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Color Of Change helps you do something real about injustice.

We design campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold Black people back, and champion solutions that move us all forward. Until justice is real.
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  • Protect Body Positive Black Idols

    Popular trainer Jillian Michaels has been making headlines, for attacking Lizzo in a familiar racist way. For too long doctors and fitness experts have used weight as a proxy health – shaming Black women with larger bodies. But we can demand better.
    Take Action

  • Close Parchman Prison in Miss.

    We're calling on Governor Reeves to fix conditions at Mississippi's oldest prison or close it. 7 people have been murdered in their cells, there’s mold and rodents, 5 men sleeping on a floor, no working toilets. For too long, the problems at Parchman have been ignored.
    Take Action

  • Stand for Justice, Not Fear

    Prosecutors and police are launching campaigns to stoke fear and roll back the real progress we've made on ending money bail, restoring the right to vote, and decriminalizing marijuana. See what we're doing to hold onto these wins.
    Watch Our Video

  • Athletes Have the Right to Speak Out

    The International Olympic Committee just adopted a new policy to silence Black athletes during the Summer Olympics. It would ban athletes from kneeling, raising their fists, wearing signs or armbands. Stop telling athletes to “shut up and play.”
    Take Action

  • Be Counted in 2020

    Black people are one of the least accurately counted populations in the US, which hurts our ability to get funding, programs, and representation in Congress. See what we're doing to make sure we're counted in next year's Census.
    Take Action

  • 400 Yrs Since Slavery, Black People Are Still Not Free

    Freedom shouldn't come down to how much money you have. Help us push prosecutors to end money bail and transform the criminal justice system.
    Be part of history

RECENT VICTORIES

  • Tech Justice

Facebook Holds Its First Civil Rights Audit

This year we’ve worked tirelessly to hold Facebook accountable – persuading them to conduct their first civil rights audit and pressing them to adopt stronger policies against white supremacist content. We’ve held dozens of meetings, drawing their attention to how the platform has been used to censor Black activists and allow ads that discriminate against Black people. The fight continues. But Facebook has begun restricting racial targeting in ads, removing posts by white nationalists, and taken down posts meant to suppress voting.

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  • Media Justice

COC Members Save Disney’s Black Princess

We persuaded Disney not to whitewash their popular Black character Princess Tiana. When we saw early drawings of Tiana from the sequel to Wreck-It Ralph, it was clear they had straightened her hair, thinned her nose, and lightened her skin. Our members spoke out and persuaded Disney to keep Tiana a beautiful Black princess – part of our ongoing work to improve representation of Black characters in film and TV and make sure all children see heroes who look like them onscreen.

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  • Criminal Justice

NYPD Officer Fired for Murdering Eric Garner

Five years after the tragic and unnecessary death of Eric Garner, NYC mayor and police commissioner fired Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who put Garner in a chokehold and refused to let him go. COC members were part of a powerful coalition with dozens of groups around New York demanding justice. Though Garner’s death was ruled a homicide, until now the officers who restrained him had walked away with no consequences and their jobs intact.

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Color Of Change helps people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by more than 1.5 million members, we move decision makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people, and all people. Until justice is real.

IN THE MEDIA

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January 26, 2020

Are Crime Shows Slowing Justice Reform?

This article explores the political and social impact of crime TV shows, and dives into the data in our latest report Normalizing Injustice. Rashad is quoted: “Only someone who doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of a criminal justice system would say that these shows are apolitical.” Indeed, fictional misrepresentations of the criminal justice system on TV may be thwarting much-needed reforms in the real world.

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January 25, 2020

OP-ED: How TV Crime Shows Erase Racism and Normalize Police Misconduct

In his column, Rashad talks about Normalizing Injustice and how law ‘n order TV shows overrepresent wrongful actions by cops of color while all but erasing the very real hurts our police and prison system inflict on Black women. “The crime genre glorifies, justifies and normalizes the systematic violence… making heroes out of police and prosecutors who engage in abuse, particularly against people of color.”

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January 24, 2020

How Crime Shows Like ‘Law & Order’ Skew Our Sense of Police Behavior

New COC research reveals that TV shows about law enforcement are really good propaganda for police officers. They frequently create fictions that justify cops inflicting violence or doing an end run around people’s legal rights. When Black people are featured on these shows, they’re almost always portrayed as the perpetrators of crimes, and rarely as victims.

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January 22, 2020

Hollywood Loves Portraying POC as Bad Cops, Study Finds

This article talks about our latest report Normalizing Injustice and how depictions of crime and justice on ever-popular shows like Law & Order and Brooklyn Nine-Nine may be setting America backwards. It’s not surprising that ff the 26 programs surveyed in our report, 20 had no Black writers, or only one.

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January 20, 2020

Netflix, NBC, ABC Lead in Depictions of Wrongful Actions by People of Color in Crime Dramas, Study Finds

Our new report found that Netflix, NBC and ABC were the top offenders in the 2017-18 TV season when it came to over- and mis-representing “wrongful actions” committed by people of color working in the justice system. These shows give a skewed picture of the very real harms our system inflicts on Black people. Of course, 81% of showrunners on these shows are white men, 78% of the writers are white, and only 9% are Black.

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Strategic Initiatives

Democracy & Census

Black people have the power to shape our democracy and set the agenda when they speak up and turn out in elections. Through our Black Brunches we have brought together more than 20,000 people across 20 cities—including many new to politics. Going into 2020, we have tremendous opportunities to register new voters, protect voting rights, and make sure our communities are counted and represented in the 2020 Census. We are engaging local leaders and our 1.4M members to help set a progressive agenda around criminal justice reform and boost civic participation in Black communities.

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Winning Justice

No one holds more power in our justice system than prosecutors. They decide who to prosecute, what the charges will be, and routinely make decisions that destroy Black people’s lives. We are ushering in a new era of prosecutor accountability by mobilizing Black communities across the country. Already, we've pushed prosecutors and candidates in a dozen cities make pledges to cut incarceration. We continue to build momentum to end the most unjust, destructive and racist practices in our system from money bail to over-sentencing, over-policing, and sending our children to adult prisons.

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COC Hollywood

TV and film play a profound role in shaping American culture. Yet, when it comes to representation of Black people, culture, and issues, far too much of the content Hollywood produces promotes dangerous misunderstandings that holds back racial justice in the real world. COC Hollywood is our initiative to change the rules in Hollywood by ensuring accurate, diverse, empathetic and human portrayals of Black people onscreen. We consult on film and TV projects, partner with changemakers inside the industry, work to raise standards around hiring and diversity, and elevate Black stories.

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