Meet The Flint Organizer Advising Black Lives Matter On The Water Crisis

BuzzFeed - Via Facebook When Patrisse Cullors of Black Lives Matter wanted to know how the organization could help local organizers working on the Flint water crisis, one name came up: Nayyirah Shariff, a member of the Flint Democracy Defense League. Cullors reached out to her longtime friend Invincible, real name Ill Weaver, a Detroit-based artist and organizer, who introduced her to Shariff. Since then, teams from Black Lives Matter network chapters in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo have taken hundreds of gallons water to Flint, Mich., where lead has poisned the water supply of roughly 100,000 people. The collaboration comes as Flint activists continue the arduous task of distributing clean water to people in public and Section 8 housing. "We're in the process of figuring out what's the best way to meet their needs," Shariff said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. "There are so many who don't have water or a filter. Unfortunately on a lot of this stuff we're in triage mode." Shariff, 39, has