Black Lives Matter co-founder selected to receive UC Merced’s prestigious Spendlove award
UC Merced officials announced this week Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza has been selected as the recipient for this year’s Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize.
The award ceremony, which is free to the public, is scheduled to take place virtually 6 p.m. April 20. Registration is being accepted on UC Merced’s Engage website.
The award was established in 2005 and made possible through a gift from Merced native Sherrie Spendlove in honor of her parents, Alice and Clifford.
The recipients are chosen for their contributions towards social justice, diplomacy and tolerance.
Previous recipients have included former President Jimmy Carter, Merced native and Harvard professor Charles Ogletree, attorney and professor Anita Hill, activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum, and Armenian American poet Peter Balakian.
Sherrie Spendlove called Black Lives Matter one of the most important grassroots movements since the 1960s.
“We try to choose someone who is really relevant for (this) period of time,” Sherrie Spendlove told the Sun-Star, when asked why Garza was selected for the award. “We try to choose somebody who’s not just local and national, but global in their importance of work.”
The committee that selects the awardee is chaired by UC Merced’s dean of the School of Social Science, Humanities and Arts. It also includes a representative from the Spendlove family or representative, an undergraduate student, a graduate student; a faculty member and representatives from the university community.
Activism with BLM
The Black Lives Matter movement emerged in 2013 after outrage erupted nationwide after a jury acquitted George Zimmerman of killing Trayvon Martin in Florida.
Along with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, Garza started the hashtag #blacklivesmatter.
Since then, frustration nationwide has only grown over the violent deaths of many Black people at the hands of law enforcement and others. Some of those names include Tamir Rice, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, to name a few.
As a result, chapters of Black Lives Matter now exist in cities across the globe to bring awareness about violence and institutionalized racism against Black people.
“Black people alongside our allies stood up to change the course of history and we won,” Garza said last year as part of the BBC 100 Women Masterclass 2020.
“Black Lives Matter, after seven years, is now really in the DNA and the muscle memory of this country,” Garza told the BBC. “We all have watched how our community members, our family members, are being murdered on camera.”
Other endeavors
Aside from co-founding BLM, Garza founded the Black Futures Lab that works to build Black political power and change the way that power operates at a local, state and national level, according to a news release.
Garza also frequently contributes opinion pieces and expert commentary on politics, race, and more to outlets like MSNBC and The New York Times. She has also been on the cover of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World issue and been named to Bloomberg’s 50 and Politico’s 50 lists.
Such accomplishments, Spendlove said, truly speak volumes about Garza’s work.
“We’re at a pivotal point in our society as a nation and world,” Spendlove said. “I think the kinds of various work she’s done has really added hope and inspiration to not only her own people, but all of us..”