Brea Baker is a freedom fighter and writer (in that order) who has been working on the frontlines for over a decade, first as a student activist and now as a movement journalist and national organizer. Brea contributes reported op-eds and personal essays to Refinery 29 Unbothered, ELLE, Harper’s BAZAAR, and more. As a sought-after speaker and anti-racism consultant, Brea believes deeply in political imagination and the need for nuanced storytelling. Her book, Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft & The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, is about her family’s experiences across the South and why reparations is a critical economic, racial, and environmental justice policy that we need to embrace.

Over the last several years, she has contributed to dozens of electoral and advocacy campaigns, including the #NextYale movement to address the legacy of white supremacy on our campus, the 2017 Women’s March (where she served as the youngest national organizer), the 2018 student walkouts against gun violence, Jumaane Williams’ successful bid for NYC Public Advocate, and many more on behalf of police brutality victims and their families.

For her work in coalition with other activists and organizers, Brea has been recognized as a 2023 Creative Capital awardee, a 2017 Glamour Woman of the Year and 2019 i-D Up and Rising. She has a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University where she held internships with the U.S. Department of State and Public Defender Service DC, as well as having served as President of Yale’s NAACP Chapter and Co-Director of AIDS Walk New Haven. Brea is on the board of Black Farmers’ Market, and is a cohort member of The Highland Project and the BLIS Collective.