The most accurate description of me was written by Breitbart. They once said “Aaron Goggans wants to fundamentally transform American society and wants to use the Black community to do it.” When I read that article I thought, finally, someone really gets me…

I have spent my whole life trying to recover the depth of spirituality I had as a child when I experienced God-Universe-Interbeing talking to me through the wonder of the natural world. I have had a conflicted relationship with spirit even since I realized that it was not common for people to feel like the Universe-God spoke to them.

I have been obsessed with books since my mother first read I’ll love you Forever to me. I have been obsessed with reading since my father put a limit on how many stories he would read before bedtime. I have been a writer since I learned that Robert Frost, my childhood hero, started writing because he didn’t want the stories he was reading to end. That was in the 3rd grade. I have been trying to write in a way that made people feel seen and loved since I first read Langston Hughes and I somehow knew that he loved me. I have been writing, with remarkable consistency ever since.

I have been working on issues of race, belonging and liberation since I began helping my parents run the kick off gathering for the annual MLK March in my hometown Colorado Springs, CO. That was in middle school. I have wanted to be an old Black man since I spent a summer staying at my Grand-father’s house in L.A in the late 90’s. Sweats, thin gold chain, house shoes and harsh one-liner’s.

I have been an activist since I was tear gassed at a protest against the Iraq War in Colorado Springs in 2004. In over 16 years of activism, including being at both Standing Rock and Baltimore Uprisings it remains the only time I have tear gassed (I have learned to book it before canisters are fired and gotten lucky several times missing the spray by a couple of yards).

I have been a feminist ever since I walked into a Feminist Majority meeting in college to try and convince them to join the Social Justice Coalition I was forming. I have been trying, failing and growing into being as welcoming and patient as those women were in welcoming into their space all those years ago. I have also been trying (and failing) to organize a grand coalition ever since the Social Justice Coalition failed.

I’ve been an organizer since I joined the UChicago Chapter of Students Organizing United With Labor. I have been a believer that Liberation is always possible since Omolara Williams Mcallister brought Erika Totten and me together to instigate the DC chapter of Black Lives Matter. That was 2014. Since that time I have be constantly, consistent and (mostly) willingly transformed by Movement Work. In my collaboration with O and E I have been convinced that another world is possible and (mostly) unwilling to wait for it arrive. I found my people and realized that I am from the future and so this world will never be enough.

Now I live with my partner Sandra Kim (Founder of Everyday Feminism and Re-becoming Human) in an apartment that is way to small, eating food that is way too good and probably not going outside enough. Such is life.