Charlene Carruthers
| Charlene A. Carruthers | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1985, 30 years old Chicago, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Black Youth Project 100 National Director |
| Years active | 2013-Present |
Charlene Carruthers is a black queer feminist activist and organizer. Her work aims to create young leaders in marginalized communities to fight for community interests and liberation. Carruthers' career in justice advocacy spans over ten years, working with some high-profile activist organizations including Color of Change and Women's Media Center. She was an integral member in the creation of the Black Youth Project 100, and has served as National Director or National Coordinator since the organization's founding in 2013.
Much of Carruthers' work in social activism centers on developing broad based political participation and leadership for marginalized communities. Several political organizations including Wellstone Action and the NAACP have called upon her energy and expertise in helping to develop their own trainings. Along with her position in the Black Youth Project 100, Charlene is a leadership fellow for the Arcus Foundation and a board member for Sistersong, an organization promoting reproductive rights and unity for women of color. She cites her studies in South Africa at age 18 as the moment of her political awakening. Her work has a powerful recurring theme of building coalitions between groups with very different experiences of marginalization, united under the banner of undoing the power structure that underpin each of their oppressions. As a queer black woman, Carruthers' experiences uniquely equip her to bind together the often-disjointed currents of feminist, LGBTQ, and racial justice activism. Her work has also consistently involved transnational collaborations and bridge building, including her work with immigrant advocacy groups and her participation in a historic delegation of black activists to Palestine aimed at fostering personal and organizational ties between Palestinian and African American justice advocates.
In July 2013 Carruthers was one of 100 black millennial activist leaders from across the country assembled by the Black Youth Project in Chicago for a meeting aimed at building networks of organization for black youth activism across the country. On the second day of that meeting news from Florida announced the acquittal of George Zimmerman on an all charges relating to his February 26, 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. This verdict galvanized Carruthers and the other activists into the formation of the Black Youth Project 100 to organize young black activism in resistance to structural oppressions.
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