the coalition known as JusticeLA, which successfully stopped a $3.5 billion plan to expand Men’s Central Jail.

Cullors is now working with fellow activists on the Crenshaw Dairy Mart, a community gallery and art center, which is building new vertical gardens for people experiencing food insecurity in Los Angeles County. The gardens are referred to as “abolitionist pods,” and the first permanent pod has been installed on the property that was intended to serve as a parking lot for Men’s Central Jail. The property was repurposed to serve as transitional housing for 250 individuals, who now have access to fresh fruits and vegetables from Crenshaw Dairy Mart’s garden.

Cullors identifies as an abolitionist and wrote the book An Abolitionist’s Handbook, which explains how readers can practice abolition in everyday life. For her, abolition is about healing from state violence and challenging the systems in the United States that prioritize punishment over care. She outlined three steps that individuals working in the health care system must take to be part of what she refers to as “an abolitionist future.”

The Western medical system, she said, is deeply rooted in racism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Leaders in medicine must reckon with the history of experimentation on Black bodies, particularly the bodies of Black women, she said.

Further, Cullors believes that universal health care is urgently needed to improve the lives of people with serious mental illness. “People should be able to get quality care that is not subpar no matter who they are.” Further, people must not be criminalized when they are in serious need of care.

For Cullors, all the work she does for people living with mental illness is rooted in her love for her brother, who is now receiving treatment in a hospital and doing well, she said. “It’s a struggle all the time, but I’m really proud of him,” she said. “He’s doing amazing work.” ■