The recent incidents of racism, murder, and police brutality, including the inhumane murder of George Floyd, have once again reminded us of the systemic racism that continues to plague America. We know that George Floyd’s murder is not an isolated incident: from Breonna Taylor to Ahmaud Arbery to Tony McDade, to the epidemic violence facing trans women of color, we repeatedly see how the long history of oppression of Black and Brown people in America continues to result in discrimination, injustice, police brutality, and murder. It must stop.
It is all of our responsibility to speak out publicly against racism, systemic injustice, and police brutality, and to elevate voices and amplify stories of people of color, especially with the LGBTQ community. Below is a non-exhaustive list of resources that can help you find different ways to support the Black community and the fight to combat racism, discrimination, and police brutality.
Support funds providing necessary financial assistance
- George Floyd Memorial Fund: The official GoFundMe to support the Floyd family.
- In Memory of Tony McDade: The official GoFundMe to support the McDade family.
- Justice for Breonna Taylor: The official GoFundMe to support the Taylor family.
- The National Bail Fund Network: A national project that works with organizers, advocates, and legal providers across the country that are using, or contemplating using, community bail funds as part of efforts to radically change local bail systems and reduce incarceration. Click here for the National Bail Fund Network Directory of Community Bail Funds.
- The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund: America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice through litigation, advocacy, and public education.
- LGBTQ+ Freedom Fund: An organization that posts bail for LGBTQ people held in jail or immigrant detention and raises awareness of the overincarceration of LGBTQ people, who are three times more likely to be incarcerated than heterosexual individuals.
- Trans Justice Funding Project: A Black community-led funding initiative to support grassroots trans justice groups run by and for trans people.
- Minnesota Freedom Fund: A community based nonprofit in Minnesota that pays criminal bail and immigration bonds for individuals who have been arrested while protesting police brutality.
Support organizations that are working to serve the Black community, demand justice, and fight systems of racial inequality and oppression
- Black Lives Matter: A global organization whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
- Color of Change: The nation’s largest online racial justice organization which seeks to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, and champion solutions that move us all forward.
- Advancement Project: A multi-racial civil rights organization which uses innovative tools and strategies to strengthen social movements and achieve high impact policy change.
- Reclaim the Block: A coalition that advocates for and invests in community-led safety initiatives in Minneapolis neighborhoods.
- Black Visions Collective: A Black, trans, and queer-led organization that is committed to dismantling systems of oppression and violence, and shifting the narrative to create transformative, long-term change.
- Campaign Zero: Online platform & organization that utilizes research-based policy solutions to end police brutality in America.
- Unicorn Riot: A non-profit organization that is dedicated to exposing the root causes of dynamic social and environmental issues.
- The Bail Project: A non-profit organization designed to combat mass incarceration by disrupting the money bail system.
- Communities United Against Police Brutality: A Twin-Cities based organization that was created to deal with police brutality on an ongoing basis. It operates a crisis hotline where people can report abuse, offers legal, medical, and psychological resource referrals, and engages in political action against police brutality.
- Center for Black Equity: An organization committed to supporting leaders, institutions and programs for health, economic and social equity for Black LGBTQ people.
- The Marsha P. Johnson Institute: An organization protecting and defending the human rights of Black transgender people by organizing, advocating, creating an intentional community to heal, developing transformative leadership, and promoting collective power.
- SNaPCo: An organization aimed at building the power of Black trans and queer people to force systemic divestment from the prison industrial complex and invest in community support.
- The National Black Justice Coalition: A civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black LGBTQ people and people living with HIV/AIDS, with the mission of ending racism and stigma towards LGBTQ people.
- The Black Trans Advocacy Coalition: A national organization led by Black trans people to collectively address the inequities faced in the Black transgender human experience.
- Black AIDS Institute: An organization working to end the Black HIV epidemic through policy, advocacy, and high-quality direct HIV services.
- The Okra Project: A collective that seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black trans people by bringing home-cooked meals and resources to the community.
- No New Jails NYC: An organization that seeks to keep New York City from constructing new jails, and to instead divert funds that currently go toward the police and incarceration toward housing, ending homelessness, mental health, and other community support systems.
- Youth Breakout: A Black-led organization working to end the criminalization of LGBTQ youth in New Orleans to build a safer, more just community.
- Know Your Rights Camp: An organization founded by Colin Kaepernick that seeks to advance the liberation and well-being of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment, mass-mobilization and the creation of new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders.
- House of GG: A Black-led organization creating safe and transformative spaces for community to heal, and nurturing them into tomorrow’s leaders, focusing on trans women of color in the South.
- Fair Fight: An organization founded by Stacey Abrams that aims to end voter suppression and equalize voting rights and access for fairer elections.
Educate yourself about issues affecting the Black community and learn how to become a better ally
- Research Brief: Black LGBTQ Youth Mental Health (The Trevor Project)
- LGBT workers of color are among the most disadvantaged in the U.S. Workforce (Movement Advancement Project)
- COVID-19 in Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups (Center for Disease Control and Prevention)
- Black Americans still are victims of hate crimes more than any other group (Public Integrity)
- How You Can Be Ally to the Black Lives Matter Movement (Great Big Story)
- Black People Need Stronger White Allies — Here’s How You Can Be One (Refinery29)
Support Black-owned businesses
- Support Black Owned (SBO) is a free Black and African-American owned business directory and blog filled with thousands of 100% Black, Moorish, and African-American owned businesses, spread all over the world. Click here to view the full directory.
Support Black media
- Blavity: An American media outlet created by and for Black millennials. Its mission is to “economically and creatively support Black millennials across the African diaspora, so they can pursue the work they love, and change the world in the process.”
- The Root: An African-American-oriented online magazine that provides an unflinching analysis of important issues in the Black community through insightful and savvy commentary from Black thought-leaders.
- BET: The nation’s leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news and public affairs television programming for the African American audience
- NBCBLK: An NBC platform highlighting “stories by, for and about the Black community” with the goal of “elevating America’s conversation about Black identity, politics & culture today.”
- TheGrio: An American news website focusing on news and events that have a unique interest and/or pronounced impact within the national African American audience.
- Ebony: A magazine committed to showcasing the best and brightest, as well as highlighting disparities in Black life.
- Essence: A lifestyle, fashion and beauty magazine for African American women.
- Refinery 29 – Unbothered: An online platform made for and by Black millennial women, celebrating the beauty, strength, and power in the Black community.
- Madame Noire: An international online magazine that is geared toward the lifestyles of African American women, as well as popular culture.
Make your voice heard
- Ensure that you are registered to vote. GLAAD recently launched its 2020 Action Center, which gives people all the information and steps they need to register to vote and make their voice heard at the polls.
If you’re reading this and you have additional resources you’d like to share with GLAAD’s community, please reach out to press@glaad.org. This list is not comprehensive.