about us

Demands

We demand a restructuring of organizations that promote white supremacy whether known or subconscious. We want every police officer to have more mental health screenings, anti bias and de-escalation training, and for agencies to provide transparency to increase accountability. We demand that legislative change take place to end qualified immunity, and to make it illegal for officers to remove turn off or disable body cams in any way during an interaction with people. the fight for justice for black Lives is fighting for justice for All lives.

Bail Fund/Legal Justice

Fighting the good fight sometimes comes with unwarranted consequences. Our bail and legal fund is there to help support our allies. Donate to our bail fund to support our local allies. All donations help folks right here in the state of West Virginia. As a nonprofit organization, your donations are tax deductible.

Community Education

We work to provide educational resources to the community and public services that are ready for change. This includes educator bias training, community safety classes, and community responsibility workshops.

Ally Education

So much history has been twisted or lost. We aim to provide resources for those who desire to learn the history not always taught in school. By understanding systemic racism and how it has affected people to this day, we can learn how best to recognize and combat bias and inherent racism.

Community Connections

Our community is full of people who want to help. We work to help the people providing services to connect with the people who need them. From COVID 19 relief, to PPE we address needs especially in the communities that are disproportionately at risk for the COVID 19 pandemic.

Principles

1. Restorative Justice

We are committed to collectively, lovingly and courageously working vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension all people. As we forge our path, we intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting. We are non-violent.

2. Empathy

We are committed to practicing empathy; we engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

3. Loving Engagement

We are committed to embodying and practicing justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with one another.

4. Diversity

We are committed to acknowledging, respecting and celebrating difference(s) and commonalities.

5. Globalism

We see ourselves as part of the global Black family and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black folk who exist in different parts of the world.

6. Queer Affirming

We are committed to fostering a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking or, rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual unless s/he or they disclose otherwise.

7. Trans Affirming

We are committed to embracing and making space for trans brothers and sisters to participate and lead. We are committed to being self-reflexive and doing the work required to dismantle cis-gender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

8. Collective Value

We are guided by the fact all Black lives, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status or location.

9. Intergenerational

We are committed to fostering an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with capacity to lead and learn.

10. Black Families

We are committed to making our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We are committed to dismantling the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” that require them to mother in private even as they participate in justice work.

11. Black Villages

We are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, and especially “our” children to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable.

12. Unapologetically Black

We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a necessary prerequisite for wanting the same for others.

13. Black Women

We are committed to building a Black women affirming space free from sexism, misogyny, and male‐centeredness.

Black Lives Matter WV