Philly Coalition for REAL Justice: Constructing a Collective Identity Out of Many for Black Liberation

This paper focuses on archiving the development of the Coalition for Racial Economic and Legal (REAL) Justice; a key piece of organizing in Philaldelphia, PA against police brutality, and as part of the larger Black Lives Matter Movement. After which theorizing will be done to engage the processes that take place when collective identity and individual identity intersect and contribute to the creation of an organizing space. The observations outlined below are informed by my thorough involvement with the coalition since its establishment and my close following of grassroots organizers in Ferguson and in different cities of the U.S.