{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/nz80k28k39/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Oral history interview with Brandon Fish"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["11/29/21"]}},{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["Brandon Fish was born in 1987 in/near Fort Lauderdale, Florida and moved to Charleston, S.C. at a young age. He is a well known organizer and activist within the greater Charleston area and director of community relations at the Charleston Jewish Federation. Fish was inolved in both the Occupy Wall Street and a co-founding member of Black Lives Matter Charleston."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture."]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Note"]},"value":{"en":["For more information contact the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, 125 Bull Street, Charleston, SC 29424."]}},{"label":{"en":["Access Statement"]},"value":{"en":["All rights reserved."]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewee"]},"value":{"en":["Fish, Brandon, 1987-"]}},{"label":{"en":["Interviewer"]},"value":{"en":["Brown, Millicent E., 1948-"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Topical"]},"value":{"en":["Civil rights demonstrations","African Americans","Political activists","Black lives matter movement","Activism","Political participation","Community organization","Social movements"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Personal or Corporate"]},"value":{"en":["d'Baha, Muhiyidin, 1985-2018","Moye, Muhiyidin, 1985-2018","Scott, Walter, 1965-2015","International Longshoremen's Association","Charleston Jewish Federation (Charleston, S.C.)","Southerners on New Ground (Charleston, S.C.)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic"]},"value":{"en":["Charleston (S.C.)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject - Geographic County"]},"value":{"en":["Charleston County (S.C.)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Contributing Institution"]},"value":{"en":["Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston"]}},{"label":{"en":["Media Type"]},"value":{"en":["Oral Histories"]}},{"label":{"en":["Resource Locator"]},"value":{"en":["AMN 1168.001.006"]}},{"label":{"en":["Digitization Specifications"]},"value":{"en":["Mp4 derivative audio and video created using Davinci Resolve. Archival masters are all mp4 files."]}},{"label":{"en":["Date Digital"]},"value":{"en":["2022"]}}],"summary":{"en":["Brandon Fish was born in 1987 in/near Fort Lauderdale, Florida and moved to Charleston, S.C. at a young age. He is a well known organizer and activist within the greater Charleston area and director of community relations at the Charleston Jewish Federation. Fish was inolved in both the Occupy Wall Street and a co-founding member of Black Lives Matter Charleston."]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["Copyright © Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture."]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowcountry Digital Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/212/original/LOHI_aviarybanner2.jpg?1741032082","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/298/956/small/open-uri20251217-4125201-3iekd7_1766000244.jpg?1766000246","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - open-uri20251217-4125201-3iekd7.mp4"]},"duration":3672.191,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/298/956/small/open-uri20251217-4125201-3iekd7_1766000244.jpg?1766000246","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-cofc.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/298/956/original/open-uri20251217-4125201-3iekd7.mp4?1766000240","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3672.191,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["DTA Interview - Brandon Fish pt. 1 - Edited Transcript.docx [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nSo, your name is?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=0.0,2.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nBrandon Fish, and that's spelled B-R-A-N-D-O-N F-I-S-H. And I was born near Fort Lauderdale, Florida and grew up there, and— going back and forth between there and Charleston, really. And now I work as the director of community outreach for the Charleston Jewish Federation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2.0,28.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nOkay. Very good. We are really, really glad to have you here today, Brandon.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=28.0,34.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nThanks.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=34.0,35.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYou're somebody that everybody knows. We want to know more about what goes on in that head of yours. [Laughter.] Did Charleston find you or did you find Charleston?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=35.0,49.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWell, my mother was born in Charleston, as was my grandmother, and they were the close side of my family. The other side of my family were European; they escaped the Holocaust. I think there's a lot of trauma that goes along with that. And so, they were less close, but my mother's side of the family was very close. So we were here growing up every single summer. Every single winter break, every single spring break, we would hop in a car and go to Charleston. My parents would leave me here for the summer. And I have other family here, so it was always second home. And when I wasn't in school, this is usually where I was. And as soon as I got old enough, I had gone to the college - I had gone to University of Florida - and my sister had moved up here, my grandparents were up here, and I was considering places I wanted to move, and this was calling out to me. So I came to Charleston in around, I think right in 2008 because it was right before Barack Obama was elected president.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=49.0,119.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nSo give us a sense, if you would, about some early experiences. What is it that you would say kind of got you exposed to doing social justice work?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=119.0,136.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWell, growing up I had spent a lot of time in Charleston. My uncle, who's my mother's brother, was like the black sheep of the family and had a lot of issues; unfortunately, he ended up committing suicide when I was... Right before I moved to Charleston, which was one of the motivating factors. He was my grandparents' son. But when I was a kid, I actually found a lot of books in his room when I would stay in Charleston. Books written by Black Panthers and Abbie Hoffman, and also a lot of Jewish activists from the anti-war movement of the '60s.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=136.0,175.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd as I got a little older, I think the part of my Jewish identity that I connected with the most was a history of activism in the United States. I got to go on a trip when I was 13 or 14 to Washington, DC with a Jewish group that introduced us to Jewish people who were working in activism - a variety of fronts, including the AIDS awareness movement during the early '90s and people that had marched with King and knew Dr. Haschel, who was a friend of Dr. King's - and I got to see that Jewish people were a part of a lot of different things and that it meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people, what it meant to be Jewish in America. And I got really excited about the opportunity to get a little older and be a part of that legacy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=175.0,232.