On Thursday, November 15, 2018, artist, organizer, educator, and popular public speaker, Patrisse Cullors, will grace the Garvin Theatre stage as the twenty-eighth annual Leonardo Dorantes Memorial Lecturer.
The lecture series honors the memory of a second-year SBCC student and Mexican immigrant, Leonardo Dorantes. Celebrated as a motivated student, respected by peers and professors alike, Leonardo died in a race-related tragedy in November of 1990. The lecture series seeks to heighten awareness and understanding of racial and ethnic diversity in our society, politics, and culture.
Patrisse Cullors is a Los Angeles native and Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and Founder of grassroots Los Angeles-based organization Dignity and Power Now. She is also a senior fellow at MomsRising where she is working on ending Maternal Mortality and Morbidity.
In 2013, Patrisse co-founded the global movement with the viral twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter which has since grown to an international organization with dozens of chapters around the world fighting anti-Black racism. In January 2016 she published her memoir, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, which became an instant New York Times Bestseller.
Patrisse has been honored with various awards including: The Sydney Peace Prize Award (2017), Black Woman of the Year Award (2015) from The National Congress of Black Women, Civil Rights Leader for the 21st Century Award (2015) from the Los Angeles Times, Community Change Agent Award (2016) from BLACK GIRLS ROCK!, Inc., Women of the Year Award for the Justice Seekers Award (2016) from Glamour, and ESSENCE’ first-ever Woke Award.
Patrisse is currently a 2019 MFA candidate at the University of Southern California.
