What happens when a response to the demands that come from the street lead to radically reimagining public safety? Protest and policy merge and “The BREATHE Act” is born.

Nadia Ben-Youssef, advocacy director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, talked with Ash-lee Woodard Henderson, co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center, for “The BREATHE Act: A love letter via policy,” in Episode 34 of “The Activist Files.” Nadia and Ash-Lee discuss the current political moment for “The BREATHE Act” to take shape in relationship with the history and trajectory of the Black liberation freedom struggle. In that conversation, they examine what we have learned from history when power is chipped away, the sources of inspiration from other “Black Agendas for Liberation” that surface in “The BREATHE Act,” and how COVID-19 has shown that transformative moves are possible.

Resources: 

• “The BREATHE Act”
• M4BL
• Gina Clayton
• Mjiente
• Rep. Ilhan Omar
• Rep. Cori Bush
• “Victory is Mine”