I stand in solidarity with Chicago’s teachers!
Stand in solidarity with Chicago’s teachers and students!
Past Campaigns
- Tech Justice
Getting Facebook to Rein In Racist Content
With 2.3B users, Facebook is the largest communications platform in the world. This year we’ve worked tirelessly to hold Facebook accountable – persuading them to conduct their first civil rights audit and adopt stronger policies against white supremacist content. We’ve held dozens of meetings with leaders and allies inside, 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 designed to suppress voting.
- Media Justice
Saving 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.
- Criminal Justice
NYPD Officer Fired for Garner's Death
Five years after the tragic and unnecessary death of Eric Garner, there’s been a breakthrough in our fight for justice. We asked New York City’s mayor and police commissioner to fire Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who put Garner in a chokehold and refused to let him go – and after sustained pressure from COC members, they did. This kind of momentum matters in a world where police are almost never held accountable for the innocent lives they take. 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.
- Criminal Justice
Holding Central Park 5 Prosecutor Accountable
Far too often, prosecutors prioritize conviction rates over the truth, ruining the lives of innocent Black and Brown people. Linda Fairstein prosecuted the Central Park Five, coercing confessions and wrongfully convicting five boys from Harlem for a brutal rape they knew nothing about. They spent years in prison before being exonerated. We went after Fairstein and persuaded Simon & Schuster to stop publishing her popular crime novels, telling the company it can’t profit off someone who reinforces racist ideas of crime and justice.
- Criminal Justice
Google Bans Bail Ads
Color Of Change has been working to end money bail, which is one of the largest drivers of incarceration of Brown and Black people. People should never be locked up simply because they can’t afford to pay bail. We’ve gone after the predatory bail bonds industry, partnering with Jay-Z on a video, publishing an op-ed in the New York Times, and successfully pressing Google to pull its ads for bail. This makes it harder for bail agencies to exploit people and sets a new norm that major companies should steer clear of those profiteering from mass incarceration.
- Media Justice
RCA Drops R. Kelly
For decades people in the music industry turned a blind eye to R. Kelly’s blatant sexual and emotional abuse of women and girls. We teamed up with dream hampton to promote and elevate her docu-series Surviving R. Kelly, which was streamed 25M times – then went after RCA, successfully pressuring them to drop R. Kelly from their label. This sends a message to all artists and record labels – you can no longer profit off of abusers and hold out artists who exploit women and girls as cultural icons.
- Criminal Justice
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- Media Justice
#DropOReilly
We did something that we were told was impossible. When we first launched this campaign in 2014, people told us that we were no match for Bill O’Reilly. That no amount of public pressure, especially not from a Black organization, could ever change anything at Fox News. But our members spoke and Fox News has officially announced that Bill O’Reilly’s platform for anti Black vitriol and misogyny has been canceled.
- Criminal Justice
Defending the Jena Six
In 2007, Color Of Change rallied our emerging community to bring a national spotlight to the Jena 6: funding a new legal team, forcing abusive officials to face national scrutiny, and changing the course of events.