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nFor the record, give me your year of birth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=232.0,234.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\n1987.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=234.0,235.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nOkay. Sometimes when I talk with you, you sound like an ancient man. And I wonder... BRANDON FISH\n\n[Laughter.] No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=235.0,245.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\n[Laughter.] No.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=245.0,245.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\n[Laughter.] No. MILLICENT BROWN\n\nSo, you get this exposure to, I guess, philosophies about justice and activism. What about actual engagement? As a teenager or young college man, are you joining organizations? How does that ...","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=245.0,268.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWell, I was a kid that I think gave my principal a lot of, as we would say in Yiddish, tsores. Like, agita, Italians would say. My principal... I kind of was resistant to authority growing up. I think the first thing I tried to organize was a walkout of my high school because of the Iraq war. And my mother and father always encouraged that. They always encouraged that kind of engagement. I mean, I think they got aggravated, but so when I got to college in Florida, it must've been 2005, 2006. People were really ramping up the anti George W. Bush protest, and anti-war stuff started getting a lot bigger. I got really into researching the Weather Underground and SDS and all the stuff in the '60s. And there was an SDS chapter in Florida that I ended up joining and took part in. Somebody had gotten tazed on our campus by the campus police who had been asking John Kerry questions about why he conceded the race.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=268.0,346.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nIt became really like a jokey viral moment. Because he yelled out, “Don't taze me, bro!” a bunch of times. And there were campus demonstrations about police carrying, even carrying non-lethal tools like tasers and clubs and things like that, and guns, on campus that students were really upset that the police were carrying all that stuff. And I marched with SDS and we ended up occupying a police station on campus, and the police chief and the dean ended up coming down and negotiating with the students to leave the room and it prompted a legitimate conversation about the use of force on students. And I think that was probably the first direct action event that I participated in. It was really inspiring to me to see that a bunch of college students who were upset about something could affect policy change just by saying no and marching when they were told not to and going into the lobby of a building where they were having, like, a press event. I think that was really inspiring.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=346.0,425.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd when I got up to Charleston, I got really into the music scene here, and Jesse Parks, who y'all will interview as well, actually invited me to an Occupy meeting, an Occupy Wall Street meeting. Actually, she invited me to organize music for one of the events - for the first occupation of Marion Square. I ended up coming to meetings and just really got inspired by everything that was going on. It was the first time I've been exposed to this horizontal kind of movement mentality, where things were separated across the whole country. There wasn't official leaderships and hierarchy. I think they borrowed a lot of that from anarchist collectives.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=425.0,472.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd we have working groups; a lot of the things that ended up getting used in the Black Lives Matter movement across the country, I think Occupy gave some of that to the organizers that ended up going on to organize with Black Lives Matter. Muhiyidin d'Baha who was in Charleston also was involved in the Occupy movement when he was in Eugene, Oregon. And so a lot of the early agendas, you'll see things like working groups and affinity groups and things like that that were holdovers from that movement. That's the first time I'd say I really became an organizer of sorts, was during the Occupy movement.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=472.0,522.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nIt's interesting to hear you talk about the “horizontal”. I'd love for you to explore that a little bit. This idea that a movement is not about an issue. Can you just explore that with us a little bit more?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=522.0,544.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWell, one of the things that was really odd, I think, for a lot of people, about the Occupy movement ... And this is something that really Black Lives Matter continues to struggle with, I think especially with older generation people, is the idea of, like, a leaderless movement or a horizontal movement where everybody can be leaders and everybody can be part of the decision-making process. And I think horizontal movements were really the democratizing of social justice, whereas with legacy organizations - like the one I work for now - have been around for 80 years; there's a board, there's a director, there's a director of this, there's a director of that. There's a very deliberative decision-making process with people who are in charge and then other people below them. And these movements that have popped up in my generation have really none of that structure. Everything is horizontal. Everything is diffused.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=544.0,605.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWhat's happening in a Black Lives Matter Charleston is not what's happening in Black Lives Matter, San Francisco and Oakland. They might be borrowing some of the same language, talking points, they might be inspired by the issues that are being discussed in all those places but really the idea of the horizontal movement, what makes it so successful, I think, in terms of movement-building across a big area like the United States and the world, is that it's not a one-size-fits-all. Everything develops organically in all of these different places based on the issues that we're facing locally.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=605.0,642.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd it was funny, you know, in some of these movements when they took off like the Occupy movement, people tried to snatch back the horizontalism of that. People would come in and say, \"We are the national organization. We're going to show up to your city and tell you how everything should be done here.\" It almost always ended up getting rejected. When we were here in Charleston, we had a lot of success with the Occupy movement in interrupting presidential primary candidates that came into town. And a lot of national media ended up being focused on Charleston and Occupy Wall Street sent down representatives to try to tell everybody what to do, and almost everything that they recommended that everybody do, failed. And they left very dissatisfied. Almost immediately after they left? Somebody had an idea in the room, it was done. It ended up becoming a national news story.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=642.0,695.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd I think you see that in the Black Lives Matter movement too -  A taking back of that hierarchy. And we might get to this a little further in the interview, but there was a moment, I think for the Black Lives Matter movement in Charleston where there was a discussion about what does Black Lives Matter mean as an organization, as a movement? How do all these things interact? They were considering joining the national organization, Black Lives Matter Global something or other. The organization with the three original people that started Black Lives Matter.