Driving the Movement I: Book Talk with Black Power Veteran Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin

This is the first in a two-part series of events with Black anarchists and authors in the Bay Area. For the second event, visit https://driving-the-movement-jonina-2025.eventbrite.com/.

It’s no secret our communities and the movements to defend them are under attack. Fascists relentlessly heighten political repression, using despair to overwhelm and immobilize us. Movement veterans who survived great sacrifices in their struggles against racist state oppression remind us that we have been here before—and that we can withstand it again. Now, more than ever, we must learn from them how to organize under dire circumstances.

Lorenzo Kom’Boa Ervin was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and then shortly after, the Chattanooga branch of the Black Panther Party (BPP). While incarcerated for his contributions to the revolutionary struggle, Lorenzo connected Black liberation struggles to anarchist theory through writing, foremost of which is the contemporary classic Anarchism and the Black Revolution. Since then, he has continued to build social movements across the American South, the country, and the globe.

At this community conversation brought to you by Black Rose Anarchist Federation - Bay Area and Oakland Public Library, Lorenzo will reflect on JoNina Abron-Ervin's new book Driven by the Movement: Reports from the Black Power Era to share lessons about how we can fight and survive fascist violence to bring a new, better world into being.