Bree Newsome

Bree Newsome is an artist, writer, musician and activist from Charlotte, North Carolina. As a young girl, Newsome started playing piano and writing music and plays. When she was 18 she received a $40,000 scholarship from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for a short animated film she created. 

Newsome was influenced by her parents at a young age when it came to matters of art and activism. Her father is a scholar of African American religious history and the way it impacted social justice movements. Her mother, being an educator, spent her career addressing disparities and achievement gaps of education. 

Stills from Newsome's film Wake

Newsome studied film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where she made Wake as a senior. Wake went on to win several awards including Best Short Film from BET Urbanworld Film Festival. Newsome says that being a black woman working in horror and sci-fi helped her understand activism, "The space that exists for many of us, as a young black girl, is so extremely limited so that you really can't go very far without being an activist, without being in defiance of something."

Behind the scenes of Wake

On June 27, 2015 Newsome gained national recognition and became an overnight inspirational hero for scaling a 30 foot flagpole at the South Carolina statehouse grounds and removing the Confederate flag. Newsome's intention was show the power of direct action, to create a new image/symbol of taking matters into the individual's hand. 

Newsome is also a founder of the grassroots organization, The Tribe which was created after the uprising in Ferguson in 2014 in order to continue addressing issues of structural racism and police violence in Charlotte, NC. 

"Art is activism and activism is art"

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Bree Newsome

Who is Bree Newsome?