Ciara Taylor
Ciara Taylor is an activist who is active in youth protests, civil justice and human rights. She is one of the creators of Dream Defenders, a civil rights organisation that aims to change society by the transformational organization. [1]
Contribution and Spirit in Activism
Ciara Taylor is a renowned trainer, grassroots activist and performer. In her position as Membership Manager of the People's Forum, Ciara is committed to cultivating a society rooted in the ideals of peace, love and equality of the working class for everyone through art and political education.
She first became politically active in high school in response to the Iraq War and began to campaign around topics relating to militarism, mass incarceration, injustice, and the security of the most disadvantaged in our society. In 2012, Ciara co-founded Dream Defenders, a Florida-based grassroots group that formed after the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.[2]
In regards to the incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, Taylor responded, "We're trying to increase awareness of police violence across the world, to make sure people don't view Mike Brown as an unusual occurrence. We encourage people to look into police abuse incidents in their own neighbourhoods." Now, Dream Defenders is working on an online toolkit to help young people organize their own civil disobedience activities.
“In the back of my mind, I’m thinking, I could just go to law school, have a simple life. But I think about my younger siblings and the family I want to have in the future. I want to create a world in which they can live without fear. I want my generation to be free, to live and to really flourish.” [3] Taylor, who is founder and former Director of Political Consciousness for Dream Defenders, has joined the leadership of the People's Tribunal on the Iraq War. The Tribunal is being coordinated by CODEPINK, Washington Peace Centre, US Labor Against the War, Veterans for Peace, the Group for Women's Rights in Iraq and several others.
Taylor works to guide the Tribunal to focus on both the specific and sometimes hidden costs of more than a decade of war on marginalized communities in the U.S., and the impact of U.S. imperialism on occupied and oppressed people in the Middle East and around the globe. She will close the Tribunal with the presentation of testimony that ties the Iraq War to racism, poverty and militarism.[4]
About Dream Defenders
The Dream Defenders was created in April 2012 after the horrific murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. On that Spring, young Black, Latinx, and Arab youth marched from Daytona Beach Florida to Sanford Florida, where Trayvon Martin was killed.
Today, Dream Defenders is coordinating Black and Brown youth to create influence in our neighbourhoods and advance a new direction for the state. Our agenda is the Independence Papers. Through it, we are advancing our vision of safety and security – away from prisons, deportation, and war – and towards healthcare, housing, jobs and movement for all.
Currently, Dream Defenders have 3 projects listed on their website. Free the Block is a movement to end bail and pretrial incarceration in Miami-Dade County and Tampa. Driven by efforts for juvenile justice and bail reform around the world, Dream Defenders and other partner groups are gathering thousands of petition signatures to make the case for a much more efficient and compassionate approach to bail money and pretrial incarceration.
Florida has the third-largest prison facility in the world and holds the largest private prison corporation called Geo Group. In the last 20 years, the GEO Group has given 8.7 million to politicians and has had an impact on Florida legislation.
In the 2018 elections, Dream Defenders mounted a movement against the GEO Group, and through direct action, bird-dogging and cultural shifting, Dream Defenders got the Florida Democratic Party to pass a resolution discouraging politicians from taking private prison funding and got an additional 30 candidates to sign a pledge not to take private prison funds.
The last project is Blacked Out History, which is an attempt to recognize people, moments, and significant events across history that have been left out of our history classrooms that have had a profound effect on the world we live in today.
February is a month out of the year devoted to celebrating and remembering Black history. Dream Defenders plans to revere this history, knowing that every day in our job, we stand on the shoulders of the giants. [5]
Reference
- ↑ Ciara Taylor. en.gyaanipedia.org. Retrieved on Feb 4, 2021.
- ↑ [https://peoplesforum.org/instructor/ciara-taylor/ https://peoplesforum.org/instructor/ciara-taylor/]. peoplesforum.org. Retrieved on Feb 4, 2021.
- ↑ Armstrong, Lisa. The New Civil Rights Leaders. October 31, 2014. essence.com. Retrieved on Feb 4, 2021.
- ↑ Ritchie, Sam. Dream Defenders Founding Member Joins Leadership of People’s Tribunal on the Iraq War. November 22, 2016. codepink.org. Retrieved on Feb 4, 2021.
- ↑ Dream Defenders. Projects. Dreamdefenders.org. Retrieved on Feb 4, 2021.