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=695.0,735.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd DeRay Mckesson was in town, and at the time, he was a very prominent voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. He had been on the ground in Ferguson. I had asked him, I said, \"Well, what do you think about this whole debate about whether or not to join this organization?\" He told me, \"What is Black Lives Matter? What do you see as Black Lives Matter being?\" And I didn't really know how to answer that question at the time. It's a movement. It's happening in all these different places. And his point was, or the point that he was making to me was that in Ferguson, for example, where I think you can argue that the Black Lives Matter movement really took off, really exploded for the first time, they had no connection to this organization out of New York. It was a hashtag. It was a rallying cry. It was an idea that these are things, the dehumanization of Black Americans and the way that they're treated by police and all of these other issues that are ongoing that there's an urgency and they need to be addressed, this needs to be addressed right now. But it wasn't because Patrisse Cullors or somebody from a national movement came to Ferguson and said, \"This is what you should be angry about. This is how you do it.\" Those people from this national organization were nowhere on the ground in Ferguson.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=735.0,816.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nSo, everything was very decentralized. And although I think a lot of media and a lot of traditional bodies, like even academia will look to the Black Lives Matter national organization for clarification about the entire movement, I think they're just really a part of it. They're a part of it, and everything is diffuse and horizontal. It makes sense as a model for a viral movement for that to happen that way. But it does go up against a lot of the ways that we're trained to understand organizational structure. That was a really long way to answer a really short question.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=816.0,861.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nNo. Is quite insightful. I'm going to play devil's advocate though, and say, what are the limitations of horizontal organizations? I mean, is there a value to the older models at all?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=861.0,878.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nYeah. A hundred percent. I think one of the – you know, when you talk about horizontal organizing, a good comparison is democracy. So the drawback of having a fully democratic society is that decisions take forever. People argue, people can't agree on the greater good. It stops things from being done. And I think what you end up seeing in the local versions of Black Lives Matter and Occupy movements is that there is horizontalism in terms of the way that meetings are done, things are deliberated, but ultimately there ends up being people within the movements locally that take up the mantle, that do a lot of the work. Not leading in terms of saying, “This is what we're going to do,” but the people that are going to show up with all the supplies, that are going to make the press releases, that are going to organize the stuff on Facebook, that are going to ultimately take responsibility for things getting done. And those aren't necessarily leaders; they're organizers. They're not just the people who do news interviews, but people who do a lot of the work that needs to be done. So I think within any movement, if it's completely horizontal - and I think they figure this out in Occupy - it means you end up having four-hour-long meetings where nothing gets decided a lot of the time. That's the major limitation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=878.0,963.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd I think when it comes to interacting with the rest of the world - with the press, with the general public - it makes it difficult, when you don't have a designated spokesperson to point to or when they can't understand who the leader of something is or when they can't say “Everything with Black Lives Matter? This one person is responsible for it,” people have a really hard time reconciling all that and that's pretty limiting.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=963.0,995.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nBut the “pro” to it all is that it is a model that can be easily replicated around the country. It draws on the experiences and the ideas of a wider group of people who feel like – who, they don't just feel like, in reality - their ideas are valued and they're encouraged to contribute. I think by drawing on a lot of different people's talents, more can get done than if it was a traditional organizational structure. By drawing on people's talents and passions, it keeps more people engaged in the process. Even in traditional organizations like the one I work in now, the more of the people out in the community that we can get involved and be part of the process, the more success we end up having. Especially with getting word out about things in the community, because, you know, the more people you have involved in the process, the more people you're going to have bought in to the whole movement and the whole organization and whatever your mission is.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=995.0,1063.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYou've done a wonderful job of sharing what I think is really a very classy analysis of organizing and social justice work. But I'm going to make you get personal on this one.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1063.0,1079.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nOkay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1079.0,1081.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYou're in Charleston - you come to Charleston permanently, to live. You meet Muhiyidin and some of the other local folks. Let's talk about Brandon a little bit. How does Brandon confront - or does he have to confront - people having misgivings because he's not Black, running around with all these Black folks? How does that take shape?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1081.0,1111.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWell, I'll tell you exactly how it takes shape. First of all, the answer is a hundred percent. There's a great deal to reconcile, especially with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, apart from what we're doing in this confined space and in this city. You know, for me, what my experience was - and that's the easiest way that I can explain - like I said, I was involved with Occupy. Right after that we had this campus issue with the LGBTQ community. There was a cut proposed in funding to the College because they assigned an LGBTQ-themed autobiography written by Alison Bechdel. So, there was a lot of organizing on campus, and it was really my first experience with coalition organizing. There were a lot of different groups that had interest in the issue at the same-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1111.0,1165.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nSuch as?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1165.0,1166.