Brittany Packnett Cunningham has become a leading voice for police reform in the past few years as one of the most prominent activists behind the Black Lives Matter movement.
While serving as an executive director for Teach for America in St. Louis in 2014, Packnett Cunningham became involved in the protests in Ferguson, Mo., that began after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a Black man, at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson.
Packnett Cunningham was appointed to serve on former President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing following the protests. In 2015, she co-founded Campaign Zero, a group that promotes police reform through efforts including pushing for the demilitarization of police forces, greater community oversight and establishing alternatives to policing people with mental health problems.
In recent months, Packnett Cunningham has been a major leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, particularly during the ongoing protests that kicked off with the police killing of Black man George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. She has emphasized the importance of understanding how the roots of racial injustice and police brutality run deep in American history.
“When you understand the roots of the tree, you understand the fruits of the tree,” Packnett Cunningham said during an appearance on MSNBC in June. “Perhaps if elected officials invested the same amount of resources and urgency in protecting Black lives in the first place, we would not be here.”
— Maggie Miller
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