It is becoming common knowledge that the United States incarcerates more people than anywhere else in the world. At any given moment there are 2.3 million people in prisons and jails across the country. Black and Pink is an organization that works with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer identified people who are currently incarcerated or involved with the criminal legal system. I founded Black and Pink just over 10 years ago after my own time in prison. I had been locked up in a queer segregated cell in a county jail in Georgia and experienced a sexual assault by a prison guard in a federal minimum security prison. When I got out there were no resources that I could turn to for support, that needed to change. As of now, Black and Pink is a nationally networked grassroots effort, involving nearly 10,000 prisoners, working to abolish the prison industrial complex while meeting the immediate needs of LGBTQ prisoners. The movement for abolition is one that we, as Unitarian Universalists, have made a commitment to understand better and involve ourselves in as we align with the Black Lives Matter movement.

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