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‘We’re at a tipping point’: BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors hosts election special

Black Lives Matter activist Patrisse Cullors will host an election special.
Black Lives Matter activist Patrisse Cullors will host an election special.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
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As anxiety mounts and the national mood grows tenser, making a plan to vote helps.

So does having a watch party lined up.

Black Lives Matter co-founder and executive director Patrisse Cullors will host her first YouTube live streaming event tonight, an election special called “Patrisse Cullors + BLMPAC Present: Live on Election Night.”

“Flex your political muscles in the voting booth,” Cullors said Tuesday in an Instagram post titled “BLM Closing Message.” “Amplify the power we built in the streets.”

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“I want President Biden and Vice President Harris to look out on the National Mall on Inauguration Day, and I want them to know we’re going to hold them accountable and continue fighting for our freedom,” she continued. “I want them to know they got their jobs because we did the work — and we voted.”

“Westworld” actress Tessa Thompson; Ramy Youssef, the co-creator and star of “Ramy” (TV’s first Muslim American sitcom to score an Emmy nomination); and comedian Chelsea Handler — who just called out her ex-boyfriend 50 Cent for endorsing President Trump — are set to appear at the virtual event.

What time is the event, and where can I watch it?


“Patrisse Cullors + BLMPAC Present: Live on Election Night” will go live tonight at 6 p.m. Pacific and run for 90 minutes. It will be available to stream on Cullors’ YouTube channel.

The show will be co-hosted by Question Culture Chief Executive Richie Reseda, who was freed from prison in 2018 and is a producer and abolitionist-feminist organizer. It will be produced by BLM PAC and artistic activism group Trap Heals.

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Three generations of a Las Vegas family tell how it feels to be a Black man in America in a season of protest.

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Who else is participating?


Activists including BLM L.A.’s Melina Abdullah and vice president and chief partnership and equity officer at MomsRising.org Monifa Bandele are set to speak. Black Men Build organizer Philip Agnew and California state Sen. Holly Mitchell are also on the lineup.

Celebrities including Thompson, Yousself, Handler, Tracee Ellis Ross (“black-ish”), America Ferrera (“Superstore”), Diane Guerrero (“Doom Patrol”) and Yara Shahidi (“The Sun Is Also a Star”) are also on deck to make appearances.

What else does Cullors think about the election?

“The truth? Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not the answer to our cries,” Cullors wrote Tuesday in her Instagram post. “But they get us one step closer to where we need to be. Let’s get them into office. And then let’s hold them accountable. Let’s show them the strength of our movement, and that if they win ... they owe us.”

“We’re at a tipping point now,” she said in the post’s accompanying video. “We have a choice. We can be the people who save this country from disaster. We could show up at the polls for Joe and Kamala, our first Black woman VP, and all the movement-driven progressives up and down the ballot. If we do, that’s it. It’s over. Trump and the Republicans are finished. The math is clear.”

It is all here. How to vote. Where to vote. Endorsements. What issues are on the ballot in California and Los Angeles County.

Oct. 6, 2020

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