Frontlines of Struggle: Community United for Change in New Orleans

US Human Rights Network Podcast

Frontlines of Struggle is a podcast of the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) that highlights the activities and initiatives of member organizations engaged in campaigns to realize the full implementation of human rights in the United States. This interview highlights the work of Community United for Change and features Malcolm Suber. Malcolm Suber is a long-time organizer who has lived in New Orleans for the past 32 years. He is currently project director for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in New Orleans. He has been a leading organizer against police terror and police murders carried out by the NOPD against mainly Black victims. He was also one of the founders and leaders of the Peoples' hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) which attempted to organize survivors and their allies for a just and equitable right to return to New Orleans. He is a co-founder and leader of Community United for Change (CUC) which is a coalition of activists and community people who came together in 2010 to fight against police terror and the selection of Ronal Serpas, a former deputy NOPD police chief, as the new police chief under Mayor Mitch Landrieu. CUC has since that time focused on demanding the firing of Chief Serpas and developing a peoples consent decree to put New Orleans residents in charge of oversight of the NOPD. CUC was also instrumental in building support for the prosecution of the NOPD police offices convicted in the Henry Glover case where two NOPD were convicted of murder and in the most recent victory against police brutality and racism- the convicting of five officers on August 5th for the 2005 Danziger bridge killings of two black men and the wounding of five others.