Black Lives Matter Co-Founder to Speak in President's Lecture Series

January 14, 2016

Alicia Garza

Alicia Garza, social activist and co-creator of the #BlackLivesMatter viral Twitter hashtag and movement, will deliver the first President's Lecture of 2016 at Old Dominion University.

Garza will appear Tuesday, Feb. 2 at Old Dominion's Ted Constant Convocation Center. The 7:30 p.m. event is free, but a ticket is required. And due to anticipated demand for the event, a limited number of tickets are being made available to the ODU community before release to the general public.

From Wednesday, Jan. 13 to Tuesday Jan. 19, Old Dominion students, faculty and staff may pick up one ticket with their valid ODU ID at the Webb University Center information desk.

For Webb Information Desk operating hours, please visit: https://www.odu.edu/life/gettinginvolved/wid.

On Jan. 20 at 8 a.m., the remaining tickets will be made available to the public at www.ynottix.com.

Motivated to action by the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, Garza took to social media to express her anguish and love for the black community.

Ending her message with "Our Lives Matter/We Matter/Black Lives Matter," Garza - together with Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors - turned that closing phrase into a hashtag on the social media site Twitter. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter quickly evolved into a nationwide call to action.

Currently the special projects director for the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Garza previously served as executive director of People Organized to Win Employment Rights, where she led the charge on significant initiatives, including organizing against chronic police violence in black neighborhoods.

Her activism focuses on challenging society to recognize and celebrate the contributions of all individuals, specifically African Americans and LBGTQ communities.

Garza's activism is rooted in organizational strategies to connect individuals and emerging social movements. She is also a prominent advocate for the preservation of an open Internet to provide a space for these movements to emerge.

Her work has been honored with two Harvey Milk Democratic Club Community Activist Awards. In 2015, Garza and the Black Lives Matter co-founders were honored with inclusion on The Root's Top 100 List for the movement's social and political impact.

Delivering an informed perspective on the adversity inflicted by social injustice and discrimination, Garza educates and inspires audiences to organize and stand together to transform society into a world where the lives and contributions of all individuals are recognized equally.

The President's Lecture Series serves as a marketplace for ideas, featuring fascinating personalities who share their knowledge, experience, opinions and accomplishments. Discussing timely topics, the series puts diversity first, offering an international lineup of authors and educators, business innovators and political figures.

The Series presents to the region a platform for equal exchange of dialogue and ideas. It began in 1991 with its first lecturer, James J. Kilpatrick, a controversial journalist in the 1950s against desegregation in Virginia's public schools. Kilpatrick spoke on campus in a traditional lecture format, including a question and answer session, which allowed for a source of lively dialogue and free speech, trademarks of the series. Today, the President's Lecture Series maintains this format and is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Old Dominion University's Office of Community Engagement at 757-683-3116.