Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation is pleased to announce Cicley Gay, D’Zhane Parker, and Shalomyah Bowers to the BLM GNF Board of Directors.
With over 20 years of nonprofit and philanthropic experience, Cicley Gay is a powerhouse and leader in the political and communications sphere — more often than not as the only Black woman in spaces she leads. Cicley built the grant allocations process and programmatic infrastructure of a multi-million-dollar national mentoring initiative for Black children and was the founding director of Students Take Action for New Directions, educating students on the impact of federal budget priorities on local communities.
Cicley is committed to dismantling the cycles of intergenerational Black poverty and the expansive network of people and parties with vested interests in mass incarceration. Cicley often says, “I’ve spent decades intentionally preparing my sons for the world, I am now committed to preparing the world for my three Black sons.”
D’Zhane Parker is no stranger to the Black Lives Matter movement as an active grassroots member of BLM Los Angeles. D’Zhane has a Bachelor’s Degree in Pan African Studies, is a devoted human rights and racial justice activist, and has an extensive history in on-the-ground movement work and politics. Over the span of 27 years, D’Zhane has been systematically impacted — she’s included in the statistic of 1 in 2 Black women having an incarcerated loved one in their life.
D’Zhane has organized on local, state, and national levels, fighting for abolition on the frontlines. She is currently continuing her Black liberation work as an organizer assisting women with incarcerated loved ones taking on the rampant injustices created by mass incarceration.
Cicley and D’Zhane join Shalomyah Bowers, a social justice strategist and founder of a firm that focuses on grassroots work and building Black political, economic, and social power. With Shalomyah’s stewardship, his firm has project managed the BREATHE Act — the visionary federal policy that divests taxpayer dollars from brutal and discriminatory policing and invests in a new vision of public safefy, helped win a people-powered Los Angeles County ballot measure that creates a comprehensive plan for decarcerating the largest and most corrupt jail system in the world, and helped lead the campaign where Californians overwhelmingly said yes to ending the War on Drugs with the legalization of recreational cannabis with Proposition 64 in 2016.
Shalomyah has an equally successful track record in organizing and in advocating bold, progressive policy, and focused on Black liberation. Shalomyah is excited to continue this critical work alongside D’Zhane and Cicley.
Shalomyah, Cicley, and D’Zhane have a passion for dismantling systems of oppression, and are dedicated to ending state sanctioned violence. We are honored and beyond excited to be expanding the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation’s Board of Directors. Please be on the lookout for additional Board of Directors announcements.
About Black Lives Matter Global Network
Founded in 2013 in the wake of the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi, Black Lives Matter Global Network is a chapter-based, member-led organization in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, whose mission is to build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. We support the lives of the Black youth, families, queer and transgender communities, the disabled, the undocumented, those with records, women, men, and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives. From pop culture to design to fine arts, artists inspired by #BlackLivesMatter understand that creativity transforms politics, transforms our individual relationships, and transforms the world.