In 2020, Breonna Taylor’s killing kick-started Brianna Hull’s activism. A year later and with a bout of the coronavirus behind her, the 19-year-old Eastern Illinois University student has grown from a participant in protests to an organizer, who coordinated a counterprotest in her college town against a Back the Blue rally in August.
“We saw Confederate flags, Trump signs. … We were right there, face-to-face. It was very different from my other protest experiences in that it was smaller crowd sizes, but the relationship with the police was more direct,” she said. “It’s different between attending a protest and actually being the person that’s over the protest. Having to communicate with these police officers was very intimidating. They did try everything to get me to cancel the protest. They even called my parents, trying to encourage me not to do it.”
She was happy that despite “a little bit of clash” between the two sides, “everybody was able to get back home safely.”
Over the past year, Hull said she’s advocated within her campus dorm about white allsyhip being less about words and more about action; spoken to high school students about activism and how they can get involved; and gotten into more community-centered activism.
Her summer has yet to start, but she’s already signed up to participate in local Juneteenth events, and is trying to see if she and other socially minded individuals can get something on the books for July, be it a protest or an open mic opportunity where people can vent or share their art.
In her social justice work, she said, there have been times when “burnout” seemed imminent, but Hull thinks that’s because during earlier protests, she was largely driven by frustration, emotions and feeling unheard. Now the feeling of love toward her people sustains her.
“I feel like that’s what really matters to drive your activism,” she said. “Once I found myself connected more to that than my hatred toward the system or my disdain toward policing, I felt like I was more connected to myself as an activist.”
Hull is taking her love of her people to law school next. Her sights are on becoming a legal aid attorney since the profession connects to her passion of helping those who are disadvantaged.
“I definitely want to be accessible to the main people that I will speak for the most — Black people, first and foremost,” Hull said.
As someone who intrinsically has the drive to help her community, Hull said, legal aid advocacy is important to allow people a fair chance in this system, because it’s a hard fight.