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd at the same time, Glenn McConnell was being given the job of President of the College, which was very controversial. They were doing a national search and suddenly this powerful state senator retires from Senate and lands in this College of Charleston job with seemingly little deliberation. And the guy was a neo-Confederate, essentially, and was a Confederate war reenactor, Civil War reenactor. So, the people that ended up in coalition during that time were unlikely ... It was an unlikely coalition. We had the LGBTQ activists on campus, SONG [Southerners on New Ground], which was very closely affiliated with women's and gender studies on campus. The Black Student Union was incredibly involved, which is how I ended up meeting Brandon Upson, who's a political organizer now. He was the president, at the time, of the Black Student Union. And several other campus organizations that were not normally partnering on things were very much together on this issue.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1166.0,1228.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd it was my first experience - as sad as it sounds, at 20-something years old - as an organizer, organizing a lot of people that had very different - not very different motivations, but were coming from very different places towards the same goal. So, after that, when Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, I was very closely following what was happening there. I saw the riots that were taking place, the uprising, the protests that were taking place at Ferguson; it was unprecedented in my lifetime to see the organizing, the mass organizing that was taking place on the ground there. And I started watching these live streams of Ferguson. Of the protests that were taking place and the police action. That was a response. It was very heavily militarized. It was really hard to watch. If you remember this time period. And around that time, I started a Facebook group that was called something like Justice for Mike Brown in Charleston. And a lot of it was devoted to sharing live streams of what was happening in Ferguson. So a lot of people in Charleston who ended up becoming very interested in this issue gravitated towards this Facebook group.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1228.0,1308.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI went to Ferguson, in person; I did a GoFundMe - ended up - which is silly in hindsight. And I ended up going to taking a Greyhound bus to Ferguson and documenting a lot of what was going on there, volunteering at the National Lawyers Guild to be a legal observer. And when I came back to Charleston, I contacted one of my SONG friends to see if anybody was doing police reform organizing in Charleston specifically. And my friend said, \"Yeah, there's the traditional organizations, but there's also this guy, Muhiyidin, that just moved back from Oregon. You should really meet him.\" At the time, he messaged me on Facebook, but he was talking in terms that were just not - we had very different ways of - I don't even know what the word for it is. But they say that people have different kinds of intelligence and different ways that their brain processes things. And Muhiyidin was very abstract, and he would see things in shapes, sometimes. He had a way of organizing things visually. And, like, I'm a very... I don't know what the word is, but we had different ways of processing things. So the way that he was communicating with me was odd to me. And I ended up not really talking to him further about this issue for a little while. But we ended up working together.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1308.0,1392.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nSo when the group started in Charleston, it started as a police reform group. It wasn't devoted to all the issues that Black Lives Matter ended up encompassing and that does now. So it was a very white space to start off with. There were a lot of people that were carryovers from the Occupy movement that just went right into the Black Lives Matter Charleston Group. The group ended up being called Black Lives Matter, and I think at the time - if I remember correctly - it wasn't a deliberate move to be part of some national movement. It was “This is what they're saying in Ferguson, this is what the signs say, ‘Black Lives Matter’”, to best signify that we're on the same page as what they're doing in Ferguson. We're going to call this Black Lives Matter Charleston. And what ended up following was Charleston becoming more a part of what that greater picture was. And for me as a white organizer in a Black Lives Matter movement, and I think for a lot of the other white folks that were involved in the initial group, I think we had a very real time – hard-knock confrontation with our own white privilege in an organizing space.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1392.0,1469.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nSo a lot of the work people are doing now, the work people are doing now with whatever... They're reading Robin D'Angelo, and confronting their white privilege, and doing all these things on a very intellectual level. It was happening on a hands-on level within the Black Lives Matter group. So a lot of the people that were organizing at first were realizing how their privilege was functioning in these spaces, and were having to confront their fragility in real time, you know, as these spaces became - as they needed to be - very, very intentionally Black-centric spaces for organizing to happen in the Black community in Charleston. I think that some people had a lot harder time than others with some of this. I think you'll be talking to some of those people that had a really hard time with that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1469.0,1525.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWhat about some other white activists? Were they having a hard time?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1525.0,1532.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nYeah, that's who I mean. I think some people definitely had a hard time. And I think if I'm going to name names, you know, Muhiyidin was in a relationship with a white woman during this process. She was very much a part of all of this organizing, and I think she had a much harder time when it became time to reckon with, “This is part of a national Black Lives Matter movement. This needs to be a Black-centric, Black-led movement for it to be organic and real.” I think at that point, several of us who were white organizers took a step back and said - I think this was right around the time, was right after Walter Scott was killed - several of us said, \"Listen, we're not going to be organizers. We're here to support in any way that people want us to.\" It's probably somewhere on the Facebook group. That Facebook group that started off as the Mike Brown group ended up becoming the Black Lives Matter Charleston group. At some point, there's a post in there where I said, you know, \"I think I'm going to take a step back from this because of X, Y, and Z. We're here to play a supportive role as white allies.\" I think a lot of us were wrestling with those concepts at that time. Now when people get involved in these spaces, all that has been laid out, but it’s been... It was kind figured out moment by moment as all of this was unfolding in Charleston.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1532.0,1627.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd at times, all of that white fragility... They very much interfered with some of the work that has to be done, because there's not really time to process all of that in real time. There's not really time to cater to everybody's feelings when there's organizing that needs to be done. And in Charleston got very much thrust into a position where organizing had to be done very rapidly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1627.0,1655.