Alicia Garza Biography
Alicia Garza is a civil rights activist and writer from the United States who co-founded the international Black Lives Matter movement. She has organized around health issues, student services, and rights, domestic worker rights, ending police brutality, anti-racism, and violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people of color.
How old is Alicia Garza? – Age
She is 42 years old as of 4 January 2023. She was born in 1981 in Los Angeles, California, United States.
Alicia Garza Family
Garza was born to a single mother in Oakland, California. Her first four years were spent in San Rafael, where she shared a home with her African-American mother and her mother’s twin brother. She then lived with her mother and Jewish stepfather, and she grew up as Alicia Schwartz in a mixed-race and mixed-religion family. Garza considers himself to be Jewish. Her family lived in San Rafael and then Tiburon, where she ran an antique business with the help of her eight-year-old brother Joey.
Alicia Garza Education
Alicia began her activism when she was 12 years old, promoting school sex education about birth control. She continued her activism at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) by working at the student health center and joining the student association that advocated for higher pay for the university’s janitors. She helped organize the first Women of Color Conference, a university-wide convocation held at UCSD in 2002, during her final year of college. She earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and sociology in 2002.
Alicia Garza Husband
She is married to Malachi Garza, the Director of the Community Justice Network for Youth. The couple married in 2008.
Alicia Garza Net Worth
She has an estimate net worth of $5 Million.
Alicia Garza Book
The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart, Garza’s first book, was published by Penguin Random House in October 2020. The book, which has been described as “an essential guide,” tells Garza’s story as an activist and shares lessons for future activists.
Alicia Garza Tattoo
Garza has a tattoo on her chest that reads: I am not wrong: Wrong is not my name, My name is my own and I can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this but I can tell you that from now on my resistance my simple and daily and nightly self-determination may very well cost you your life. June Jordan’s “Poem about My Rights” concludes with these lines. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has deep roots in African American culture. Garza inscribed these roots on her skin.
Alicia Garza Speech
Garza spoke about the spread of Black Lives Matter and human rights at the 2016 Bay Area Rising event. Garza addressed graduating students at San Francisco State University in 2017. Garza praised the perseverance of Black women who came before her in her speech, saying they laid the groundwork for modern activism.
Alicia Garza Podcast
Garza debuted her podcast Lady Don’t Take No on April 10, 2020, named after the song “Lady Don’t Tek No” by Latyrx. It pays homage to her hometown of San Francisco, where she discusses “political commentary with a side of beauty recommendations.”
Alicia Garza Black Lives Matter
Garza co-created the Black Lives Matter hashtag with Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. Garza is credited with coining the phrase following George Zimmerman’s acquittal of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin in July 2013. Cullors used the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter to share this. She was also struck by Trayvon Martin’s resemblance to her younger brother, Joey, and believes that Joey could have been killed instead. The organization Black Lives Matter was inspired by police killings of black people, racial disparities in the criminal justice system of the United States, mass incarceration, police militarization, and overcriminalization. The movement was born, and Garza’s post became popular, after protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death.
Garza led the 2015 Freedom Ride to Ferguson, which was organized by Cullors and Darnell Moore and launched the formation of BlackLivesMatter chapters around the world. Garza, on the other hand, does not consider the Black Lives Matter Movement to be her creation; rather, she sees her work as a continuation of the resistance led by Black people in America. The movement and Garza are credited for popularizing the use of social media for mass mobilization in the United States; a practice called “mediated mobilization”. This practice has been used by other movements, such as the #MeToo movement.