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Podcast

#SayHerName Charleena Lyles: Police Murder and the Uprising for Black Lives (6-16-20)

Join Katrina Johnson, Michael Bennett, Nikkita Oliver and Jesse Hagopian to talk about justice for Charleena Lyles and Black Lives Matter. Katrina Johnson, Charleena Lyles' cousin, will join Michael Bennett, Nikkita Oliver and Jesse Hagopian to talk about the struggle for justice for Charleena and the new uprising for Black Lives. The mass uprising in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd around the world has created bold new possibilities for the Black Lives Matter Movement. Bold incentives are being taken around the country to defund, disarm, and dismantle policing. As the African American Policy institute raised by launching #SayHerName, much of the focus of police violence has been given to the killing of Black men, and Black women and transgendered people have not received the same attention. The recent murder of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American emergency medical technician, who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department by police is one case that deserves more attention. Another is Charleena Lyles. On June 18, 2017, two Seattle police officers entered the apartment of Charleena Lyles. The police had been called by Charleena because she feared someone was breaking into her home. Within minuets of entering the apartment, the officers shot her down in a hail of seven bullets, with at least three of them in the back. The officers alleged they had to use lethal force because Charleena had a paring knife. One of the officers was supposed to have a taser, but had not properly charged it, so he did not bring it with him–a violation of department policy. Charleena was pregnant and was killed in front of three of her four kids, who had to be carried over her body to leave the apartment. Join a conversation about next steps in winning justice for Charleena and her family and how her story connects to the new movement for Black Lives in the streets today. Katrina Johnson works for the Public Defenders Association as a Project Manager diverting people out of the criminal legal system into community based resources—instead of jail and prosecution. Katrina became a social justice activist/advocate and spokesperson for her family in June of 2017, after her first cousin Charleena Lyles was killed in her home in North Seattle after police officers responded to the location to investigate a theft Charleena had reported. Katrina works with other families who have lost loved ones to the use of lethal force in Washington State and around the county. Michael Bennett is a three-time Pro Bowler, Pro Bowl MVP, Super Bowl Champion, and two-time NFC Champion. He has gained international recognition for his public support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, women’s rights, and other social justice causes. In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans by The Root, was the Seattle Seahawks nominee for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award, and was honored along with his brother Martellus with a BET Shine a Light award for exceptional service. He is the author of Things That Make White People Uncomfortable. Nikkita Oliver is a Seattle-based creative, community organizer, abolitionist, educator, and attorney. Nikkita is the co-executive director of Creative Justice, an arts-based alternative to incarceration and a healing engaged youth-led community-based program. Jesse Hagopian is an award-winning educator and a leading voice on issues of educational equity and social justice unionism. He is an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine and is the co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives, and editor of More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/vAM_XkdCXJY Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

More Episodes

May 18, 2026

Ukraine’s Anti-Imperialist Struggle

February 24th marked the fourth anniversary of Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine. Right now, it is bombing the country’s energy system, cutting off heat and electricity for millions in the depths of a bitterly cold winter. At the same time, the Trump administration is trying to bully Ukraine into a land for peace settlement that rewards Putin’s aggression and, with the willing collaboration of Ukraine’s oligarchs, puts the country up for sale to Western multinationals. Join this webinar to hear about Ukraine’s struggle.

Speakers:

Artem Chapeye is the author of Ordinary People Don’t Carry Guns (Washington Post 2025 best non-fiction) and The Ukraine. He is a writer, translator, activist, and, after the 2022 invasion, an enlisted member of the Armed Forces of Ukraine .

Tanya Vyhovsky is a Ukrainian American, Vermont State Senator, member of Vermont’s Progressive Party, and also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Denys Bondar is a native of Ukraine and an associate professor of physics at Tulane University as well as a member of the Ukraine Solidarity Network and Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction.

May 18, 2026

We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities

Join editors and contributors of We Are Each Other's Liberation, a major anthology that illuminates historical and contemporary solidarities between Black and Asian feminists.

A collaborative project between Black Women Radicals and the Asian American Feminist Collective, We Are Each Other's Liberation envisions a cross-racial and internationalist politics that explicitly addresses solidarity between Black and Asian feminists. Bringing together organizers, artists, journalists, poets, novelists, and more, this collection introduces readers to new ways of understanding and reflecting on race and feminism.

Drawing out lessons from the revolutionary work of movement forebearers—including the Combahee River Collective, Claudia Jones, Grace Lee Boggs, Yuri Kochiyama, and Third World Women’s Alliance as well as struggles today—We Are Each Other’s Liberation offers an urgent call for the just future we might build together.

Get a copy of We Are Each Other's Liberation from Haymarket: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2519-we-are-each-other-s-liberation

Speakers:

Rachel Kuo is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and cofounder of the Asian American Feminist Collective, which engages intersectional feminist politics grounded within Asian diasporic communities.

Jaimee A. Swift is the creator and executive director of Black Women Radicals, dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women and gender-expansive people’s radical activism in Africa and in the African diaspora.

TD Tso is a feminist writer, editor, cultural organizer, and cofounder of the Asian American Feminist Collective.

Pratibha Parmar’s films have shaped the politics of feminist, queer, and diasporic visual cultures for over four decades. From experimental shorts to activist documentaries and feature-length works, Parmar’s cinematic language operates as an act of visual justice. Her practice engages the image as a site of struggle—challenging the power relations that determine who is seen, how they are represented, and what forms of visual expression are made possible. Her films are a site of narrative transformation, where memory, activism, and artistic expression converge to resist erasure and imagine new futures. Pratibha is a published author and editor of of several anthologies. The Institute of Contemporary Arts (London) and Sming Sming Books published, Our Eyes as Commonly Tender: Visual Justice in the Filmmaking of Pratibha Parmar in 2025.

Margo Okazawa-Rey is an activist-educator working on issues of militarism for over 30 years. She has long-standing activist commitments in South Korea and Palestine, with Du Re Bang and Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, respectively. She is a founding member of the International Women’s Network against Militarism and Women for Genuine Security, its US group. She also hosts feminist radio program Women’s Magazine, broadcast on KPFA Berkeley California station of the Pacifica Radio network, and is known as DJ MOR Love and Joy, transnational feminist virtual dance party DJ.

Dr. Beverley Bryan is a lifelong educator and political activist, who is co-author of the classic book Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain (1985) which detailed the experiences of Black women and their fight for equality from post-war up to 1980s Britain. Dr. Bryan was a founding member of the Brixton Black Women’s Group and the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD); a Saturday school organiser, a mainstream primary school teacher who pioneered Black history teaching in her classroom in the 1970s and a member of the British Black Panther Movement. A lifelong educator, Dr. Bryan is a retired Professor of Language Education from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.

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