25 young people making noise for social progress

Nupol Kiazolu

Nupol Kiazolu is the head of the Youth Coalition for Black Lives Matter Greater New York. She has been an activist since she was 13 and fights against racism, sexism, and more.

Kiazolu was also named one of Do Something’s Inspirational 25. And she spoke at the 2018 Women In the World Summit.

Kiazolu gained more widespread attention when she wrote about her experience at the white supremacist Charlottesville rally in an article in The Huffington Post titled “Charlottesville Was The Most Traumatic Event Of My Young Life, But It Won’t Stop Me.”

In the article, Kiazolu said she debated going to the rally in Charlottesville and how terrifying it was to face the KKK as a 17-year-old Black female high schooler. And yet she went. She wrote about seeing the KKK, Nazis and others when she got there, which is unimaginable. She got spit on, called names, got tear gassed and wound up having to be rushed to the medics. Still, she went back. At that point, the SWAT team was all over her and her friends. She wound up getting caught up in a fight and got punched in the back, but she made it out. She and her friends, of course, then heard about Heather Heyer, which was horrifying.

Kiazolu called the protest the most “traumatic” of her life, but she wouldn’t let that stop her. “I have to keep going in the name of freedom, my people, Heather Heyer and every counter-protester that was out there,” she said. “As Assata Shakur beautifully stated, ‘We have nothing to lose but our chains.’”

So Kiazolu has kept fighting. “This is a lifelong thing. Some people have this idea that activists do it for a couple years, or maybe just high school, but oh no, I’ve committed my life to this,” she told A Plus.