In case you thought that Bree Newsome -- the woman who scaled the flagpole outside the South Carolina Statehouse to remove the Confederate flag flying high atop it -- couldn’t get any more incredible, check this out. It turns out that Newsome, along with being a North Carolina-based activist and youth organizer, is also a filmmaker, musician and possible card-carrying member of the BeyHive.
1. Bree Newsome is a staunch defender of voting rights.
Newsome told Charlotte’s Levine Museum of the New South that the nationwide and statewide dismantling of voting rights legislation -- an effort that largely serves to disenfranchise black voters -- coupled with George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin “activated” her to “[move] from being a sideline supporter to an activist.”
2. She's also an accomplished musician…
According to her website, Newsome’s been playing piano and singing since, like, forever, with past stints in the Peabody Conservatory and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. Listen to “#StayStrong” above, a song about being “young, black, and gifted/ Tryna stay lifted/ In a world that keeps [you] stinted/ Just ’cause [you’re] pigmented” that was inspired by her voting rights activism in North Carolina.
3. …and (alleged) member of the BeyHive.
Here’s a video of Bree Newsome performing Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” with her Charlotte-area funk band, Powerhouse.
4. THERE. IS. STILL. MORE.
Newsome’s also a super talented filmmaker -- because why not at this point. Her website says that she graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in film and television, and after that she served as ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi’s first ever artist-in-residence.
5. Just watch her short film, "WAKE."
The 21-minute southern gothic is so unsettling and amazing.
6. And she's gotten the coveted DeRay endorsement.
(╯°□°）╯< “!!!!” )
7. But most of all…
…Bree Newsome climbed up a 30-foot flagpole to remove a Confederate flag that just wouldn’t come down.
End of list.
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