A Freedom Ride to Ferguson

Brothers and Sisters:

Allow me to introduce myself: my name is Frank Roberts and I am lifelong social justice activist, community organizer, and jazz-inspired public intellectual. The co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition, I am the former research assistant to the late civil rights attorney Johnnie Cochran, with whom I worked with on the legal movement for racial reparations in the mid 2000s.

I am currently on the visiting faculty of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Studies (the institution from which I am also an alumnus and a current Ph.D. candidate) where I teach courses on race, ethnicity, and politics. Previously I have held university-level teaching positions at the City University of New York (at both Hunter College and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice); The New School for Social Research; and the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute at Princeton University.



Committed to bridging an age-old divide between the grassroots and  the Ivory Tower, for the past year I have lived and traveled around the world (with recent detours in Paris, Scotland, London, Moscow, and the Dominican Republic) writing privately and lecturing publically about issues related to what I call the "malfunctions of American democracy" (ranging from mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex to the war on drugs in inner city communities).

My recent public comentary about my experiences on the ground in Ferguson, Missouri has been extensive. My op-ed "A Blues Ballad for Ferguson " recently appeared in Vibe Magazine; and a second, longer essay, "After Ferguson: A New Vision for Black America " will published as a lead feature for the Decemberissue of Uptown Magazine. In addition, I have recently given public talks on Ferguson at the City University of New York (including a talk at Brooklyn College's renowed Shirley Chisholm Project) and Yale University (where I am also a graduate student).



This week I will be returning to Ferguson where I will be joining community leaders from around the world in an act of organized resistance in opposition to the criminal injustice system.

Your funding support with be used solely for the purposes of financing this trip: specifically air travel and housing accomodations. travel receipts will be made available to all sponsors who request them.

There is an old adage that says that it takes a "village" to raise a child. The same is true for raising a revolution.

In Peace and Service,
Frank