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nSo we started off in these meetings at the ILA Hall. The ILA Hall, the International Longshoremen's Association, they're a historic one in Charleston. They're one of the only strong unions in the state, and they have served as a hub for organizing for a really long time - for left-wing organizing. They gave their space. It was very important because whenever we use public space during Occupy and other left-wing organizing groups, police would show up and try to infiltrate the space or there would people who'd show up to just break up the meeting or to start fights. And at the ILA Hall, you could feel really secure because if somebody needed to go, the longshoremen would come in and tell them that they needed to go and it was private property and they had to get the hell out. So, meetings started off there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1655.0,1711.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nBut I think things really changed when Walter Scott was killed. We had a big march in... God, in November? And - no, it was in December of 2014. I thought it was Eric Garner being killed that precipitated that march, but I think he was killed before that when we went back and looked at the timeline. But I say all that to say there were several meetings. There was a big march that called on a lot of the legacy organizations like NAN and the Coalition and NAACP to be involved. And then when Walter Scott was killed, Muhiyidin from... I'm going, I’m jumping all around, so I'll let you ask your next question.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1711.0,1765.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWell, no, you're giving us a good sense of the steps that had to be gotten through. I was trying to get you to reflect some more about how difficult it is to interracial organizing in Charleston.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1765.0,1786.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nYeah. It is difficult. The first thing I think I noticed about Charleston when I moved here ... I grew up in a very multicultural space, where - you know, in the community I grew up in, there were people from all around the world. People from all over South America were my school. White people were the minority in the school that I went to school in. White Christian people were a super-minority in the school that I went to school in. And people all intermingled and not as a melting pot, but I think people use salad as an analogy. Different ingredient. Everybody kind of interacted. There's a lot of interaction between different groups of people. When I moved to Charleston, I immediately sense the tension that exists in this place. In interacting with people of color in Charleston for the first time, I... There's history hanging over this place, and more so than in South Florida. South Florida is a place where there's a lot of new people from all over the place. Charleston is a place with deep history.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1786.0,1861.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI never understood the term “old money” or “a good name” or any of these concepts until I moved to Charleston. And I had to be taught a lot of that, which I would say is kind of similar to my experience with Black Lives Matter. Entering a space that I was unfamiliar with and having to learn a lot of things on the go and having to be taught a lot of things, probably unfairly, by people around me. It was unfair for them to have to spend time doing that. But I was in jail. I went to jail during an Occupy protest - and almost everybody in jail was Black, first of all, which is just crazy. Coming from my background, to go to jail and to look around me and see, that was crazy for me to confront that. They were calling out names and the names - the names that people in the jail had - were the same names as the Streets in Charleston. I remember the first time that connected in my brain that these people have these last names, the same last names as the street, not because they're old-school Charlestonians, but because their family members were enslaved by people with those same last names in this city. And how crazy it is that those same people still live in this same place with the same street names.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1861.0,1959.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI don't know how there isn't a revolution every day in Charleston, to be honest. It's unfathomable to me that people ... I try to imagine what it would be like if I lived in Germany after the Holocaust happened. Or even in Europe where my parents came from, my grandparents came from and had their houses taken and destroyed and had to escape and almost being killed. The idea of going back there even now as an adult makes me sick. And to think that people live in a place where a genocide or oppression that has existed for hundreds of years continues to go on, people still live in that space, for me, is like I can't even fathom what goes through people's heads every day and how difficult that is. To answer your original question - which I'm really not trying to dance around - I think that I had a lot of understanding to do about what other people are going through and what other people's histories are in this place that was different from my history. A good friend of mine, Damon Fordham, always tells me that you really have to understand the history that happened in a place to understand how to move forward or what's happening around you right now, to put that in context.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=1959.0,2046.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nDuring the Occupy time, also, I was on the east side. They were organizing a meal on the east side, and that still goes on down there. And at the time I was introduced to... Well, first to Edward Jones, who's organizer on the east side, does a lot of work with kids. We were told in no uncertain terms that he's the mayor in this part of the town, and if you want to do anything in there, you need to talk to him. And he said, \"Well, before you do anything here, you need to talk to my cousin. His name is Dr. O. He's a professor at the College.\" I remember meeting Dr. O and he took us on a walking tour of the east side, and he was like, \"This is a tree that people were lynched from. This is a block where this happened. This is a block where that happened. And you have to treat this area and understand this context and respect that and understand what people are carrying around with them before you move around in this area. And you need to be fully cognizant of that in all the work that you do.\" I took that with me. I really took that with me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2046.0,2119.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nGetting into the organizing space, there's a lot of distrust. There's a lot of distrust of me. And one thing that I've always tried to do is, number one: I don't try to pretend to be anybody that I'm not. I noticed that a lot of people do that. I've always just tried to be who I authentically am and not try to put anything on top of that. I think that has helped me in the spaces that I've organized in. I'm very upfront about where I come from, who I am. I think that helps. I'm not going to lie, it was difficult. It was difficult being, it can be difficult sometimes being a white organizer in a space that didn't make sense for me to be in organically. So... I'm trying to think of good examples, going through. There were times in the Black Lives Matter movement in Charleston where folks from RBG - Red, Black and Green, it was an organized group here in Charleston - came in. And there were times where the space needed to be completely Black organizers. And there were moments that - if you were white - that were very uncomfortable and confrontational.