Teresa Cotsirilos

Cephus Johnson and the men of Black Lives Matter

Cephus “Uncle Bobby” Johnson got the call in the afternoon. “You better get your butt down here,” Patrisse Cullors told him. She was standing on a corner of Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza with five activists from London, each of whom had lost a family member to police violence. They were jetlagged and wearing matching T-shirts. “You’re supposed to be here,” Cullors said. A self-possessed woman with short, dreaded hair, Cullors is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Johnson is the…