Makayla Gilliam-Price, the 17-year-old Baltimore activist who penned a blog post that got a high-ranking police officer in hot water over his callous tweets, has earned a profile in the Washington Post as a “rising voice in Baltimore’s Black Lives Matters” movement.
Two years ago, Gilliam-Price “was just a 15-year-old girl trying to figure things out,” Adam Jackson, her debate camp coach, told the Washington Post. “Now she’s on a steady rise to be a world-class leader.” That may sound hyperbolic, but her resume already boasts an impressive list of accomplishments. She has co-founded a student activist organization, organized a student walkout, and helped organize police-reform protests in Annapolis.
For her part, Gilliam-Price’s big-picture, ambitious thinking (“Saying black lives matter isn’t just about a black man being shot by a white police officer”) is tempered by awe at the results of her activism. ““I was low-key speechless,” she said, at Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis’s immediate move to condemn the offensive tweets that prompted her blog post.
Gilliam-Price recently started a website dedicated “to [engaging] an audience diverse in race, age, gender, sexuality, ability, religion, and class in discussions that revolve around the political climate in Baltimore,” so expect to continue to hear her name in the future.
