Tanisha Long is building a Black Lives Matter movement for all of Southwestern Pa.

Tanisha Long’s voice was still hoarse two days after leading and organizing a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally at Point State Park on June 7.

“It’s my protesty voice. Just part of it, I guess,” she said. She then moved on to the topic of the day: how and why she created a Black Lives Matter Facebook group just last week.

As a biracial woman who experienced racism in a small town growing up, Long has been vocal against racism for about 10 years now. But she never expected the Facebook group “Black Lives Matter Pittsburgh and SW Pa.” to grow as fast as it did. Launched on June 2, it has grown to nearly 4,000 followers.

She also didn’t expect so many people to show up at a peaceful rally in Point State Park on June 7. Hundreds came to show support and share personal stories of police brutality and racism.

The rally included a diverse crowd, in race and age. Long, 30, of Crafton said the Facebook group’s name includes “SW Pa” for a specific, pointed reason: She wants to reach people in smaller communities across the region who might sympathize with the Black Lives Matter movement.

It’s a philosophy that puts her in a polarized camp. Some Black Lives Matter activists reject the notion of needing allies for the cause. Long embraces them.

Her focus, as outlined in the Facebook group’s description, is “to bring together activists and allies in order to lift up black causes, speak out, and cross societal bridges.”

“We all want to lead our own causes, be our own change-makers. But it would all be 100% impossible without the help of other minorities and white people,” she said. “The goal is equality. So if we’re going to be on equal footing at some point, how can we do that when we’re already alienating them?”

‘The goal is equality’

Long grew up in Avella, a town of about 800 residents situated about 15 miles northwest of Washington, Pa.

“The best way to put it is, it was just rough,” Long said of her time in Avella. She, along with her six siblings, mother and stepfather, moved there when she was entering the seventh grade.

Her new community of peers, teachers and neighbors did things like pretend they couldn’t pronounce her name and made sure she was in earshot when they used slurs. When she and a boy were interested in each other, the boys would say things like, “We can date, but just in secret.”

“There were a lot of things like that,” Long said. “It was not a good time. I was the only black kid in my grade.”

Though there were two other black families in the school, Long said the only way to fit in and make lasting friends was to “tone down my blackness.” She said this skill came easier for her because of her biracial background and light pigmentation.

Driven by a rift with her mother, who is also biracial, Long moved out of the house during her senior year in high school. She left town and decided to live in Burgettstown with her grandmother.

Long finished out her senior year in Avella, her grandmother driving her there and back most days.

When forced to think about her drive to develop more allies for the Black Lives Matter movement, Long spoke about one of her most cherished friends — Jade Milvet-Kolba.

“She spoke up for me when literally no one was saying anything. She became my friend for life,” Long said.

Milvet-Kolba, who is white, now lives 10 miles west of Avella in Wellsburg, a small city in West Virginia’s panhandle.

Milvet-Kolba, 30, said her parents own a bait shop in Avella, so she was used to seeing all kinds of people coming and going. A lot of the shop’s customers were from out of town, she said.

“My mom always told me to treat people how you want to be treated. She taught me that the night before kindergarten and it stuck. I always tried to be friends with new kids. I got picked on and it’s not fun,” she said.

When Long started coming to school and joined Milvet-Kolba’s class of 56 students, the friend remembered thinking Long “seemed like a really sweet person.” So she invited her to come along to a Friday night football game.

They remain close today.

“Tanisha is such a nice, sweet and honest person. If people in Avella had just taken the time to get to know her, they would have gained a really good friend,” Milvet-Kolba said.

When Long left Avella to live with her grandmother in Burgettstown, she made some new friends — but it didn’t come easy.

“When you leave Avella, where you learned to tone down your blackness for so long, when you get in black circles, you don’t fit in there either. I didn’t know all the cultural things,” she said.

A focused fire

Long became the first person in her family to go to college. She enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh in 2008 as a pre-law student with good intentions. But she said she wasn’t focused. She dropped out for a time. And then enrolled again.

By 2014, Long had yet to graduate. But then Michael Brown died by the hands of a white police officer, Darren Wilson, in Ferguson, Mo. His death sparked unrest there and nationally.

It was around that time when Long said a fire grew within her. She had met people her age who had struggled just like her. She joined the university’s Black Student Union and participated inprotests in the city.

Then life happened again. She didn’t stop caring about racism, but she stopped going to BSU meetings and eventually dropped out because of some family emergencies. She got a job and moved to Crafton, where she currently splits her time between Burgettstown.

In the years since dropping out of college, Long said she’s grown up a bit and she has become more focused. Part of that focus is to reach minorities who live in small towns.

“I love cities and that’s my heart, but I also have a huge soft spot for small towns because those that grow up there usually leave and then no one ever reaches out to them again,” she said.

That’s why around two years ago she joined the Washington County Democratic Committee, where she serves on the executive board as a minority representative for the county. She also serves as a precinct representative in Smith Township.

“She’s passionate about what she does,” said Ben Bright, the committee’s chairman. “She understands how to get things moving. And she’s fantastic on social media. She understands how to reach people and get them active and moving.”

Now, Long feels equipped and focused. When classes at Pitt start up again in the fall, Long will enter as a junior pursuing a double major in English writing and political science. She has already completed a minor in legal studies. She hopes completing her education will lead to civil rights jobs within youth communities.

For now, though, Long will continue to organize Black Lives Matter events. The next one will be a “read in” where she and other volunteers will hand out 100 books about civil rights, diversity, black history and other related topics to black children and ally parents. She launched a GoFundMe campaign Wednesday to buy the books. The $1,000 goal was exceeded within hours.

Focused on peace

Long said her group will always stay focused on peaceful gatherings to spread the Black Lives Matter message. But she avoids saying she’s “anti-violence.” She understands the fight.

“People have been protesting peacefully for years, or their whole lives, and it hasn’t gotten anywhere. I don’t fault them for how it goes down sometimes. And I’ll never say a bad word about them,” Long said.

Her perspective comes from experience.

“In Avella, there was this girl — we were not getting along. She kept calling the house and calling me the N-word. She’d do it at school, too. I told her ‘we’re gonna fight if you don’t stop,’” Long said.

One night, she said, her stepdad answered the phone and the girl used the slur.

“He has no patience for it. So when he got off the phone, he came to me and asked, ‘Why haven’t you handled this?’ ” she said.

Long said she tried to defusethe situation by talking to her teachers and the girl. Nothing worked. In the end, Long and the girl had a fistfight. Long said she won.

“But I hated the narrative that came after: ‘Tanisha snapped.’ Now we’re all violent. After that, I decided (violence) was never going to be in my life and, so far, it hasn’t,” she said. “So I’ve been there where I had to fight my way out of a circumstance. People should listen without having to burn down their building.”