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2119.0,2202.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI think your first reaction as a white person in those spaces is to take things personally. That's what you're hardwired to do as a human being is to take it really personally when people say that you're not welcome in a certain space. But I think that you have to reconcile that, and the quicker you can reconcile that with all of the history and the context of the space, and the more that you can put yourself in other people's shoes and understand why they might feel that way about the space, the quicker you can get past that little twinge of fragility or feeling hurt.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2202.0,2238.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nBecause at the end of the day - and this is a conversation that happens a lot in organizing spaces for a variety of reasons, but especially within the Black Lives Matter movement, I think you see it a lot with white allies. People freak out when they're told “You can't be in this space,” or “What you just said is problematic,” or whatever the confrontation may be at that moment, they freak out and they say, \"Well, fuck it. I'm going home. I'm not welcome here. I don't want anything to do with this.\" And they basically take their toys and go home. And they don't for a second stop and think, “Well, my friends over here who are Black and organizing in this space can't just take their toys and go home.” And you're in a way demonstrating for everybody else that you have no conception of how privilege is functioning in this space. And I think that those people aren't really devoted to the ultimate objectives.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2238.0,2296.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI think at those moments where you feel that, where you take it personally that somebody said something that makes you upset, I think you really have to remember what the ultimate objectives are. And if you're really passionate about those, you overcome those moments and you try to understand where people are coming from. And if you're a white person that is trying to help out in a Black Lives Matter organizing space, you're going to encounter that a lot. And if you don't get over that little moment where you take things personally and try to understand the bigger picture, you're not really cut out to be in those spaces because it's not easy to confront... There's a dynamic of oppression that exists in all of these spaces, and it doesn't matter if you were the wokest down-for-the-cause white person that there is, you're carrying a lot that dynamic of oppression with you. You're carrying that dynamic of oppressor and oppressed with you from society into these spaces, and you constantly have to analyze that if you're going to exist harmoniously in those spaces.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2296.0,2365.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nHow rare are you, Brandon, in Charleston in 2021? BRANDON FISH\n\nHow rare?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2365.0,2372.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nHow rare?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2372.0,2372.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nHow rare? MILLICENT BROWN\n\nYeah. BRANDON FISH\n\nWhat do you mean?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2372.0,2374.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWhat do you mean?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2374.0,2374.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nWhat do you mean? MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWith all of the insights that you've just shared, do you feel that you have cloned others, brought them to that kind of level of understanding? What's your take on what your impact has been with drawing more non-people-of-color into the movement?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2374.0,2408.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI think – you know, I'd like to think - that I brought some people along with me for this ride, including Jesse Parks and some other folks that were not going to enter this space and become hindrances to other people. And I have been known to be pretty harsh on people of my complexion that are disruptive of the process. I have not always been the most patient person with them. I like to think that I'm harder on myself than other people have been on me. You know? I'd like to think that there are a lot of other... I know that there are a lot of other people... I don't know how many of them I'm responsible for, but I know that there are a lot of other people organizing in Charleston who are white, who are helping out as best they can the Black Lives Matter movement in the most productive way possible.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2408.0,2469.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI've seen some of those organizers. I have seen some of those organizers lately, but I don't know. We're all flawed human beings, and I've seen people act stupid, a lot. It's funny. You watch the second round of Black Lives Matter in Charleston, and I was watching a lot from afar because I was out of town or working remotely, and it was COVID going on. And there are limitations in my new job of what I can show up for and what I can't, because I am perceived as being representative of my organization now wherever I go because I have a very public-facing job. But I have watched from afar and all of these Facebook groups and seen... It hurts to watch everybody, watch people go through the whole same process, have to learn everything from square one even with all of the information and all the literature and all of the white people support groups that exist out there to watch people re-enter Black spaces and be disruptive and have to go through their own self-awakening over and over again and being resistant to that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2469.0,2542.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd I see how destructive they can be, and I've watched that from the sidelines and it hurts to see them to see that have to happen all over again. Because I like to think that after the... Well, it's a silly thing to even say because this organizing was happening going back forever. But I would like to think that with the internet and with the first wave of Black Lives Matter movement in Charleston and beyond that, some of those lessons don't have to be learned by white people entering these spaces. That they would know in advance how to behave themselves and how to be productive. Because if you're not contributing and you're not being productive and you're holding things up more than you're contributing, then you have got no business being in those spaces.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2542.0,2596.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWe're going to be wrapping it up, for - at least for today. And I'd like to just ask you whether you feel positive about the possibilities of that happening, what you just described, and not having to always start at square one, you know? And I'm talking about locally, in this arena.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2596.0,2625.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nNo. I don't feel positive about it. I think that... And, you know, I'm using myself as an example because I know myself better than I know other people, and I know my experience is better than other people's experiences. I think that for white people in America and in Charleston specifically, that we get to live in a bubble. And I think it takes a rough ride sometimes to burst that bubble and to make people actually seek out self-improvement. I think people have to go through that stinging before they build on that and make changes to themselves. And unfortunately, I think for some – I think for most people... I don't know. I want to be positive. I'm a positive person. I think things have gotten better, in terms of the way that... I don't know if I believe that. I'm trying to be positive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2625.0,2702.