Atlanta Case Study: How Carceral Foundations and Corporations Enable Cop City

Atlanta Case Study: How Carceral Foundations and Corporations Enable Cop City

Session Type(s): Panel, Streamed Session

Starts: Friday, Jul. 14 10:30 AM (Central)

Ends: Friday, Jul. 14 11:30 AM (Central)

Room: Salon A-1

Since 2021, organizers in Atlanta have been fighting to stop the construction of a $90M police militarization facility on a former slave plantation and current watershed forest. Community members and organizations alike have expressed fears of escalating police violence and increased climate impacts as a result of the environmental degradation. But with the support of the police foundation and corporations, the city government ignored the 70% of community members who disavowed the project and instead voted to move forward with building Cop City. A diverse panel of leaders will share lessons, history and strategies for building and wielding the power of frontline communities of color in the face of philanthropic neglect, corporate whitewashing and political repression.

Moderator

Panelists

Kyle Bibby

Kyle.Bibby

Kyle Bibby is the Senior Director of Corporate Campaigns at Color of Change, a Political Partner with the Truman National Security Project, and one of the co-founders of the Black Veterans Project. Kyle is a proven leader dedicated to equal rights, social justice, and ending wars. He is a former Marine Corps infantry captain and Afghanistan War veteran.

Prior to his role at Color of Change, Kyle served as a Deputy Political Director for Common Defense, the largest grassroots membership organization of progressive veterans.

Previously, Kyle was a Director at the New Jersey Reentry Corporation (NJRC), a non-profit agency with a social mission to remove all barriers to employment for citizens returning from incarceration. He’s served as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) assigned to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President during the Obama Administration. In November of 2016 he transferred to the Office of Congressional Affairs for the US Agency for Global Media. He finished his fellowship as a legislative liaison to Congress.

Kyle has received a Master in Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the United States Naval Academy.

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Mariah Parker

Mariah Parker is a hip hop artist, labor organizer and former Athens-Clarke County Commissioner. While in office, they focused heavily on public health driven approaches to public safety and divestment from policing and prisons. Today they build collective power with fast food workers as a senior lead organizer with the Union of Southern Service Workers. Their contributions to the Cop City movement include family and youth organizing, leadership in direct action, and communications.


Tiffany Roberts

Tiffany Roberts

Tiffany Williams Roberts is Director of the Public Policy Unit at Southern Center for Human Rights. She joined the organization in April 2018 as the Community Engagement & Movement Building Counsel. She has practiced criminal defense since 2008, first as a public defender with the Atlanta Judicial Circuit Public Defender and later as a solo practitioner. As a public defender, Tiffany represented hundreds of indigent clients facing felony prosecution and graduated from Gideon’s Promise trial advocacy training program. She expanded her private practice to include civil rights litigation for victims of police abuse.

A significant portion of Tiffany’s private practice was dedicated to the pro bono representation of activists and organizers. She has been recognized by several organizations for movement lawyering and activism. A community organizer, she co-founded the police accountability organization Building Locally to Organize for Community Safety (BLOCS) in 2008 to promote a holistic approach to public safety. BLOCS successfully advocated for legislative improvements to the Atlanta Citizen Review Board along with other critical local policy changes. She is also a founding member of the Atlanta chapter of the global Black Lives Matter network.

In 2010, she was appointed to the search committee for the selection of Atlanta’s police chief. In 2013, she served on an Atlanta City Council working group to evaluate legislation to address the equitable treatment of sex workers in the city limits. Tiffany joined the Atlanta Fulton County Pre- Arrest Diversion Program (PAD) Design Team in 2017 and continues her support of PAD (now “Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative”). Tiffany was Co-Chair of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ Progressive Agenda Working Group Criminal Justice Commission and served on the City’s Taskforce to Reimagine the Atlanta City Detention Center. She also served as Co-Chair of Mayor Bottoms’ Use of Force Advisory Council.

Recent awards include being named in Atlanta Magazine’s 500 Most Powerful Leaders since it began and in 2020 received the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys’ Barbara C. Harris Award for Community Service. Tiffany is the former Deputy Director of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism (NIFTEP) at Georgia State University College of Law, where she now serves as an Instructor. She also serves as Chair of the Social Justice Ministry at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.

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