WILD Conversations: Addressing Systemic Racism in Community Safety with Nekima Levy Armstrong

In May, following the tragic killing of George Floyd, TCDIP’s Emerging Leaders Group launched WILD, the Wanton Injustice Legal Detail. Focused on six areas of systemic racial inequality, WILD's mission is to harness the collective power of TCDIP’s membership to remedy systemic anti-Black racism in the Twin Cities by partnering with and amplifying the work of existing community organizations. Through our WILD Conversations series, TCDIP will provide opportunities for you to learn more about WILD’s six focus areas. 

Join us for our WILD Conversations series! This series will focus on how to address systemic racism in community safety and policing. We will host diverse voices on the issue to allow our community to learn more about the issues and proposed solutions. Currently, the series will feature voices from the Minnesota ACLU, Communities United Against Police Brutality, and government officials who have held positions enforcing anti-discrimination laws and policies and providing oversight of police departments. Additional speakers and dates will be added on an ongoing basis.

Interested in more events like this? Visit our full calendar and search for “WILD Conversations” to find more events in this series!

January 21, 12:00 - 1:00 PM
Nekima Levy Armstrong, Executive Director at Wayfinder Foundation, Former NAACP Minneapolis President

Nekima Levy Armstrong is a civil rights attorney, activist, and the Executive Director for Wayfinder Foundation. She previously served as a Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas Law School for thirteen years, where she founded and directed the Community Justice Project, an award-winning civil rights legal clinic.

Nekima’s work has been featured in Associated Press, Crisis Magazine, MIC.com, Huffington Post, MinnPost, and the Star Tribune, to name a few. She has appeared on CNN, PBS, Democracy Now, Al Jazeera America, News One, and HuffPost Live. In 2017, she was named 100 People to Know by Twin Cities Business. In 2016, she received the Distinguished Service Award from the Governor’s Commission on Martin Luther King Day. In 2015, she was named one of “40 Under 40” by Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. In 2014, she was named a “Minnesota Attorney of the Year” by Minnesota Lawyer and recognized as one of “50 Under 50 Most Influential Law Professors of Color in the Country” by Lawyers of Color Magazine. 

Nekima previously served as president of the Minneapolis NAACP and as an advisor to Black Lives Matter Minneapolis.  She also ran for Mayor of Minneapolis in 2017.