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nBe that authentic Brandon that you talked about earlier.\n\nSpeaker Three (","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2702.0,2704.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"):You don’t have to be positive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2704.0,2705.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI see the same thing happening over and over again, and I don't know how much progress we've made. I like to think - and my friend Daron, who works here at the Avery, reminds me of this - that even when the ultimate objectives of a movement don't get achieved, a lot does get achieved along the way that wasn't necessarily original objective. And I think that the Black Lives Matter movement locally has produced a lot of people, that are white, that can contribute constructively to the movement. I think that's positive. I think things like the Disparities Report that came out of a lot of the demonstrations that were going on and the NCCC, I can't remember ever how many C's there were in it, but there was a coalition of organizations started by the local Black Lives Matter chapter that had a list of demands during that time period. And I think there's a holdover from that, and I like to think that some of that is what pushed these racial bias audits that have taken place at the police departments.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2705.0,2789.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nBut unfortunately, I think as time goes on, we realize that even the original objectives of the first round of the movement weren't reaching high enough. It was very focused on just police and specific reforms. And now, you know, really, the movement has to focus on reallocation of funding, reimagining the entire criminal justice system. I don't think that was in the scope of what people were thinking about in 2014 and 2015. But the fact that there can be a movement and that there was a blueprint and that there are still some people with experience to help the folks that are organizing now. I'd like to think that everything didn't just start from square one in 2020.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2789.0,2837.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI know that I've had a lot of organizers - like Marcus McDonald and Justin Hunt and some other folks that are organizing now - I had a lot of people reach out to me during COVID, and during the uprising this summer, and just ask questions about certain people that they're interacting with, certain dynamics that are unfolding that might be similar to five years ago. And I like to think that there are a lot of other people like me that they're talking to, also, that help people avoid pitfalls. There were a lot of pitfalls in 2015. And not just people with white fragility. There were a lot of people that were injected into the mix that had ulterior motives, and we were not very experienced with filtering those people out at the time. And it was all hands on deck. There were a lot of people that contributed that ultimately ended up being destructive. And there were a lot of factors that people didn't see coming and, you know, lessons that... I think that people learn lessons the hard way in hopes that they can tell other people not to have to learn those same lessons the hard way again.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2837.0,2922.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nYou know, you're here still doing this work. You had to learn a lot of lessons, I'm sure, along the way that you've imparted upon your students. It's why I say yes to things like today. Why I think it's important is because I think that it's important to learn the history, not just for context, but also for advice. There are a lot of activists that went through just about everything that our group went through, just about everything that 2020, 2021 group is going through back in the '60s, back before the '60s, in America, in Europe, in Africa - everywhere. We're lucky because there's a lot more of this happening now. And through the internet you could pick up literature that they won't carry in the library, they might not sell in the bookstore, and it spreads around like that. And we got to learn those lessons from back then instead of just jumping into the moment.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2922.0,2985.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI think that activism tends to do that. Things happen and everything feels urgent and rushed more than it ever did before, and it pulls people out and gives them a megaphone and they're like, \"Here. Go fix this problem because you've got the loudest voice and you speak the best.\" Or whatever. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they have all the experience that they need in that moment, and probably nobody has all the experience they need to accomplish all of these tasks that people set out for that. But it's good to take a pause and try to learn from history instead of just jumping straight into it. I'm the same way. I have to learn everything the hard way. I don't know. I should probably just give you a - do you have time for a timeline?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=2985.0,3040.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"MILLICENT BROWN\n\nWe are going to be asking you to share in the timeline that the project is developing, for sure. So we'll be getting your input on that. You've given a lot of really wonderful insights. Is there anything that – if you imagine talking to either the Brandon of 20 years from now or anybody else - is there anything that you just think you want to be documented as having left with us today? Because you don't know who's going to hear this interview.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3040.0,3078.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI think that number one, I would encourage anybody that wants to get involved with activism, be they white or Black or any other label, to get involved and figure out how to do that appropriately and contribute positively. I think it's important... You said it's okay not to be positive. And it's true, but I think it is important to believe that we can have a positive impact. Ultimately, we almost never achieve what we set out to when it comes to activism, especially in Charleston. But there are a lot of achievements that happen along the way that we don't know about until afterwards. I certainly - at the time that I was involved in this - I felt like it was a historic moment. I felt like what was happening in Ferguson was one of those things that was going to be in kids' textbooks in the future. And it's one of the reasons why I wanted to get there as fast as possible because I felt obligated to... You know, I imagine that one day I would have children and they will say, \"What did you do during this time period?\" And I asked those questions of my parents about the '60s. And, you know, I want to be able to say that I contributed positively. That's important to me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3078.0,3166.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nBut I think it's important for people to get involved and to be optimistic about being able to make an impact because a lot of things happen along the way that people at the time don't imagine are going to be impactful and ended up being impactful. To your question earlier, I've had a lot of people come up to me in the time since 2015 and say, \"Something you said to me at this meeting or at this moment made me run for this position,” or “...woke me up to this.