Families United 4 Justice (FU4J)
In 2011, the National Coordinator of October 22nd Coalition, the longest-running anti-police brutality organization in the US, Monica Shay, was brutally gunned down along with other members of her family in a mass shooting over Independence Day weekend. Monica was an incredibly powerful and loyal advocate for families affected by police violence in New York and across the nation, and her death severely interrupted the advocacy work being done to service and support families. For years, along with the Anthony Baez Foundation and National Lawyer’s Guild, she spearheaded the Stolen Lives Project (http://stolenlives.org), an archival project documenting thousands of police violence cases across the nation. The youth of October 22nd Coalition scrambled to re-organize the organization and delegate tasks but their efforts were ineffective. For the first time in years, active family members reported there was no longer an organizing space for them.
In 2013, Niece of police violence victim Alberta Spruill (killed by NYPD in Harlem, NY, May 16, 2003), Cynthia Howell, attended an October 22nd Coalition event in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she was not acknowledged as a family member of a police violence victim. When she brought this up to the organizers, they responded with, “police brutality affects everyone, not just family members.” Enraged, she decided it was time to create a safe organizing space for families where they can organize collectively while comforting each other. In the Fall of 2014, with the aid of long-time family advocate, Vanissa W. Chan, Cynthia called for Families United 4 Justice’s initial meetings at the May Day Space, a convergence space for activists in Brooklyn, New York. The name Families United 4 Justice (FU4J) was decided upon democratically by several family members present at these meetings.
Knowing that Cephus “Uncle Bobby” X Johnson, the Uncle of police violence victim, Oscar Grant, had been actively connecting and organizing with families on the West Coast, FU4J reached out to him to discuss the potential of expanding FU4J nationally. In October 2014, Uncle Bobby called into one of the first meetings where we discussed establishing and expanding FU4J.
Uncle Bobby, Cynthia Howell, and Martinez Sutton, brother of police violence victim Rekia Boyd of Chicago, at MacGregor Hall, Wayne State University, Allied Media Conference, June 2015. All three served on a panel called, “Organizing with Families Affected by Police Violence,” organized by Vanissa W. Chan, Project Founder of the Forced Trajectory Project.
Like Cynthia, Uncle Bobby was enraged that there was no real and sustainable support system for impacted families. He launched the Families United for Justice Campaign in September 2011. He would wear his Families United for Justice shirt to many family campaigns events he organized speaking about uniting families. Uniting families became his mission.
On October 25, 2014, at the Eastside Art Alliance in Oakland California, Uncle Bobby and his wife Beatrice X, under their organization, Love Not Blood Campaign, held one of many campaigns to unite families from different parts of the country. Thus cumulating to this historic Families United 4 Justice Network Gathering at the 19th Allied Media Conference held at Wayne State University, Detroit MI, the largest convening of families affected by police violence ever, organized FOR families BY families.
Uncle Bobby, Anthony Shalid, and Michael Brown, SR., in Ferguson, MO, August 2015.