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When 17-year-old Kahlila Williams heard ex-police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, she felt a sense of resolve — she knew it signaled that her work as a student activist was only beginning.
A leader with Students Deserve, Williams is part of a student-led organization that helped to successfully push the school board to defund the Los Angeles School Police Department last summer. Yet the high school senior — who will be attending UCLA in the fall — acknowledged that the work to reimagine policing and ending police brutality against Black Americans is still in progress.
This past week represented “a moment where you can just breathe, where you can take some space to celebrate, but also understand that there’s work that needs to be done,” Kahlila said.