I was at the Police Commision in Los Angeles on July 12th just before the action dubbed “Decolonize LA City Hall” began on Tuesday, July 12.

Janelle Monáe’s anthemic, Hell You Talmbout tests the limits of a small Bluetooth speaker; ricochets off the hard surfaces of downtown as sidewalk sleepers emerge from a cluster of fifteen tents on the plaza at City Hall East in Los Angeles at 6:00 am. A few feet away a big red bus hacks up a dark plume that settles on a large yellow banner propped up near the curb spelling “Say Her Name” in big red letters. Another sign, “Fire Chief Beck” leans against a traffic signal, staring blankly at the Mayor’s office just across the street. The Black Lives Matter (BLMLA) encampment is exactly what you’d expect to find at the bleeding edge of the Black Liberation Movement; a tightly organized, clean, open but guarded, kid friendly, abundant, creative, gay-trans-ally friendly, loving, matriarchal space.   BLMLA Camp, LA City Hall_8/16   Melina Abdullah packs a few essentials into a bag near the food table as she begins her day. A founding, core member of BLMLA, the mother of three, tenured professor and Pan-African Studies department chair at Cal State, Los Angeles is a guiding presence here. A practiced communicator, she breaks from the scrip to consider what they’ve created at City Hall; “I don’t think we’d really articulated it before, but it’s a really beautiful loving space. We’re building the community we want to live in,” she says and excuses herself to help unload a car that has pulled up to drop off supplies. The spontaneous action dubbed “Decolonize LA City Hall” began on Tuesday, July 12, just after the Los Angeles Police Commission announced that the 2015 police killing of a black woman named Redel Jones was deemed in policy. Shortly after tents went up at City Hall a block away from...