Brooke Kimbrough

My name is Brooke Lindsey Kimbrough. I am a lifelong Detroiter by way of Mississippi , Virginia, and Georgia. I am the daughter of Angela and Geoffrey Kimbrough. Granddaughter of Rosebud and Frederick Kimbrough as well as Edna and Willie Barry. I lead with this information because as a scholar, organizer, and community sister, the land and the people I come from shape my orientation to how I engage in struggle. I come from sharecroppers, domestic workers, teachers, secretaries, entrepreneurs, and postal workers. Moreover, my elders and ancestors are philosophical thinkers and practical artists with dreams deferred. So when I think about the spirits of those who produced me and the circumstances that produced the all of us, organizing is work I gravitated to naturally. My elders and ancestors are leaders; whether that be in offices or congregations. We are loud. We are stubborn. We are caring. We are clever. We are courageous. We are thoughtful. We are honest. We are determined. We are all organizers. We are all advocates. We have all been searching for an answer to the question "What can I contribute towards the betterment of my life and the lives of others?" The answer I have found is to organize and to pass on what I have learned to others.

When I committed to organizing, I simultaneously committed myself to struggling with others. With compassion and care I listen to the stories of my people. I invite others to sit with me and to touch places they have not consciously touched. I do not poke and I do not pry. But I do extend an invitation to show up as our whole selves. I suggest "our" because I am under the belief that humanity is constitutive. This is relevant because the dominant belief of self in this country stems from René Descarte's Cartesian subject. He suggested that, "I think, therefore I am." This theory of consciousness conceives of self as an individual. Historically, it has also been a justification for the dehumanization and demonization of other human beings. As a Womanist organizer, I consciously reject that theory and everyday I choose to align myself with the Bantu theory of Ubuntu. Ubuntu, roughly translates into English as "I am a person, because of others persons." This view contends that the self is inextricable from others. And this orientation grounds me in my work. My freedom is bound up in the freedom of my children's freedom. In my lover's freedom. In my sisters' freedom. In my brothers' freedom. In my mother's freedom. In my father's freedom. In our collective liberation.

My nouns; I'm a lover, sister, mama, daughter, cousin, queer, sister-friend, Womanist, Pan-Africanist, and Black Liberationalist.