Dream Defenders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dream Defenders is an American human rights non-profit organization that aims to end policing and abolish prisons (especially private prisons). It is geared towards people of color who share the goal of multi-racial organizing among other goals. They espouse to end the school-to-prison pipeline by redefining notions of freedom and safety.
Dream Defenders was founded after a group of activists marched from Daytona to Sanford, Florida, in order to protest Trayvon Martin's death and the failure to arrest his killer George Zimmerman. Gabriel Pendas and Phillip Agnew knew each other from activist work at Florida A&M University and came together to plan an event. They contacted Ciara Taylor and Nelini Stamp, other activists with similar goals.[1]
Ciara Taylor
Taylor, one of the founders, grew up in the suburbs in Florida and attended Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.[1] She served as both the political director and the director of political consciousness at Dream Defenders. In high school, Taylor protested the United States 2000 presidential election, between Al Gore and George W. Bush, after Bush was elected president. Taylor felt frustrated and hopeless in this process because she felt as though she could not actively influence the decision being made about her soon-to-be president.[1][2] She continued this activism into college at Florida A&M, where she advocated for living wages for campus workers and advocated against budget cuts that defunded her major a year before she graduated.