Lamont Lilly

Lamont Lilly was born in 1979 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, United States.[1] He served in the United States Army Reserve, being honorably discharged in 2001.[2] In 1998 Lilly moved to Durham, North Carolina and enrolled at North Carolina Central University, studying criminal justice. He graduated in 2003. Lilly initially aspired to become a lawyer. During his sophomore year of college he worked at a store at Northgate Mall, and while there he allowed a friend to use his employee discount. He later confessed and was convicted of felony embezzlement. He subsequently struggled to maintain employment and for a time became homeless. He later credited these experiences with shaping his views of homelessness and the criminal justice system.[3]

Shortly after graduating from NCCU, he pursued graduate studies in sociology, also at NCCU, but decided to forego traditional education and worked for several years as a grassroots non-profit program coordinator, focusing on Black youth leadership and academic development. His focus on Black youth and families continued as he became an activist and community organizer.[2][1] In 2005 Lilly was hired by NCCU to serve the director of its African American Male Leadership Academy. He left the job in 2008.[3]

In 2011 Lilly participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. That year he joined the Workers World Party (WWP). In 2015 he became a paid organizer for the party.[3] He served as the party's U.S. Vice Presidential candidate in the 2016 presidential election.[2] Lilly left the party in 2018, though he still identified as a socialist.[3]

From 2013 to 2018 Lilly was a Durham political activist,[4][5][6] a leading member of the Durham branch of the WWP, a member of WWP's National Committee, and an early member of Black Alliance for Peace.[7]

In 2010, Lilly traveled to Colombia in South America as a human rights delegate with Witness for Peace, advocating for displaced Indigenous and Afro-Colombian people. In 2015, he went to Syria and Lebanon[8] in a group led by Ramsey Clark and Cynthia McKinney. In Beirut, he spoke as a Black Lives Matter representative at the International Forum for Justice Palestine. In Damascus, he met with members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.[9]

Inside the U.S, Lilly's activism has taken him across the country. From the 2015 Baltimore Uprising after the police murder of Freddie Gray,[10] to the Days of Grace actions in Charleston, SC in the wake of the racist massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church;[11][12] Lilly has been present and involved at numerous instances of civil unrest related to racial discrimination, recording his perspective as an activist-journalist in the Black Lives Matter movement.[13][2]

Lilly participated in the protests in Ferguson after the 2014 police murder of Michael Brown Jr.[14] and was present at the 2016 Standing Rock protests.[2][15] Later, he led support rallies for the arrested activists who tore down the Confederate statue in Durham in 2017.[16][17][18][19] Lilly has helped to lead demonstrations in Boston,[20] Chicago, Cleveland,[21] Los Angeles,[22] Milwaukee,[23][24] New York City,[25] Oakland,[26] Philadelphia,[27][28] and San Diego.[29]

Lilly's political and social commentary has been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers, and online periodicals including All Black Media,[30] Colorlines,[31] CounterPunch,[32] Telesur,[33][34] The Root,[35] San Francisco Bay View,[36] and The Charlotte Post.[37] His activism has been featured on CNN,[10] The New York Times,[11] The Nation,[38] St. Louis Post-Dispatch,[14] The Fader,[18] The Baltimore Sun,[39] Blavity,[40] In These Times,[41] WUNC Public Radio,[42] and Sojourner Truth Radio at KPFK.[43] Lilly appears in the 2016 docuseries The Revolution Televised in Episode 3, "Black Lives Matter".[44] He has written as a guest columnist in The Durham News, The Herald-Sun, and Triangle Tribune.[2] As of 2020 he is a regular contributor for Truthout[3] and Queen City Nerve.[45][46][47] In addition to political activism, Lilly also covers culture and writes about Hip Hop,[48] Soul music, and Black artists,.[30][49] His poetry has been featured in Black Youth Project,[50][51] Dissident Voice,[52][53][54][55] Piedmont Left Review,[56] and Indy Week.[57]"

He has also been a guest speaker and facilitated workshops at several colleges and universities including the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford,[58][59] Marshall University,[60] and Malcolm X College.[61]

Lilly was awarded the 2015 Local Hero Citizen's Award[62] by Indy Week for "pushing for workers' rights and police reform" and the 2017 Spectacular Magazine Man of the Year for "human rights and social justice".[63] Most recently, the Courier Newsroom named Lilly as one of their "Heroes of 2020" for his continued activism in the Movement for Black Lives.[64] He attributes much of his political development to Monica Moorehead,[65][66][67] Pam Africa, Mark Anthony Neal, and Mumia Abu-Jamal. He has also credited the writings of Thomas Sankara, Lucille Clifton, Amiri Baraka, Henry Dumas, Sonia Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Kwame Nkrumah with influencing his political beliefs.[68]

Lilly currently resides in Durham's historically African-American community, Old Hayti.[69] He is also a member of the (Alpha Kappa Chapter) of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc.[70]