The Black Organizing Project

Bettering our School System (BOSS): Better Our Schools System (BOSS), demands that schools provide community, care, and inspiration for Black students. Through political education and leadership development, we build the power of our community to demand that our public systems invest in futures where Black people thrive. By assuring passage of the George Floyd Resolution, we have eliminated the police department within Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), which included sworn officers as well as security officers. Additionally we have developed an implementation body, made up primarily of community representatives, which works closely with OUSD to transform school culture and to ensure continued implementation of the George Floyd Resolution. We fight for the development of practices and policies in schools that center Black sanctuary and eliminate the reliance on the policing of Black bodies. We demand the allocation of resources that invest in Black sanctuary.

Communications & Digital Organizing (OLD):Through our strategic communications and digital organizing strategies, BOP engages and activates its members as well as a broader constituency of supporters and allies. Our narrative-building and storytelling strategies allow us to expand our community and to center the lives and stories of Black people in the Bay Area for our larger community. The purpose of our communications work is to draw a connection between individual injustices and the larger systemic issues. BOP brings attention to the harsh violence that our communities experience, directly or indirectly, offering a vision for a path forward to a different reality for Black people in Oakland and beyond.

Organizing and Leadership Development (OLD)BOP develops future leaders by creating community-centered, multi-generational spaces for reflection on community. Adult and youth community members participate in training, dialogues, book clubs, and peer learning. These spaces provide healing and transformation and connect members to themselves and their communities. Members develop analysis, strengthen leadership skills, and build a powerful vision for the future. Through constant outreach, follow-up, and leadership development we are building a connected, activated Black Oakland. Through our Black Liberation Institute we train future organizers in BOPs organizing methodology. Our intentional leadership-development pipeline moves BOPs members from our base through opportunities to build their capacity for harnessing their power. BOP leaders are poised to carry this expertise forward, investigating how and where systems continue to attack a holistic vision for Black futures.