\" And for me, those were momentary interactions in life. And for other people, those momentary interactions that you don't necessarily process are big, and it's like that for everybody. And things that they said they don't remember have a big impact on me. But I just encourage people to get involved any way they can.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3166.0,3218.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd really, the one thing, if I could leave with activists that are working now, is that it's so important to set objectives and it's important before embarking on any direct action to say, “This is what I want the outcome of this to be. This is the greater scheme, and this is going to contribute to that in ‘X’ way.” I think a lot of times we are reactive. We don't always have the luxury of being proactive, but a lot of times we're reactive and it's so important not just to react in every moment, but to have an overarching goal and to be playing a game of chess instead of always just responding to other people's moves.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3218.0,3266.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nAnd I think there's some bright young activists out there and there will be from every generation. And I think the kids in this generation have much more information than we had. Every generation has more information to last, so, you know, I hope that in 20 years from now, I hope that a lot of things are different in Charleston. I mean, I don't have a lot of reason to be optimistic based on Charleston's history. People back then used to say, \"Well, you should move. Have you ever thought of moving to San Francisco or New York, where everybody agrees with you already, or there's a perception that it's more progressive place?\" And I always say that's the exact reason why I would never leave this place because it can get depressing. And I think especially if you're Black in Charleston, this city can weigh down on you. I've seen it break people. I saw it really break Muhiyidin for a while. And you know, I think that's the reason to stay and fight. I think this place needs to change; before we move and change ourselves, this place needs to change. It might not be the best and most rewarding place to work in activism, but it's the place that needs it the most. And the more people leave, the less likely any of these things are to change. So, stay here and fight it out, you know?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3266.0,3356.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nMillicent, you stayed here your whole life, right? South Carolina. So...yeah. It's one reason I'm still here and I'm committed to being here. I think in my job now - one of the things that Muhiyidin said to me before he died - I say this every time I talk about him, but one of the things that he said to me was, where I could really have an impact was to go to the Jewish community and get them involved in this. I remember at the time, I was offended. I was offended because I was thinking, “Well, just because I'm Jewish doesn't mean I can march into the Jewish organizations to say, ‘Hey, I'm Jewish. Listen to me. Let me tell you what you should be focused on.’\" It doesn't work like that. We don't all get all votes in what everybody else should be doing in our communities. But it ended up being that way. I ended up getting hired because of a lot of the experience that I have with activism, and I've been able to shift the focus a little bit and try to get people in my community organized around some of these issues. And where I can help out I do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3356.0,3433.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI don't always get out there with a megaphone because, as I tell people, it's not necessarily where I can be most helpful. And it wasn't where I was most helpful with all this work. It was helpful for me to do policy research and to help with best practices and to help with a lot of the digital work. And where it's helpful for everybody to be is not necessarily behind a megaphone. And where I'm helpful now, for example, is there's a city council issue, and maybe there's a city councilman, they'll take my call as a Jewish Federation employee that won't take somebody's call as an activist. Or, you know, even right now we're working on hate crime legislation, for example. There are state senators and legislators that take the call of Jewish community people, but they're not going to answer the phone for the ACLU, or they're not going to answer the phone for the LGBTQ organizations that we partner with. So, I think that where people need to get comfortable - to tie this all together - where people need to get comfortable is seeing where they can have the most constructive impact and staying in that lane.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3433.0,3511.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI think a lot of time everybody wants to just gravitate towards that microphone, and I think you need to leave the microphones to the people who are most constructive on that and fit in where you're going to have the most impact. And for white people who want to make an impact in the Black Lives Matter world, a lot of the time - almost a hundred percent of the time - that's not on the megaphone. That's not the best impact you have, is not just showing up for a rally. There's other things that can be done that maybe have a little less glory, but where you could have the most impact. And that's a hard lesson for people to learn. But it's a worthwhile lesson.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3511.0,3559.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nI think, you know - I don't know how much time... We don't really have any time left. But when we started with Black Lives Matter in Charleston and really became Black Lives Matter Charleston, and especially after Walter Scott was killed, there's that moment where there's a group of organizers and then you have to decide how we're going to organize this march. Who's speaking, who's leading people in chants, who's doing all these things? And people naturally fall into those roles. And somebody like Muhiyidin was thrust into the role of holding that megaphone and moving people, and it worked because that's where he belonged. But if there would've been a lot of fighting about, “Shanalea wants to have the megaphone,” or “This person needs equal attention,” or... It wouldn't have worked, and that wasn't where people were most productive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3559.0,3620.0"},{"id":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956/transcript/87838/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BRANDON FISH\n\nMost - 99% of activism and more importantly, 99% of organizing has nothing to do with those moments with the megaphone. 99% of the work somebody like Muhiyidin did was not on the megaphone. It was having conversations with people. It was inspiring people one-on-one. It was doing work. Schlepping this from this place to that place, drums from here to there. Physical stuff, intellectual stuff, all the stuff that happens not-at-marches. Those were just like a little tip of the iceberg stuck out of the water. But 99% of the work happens beneath that surface and that's what people need to remember. Then you feel good about the contributions they make underneath the surface, because those are important too. They're important pieces of the puzzle.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://lcdl.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3440/collection_resources/164240/file/298956#t=3620.0,3684.0"}]}]}]}