Toni-Michelle Williams

#ToniMichelleWilliams is a community organizer and fierce advocate for black trans justice in #Atlanta. Currently serving as the Leadership Development and Programs Coordinator for the #SolutionsNOTPunishmentCoalition (#SNaPCo), she helped launch a Trans Leadership Connection internship program in 2015. Through SNaP Co she has also worked with local leaders in divesting from the prison industrial complex, which disproportionately affects People of Color and also Trans People of Color. Growing up surrounded by violence (her father was murdered in 2001 and she experienced sexual and physical abuse), she said to the #UbuntuBiographyProject, “I didn’t believe that I was worthy of love, and I didn’t know if I wanted to live. The people in my family that affirmed that I was worthy of everything were taken from me by death. There was a huge part of me that wanted to join them, because things felt so hard.” She attended #NorfolkStateUniversity in Virginia (an HBCU), where she became president of #LeadingTheEducationOfGayAndStraightIndividuals (#LEGASI); from there she became a community educator for #ACCESSAIDSCare in Norfolk. She then became involved in Atlanta, where she continues to work on campaigns that bring to light the discrimination suffered by Trans People of Color at the hands of the Atlanta Police Department, and marched in the #March4TheGurlz where she brought attention to violence that transpeople and trans women of color face within the black community after three trans women were murdered in Louisiana. Asked by the Ubuntu Biography Project about her experiences, she said, “We are…the most magical beings on this planet—hands down. Our greatest gift is in the way that we Black LGBTQ people discover and navigate love, acceptance, trust, and confidence. Our gifts are in all of the things that we create and transform, simply by existing and being present on this earth. Across the world, our lives are threatened every day, and our dignity is under constant attack. Our resilience stands of this world with the gift that we carry with us every day. Remember that you are powerful, you are worthy, and that you are enough.” #PrideMonth #LGBTQIA #LGBTQIAPride #Pride #LegendsOfPride #YouCannotEraseUs