Malcolm London

Malcolm London is an American poet, educator, "artivist" and musician.

Early Life

London was born in 1993 and grew up in the west side of Chicago in Austin. He first started writing poems at age 12. He attended Lincoln Park High School. In his sophomore year, London won individual honors at the Louder Than A Bomb youth poetry competition. When he was 20, he gave a TED talk where he read a portion of his poem, "High School Training Grounds".

After graduating from high school in 2011, London began working for Kevin Coval, a fellow poet and educator who helped create the Louder Than A Bomb poetry festival. London was paid to help with the organization Young Chicago Authors, talking at local schools and running poetry workshops with students in the area.

Career

In 2012, London worked with actor Matt Damon as part of an event called "The People Speak Live!". He appeared on a television series called "Verses & Flow". He read a poem entitled, "The First Time in a While" which was based on a peer of London's who had been killed in a fight. London was the youngest poet to appear in the first three seasons of the show.

London appeared in several TED Talks with John Legend and Bill Gates, and hosted events and performances with fellow YCA alum Chance the Rapper and rapper Lupe Fiasco. His performances of poetry have taken place at the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Du Sable Museum, the Vic Theater, The Metro, The Chicago Theater, Victory Gardens Theatre, and Steppenwolf Theater. London was the co-chair of the Chicago chapter of the Black Youth Project and has done service for Chicago Public Schools. He was a member of UCAN's National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention.

Some of London's most famous poems are "High School Training Ground,” "Never Too Late,” “Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day (Love Sosa),” and “Why You Talk Like That.”

Police encounters

In 2015, #FreeMalcolmLondon trended on Twitter following London's arrest at a protest against the murder of Laquan McDonald. Four others were arrested during protests, which came after the arrest of Officer Jason Van Dyke and the release of a dash cam video showing the officer shooting the 17-year-old McDonald 16 times in October 2014, but London faced the most serious charges. London was a leader in the Black Youth Project 100 that helped organize the protests. Malcolm suffered a broken finger and filed a lawsuit with the Westside Justice Center.

Sexual Misconduct Allegations

2015 Claims

In 2015, after a social media campaign #FreeMalcolmLondon arose to pressure the Chicago Police Department to release London from jail, a woman named Kyra called the hashtag traumatizing. In an article on the platform Medium, Kyra detailed a sexual assault committed by London in 2012. She also stated activists had discouraged her friends from sharing her letter, worrying it would be damaging to the community. She said, "I want to be a bigger part of the movement, I want to join protests, I want to organize, but I can’t do that when the person who hurt me is a figurehead in those spaces."

London participated in a 15-month community accountability process initiated by the survivor and those affected in Black Youth Project 100, the activist organization that both were members of. The process was seen as a model for how survivors and perpetrators of sexual violence can heal without involving the police or courts. The process was facilitated by prison abolition and transformative justice activist, Mariame Kaba.

2020 Claims

In 2020, another woman and organizer in BYP 100, Juju Bae, posted a public statement saying London raped her in 2018. In the statement, she shared she had to work through feelings that coming forward would be a betrayal to London, and expressed that he had tried to reach out to her multiple times over two years, despite being blocked from her social media accounts. She also named that she had internalized the idea that she was deserving of the abuse from London because she stayed in a relationship with him, despite being raped by him.

When speaking about hearing of other accusers naming London as abusive she said,

"I do still, however, feel the need to apologize. There were women before me, who publicly and privately (albeit, not to me personally) named that this person had sexually assaulted them. I knew those things and continued to engage under the premise of “not me,” even though it was already me. I pushed aside very real narratives and the truths of other women. I did this while also trying to make sense of the fact that my story mirrored theirs. I was them. To those women: I do not know any of you personally (and I don’t even know if you’ll see this), but I’m so sorry for not holding more space for your truths...even if just in private or with the person who hurt us. I continue to apologize to myself daily. To all of you, I see you, I believe you, and I pray you are healing well. I was someone who chose (a word I use lightly and carefully) to remain in community with Malcolm knowing his history and public call-outs of rape, while hoping to be a positive influence in his life (another role that I witness many Black women inhabit) . However, in doing that, I neglected to truly be in community with him. Hardly anyone knew that he raped me, but many people knew about others. When we choose to hold space and remain in relationships with people that we know have repeatedly hurt others (and sometimes with little remorse or honest apology), those actions then become communal responsibility."

In response to the statement, fellow YCA alum, Chance the Rapper, tweeted,

“Tw: Also I hope all of Malcolm London’s victims get their justice. At this point there are too many stories about dude, and the severity of each one is getting worse. I can’t vouch for him at all and hope all these stories get amplified.”

Reactions by Participants of Initial Accountability Process

Shortly after, Kaba, the facilitator of London's accountability process from November 2015 to March 2017, commented:

"I am deeply disappointed and angry that Malcolm hasn’t taken accountability for his violent behavior and actually done the promised work to changed it. Accountability is not only about self-reflection, apology and repair for a particular incident. It is also making sure not to repeat the same behavior. On that front, he has failed. Many people have invested countless hours and emotional labor to support Malcolm in taking full accountability. Unfortunately, he has let them down. He has also given critics of CA processes fodder which is enraging because having facilitated several processes over the years, I know their value and importance particularly for people who can’t and/or don’t want to engage the corrupt & violent criminal legal system. CA processes are overwhelmingly facilitated by survivors because we know that we cannot live without our lives. It’s a double-betrayal when people who’ve caused harm refuse to take accountability by changing their behavior after so much investment of time and labor by survivors. This is all I’ll have to say on this subject for the foreseeable future. I continue to believe in and practice transformative justice (of which CA processes are one component). Let the focus for today be on the courageous survivors who have come forward to share their experiences of sexual violence. However, and this will be counter-intuitive to some, we also need those who are part of Malcolm’s current accountability team to lean into this moment to reduce future harm. Because if everyone cuts ties in this moment, community safety will be further compromised. None of us can be bystanders. We all have a role to play in ending sexual violence. This is a collective responsibility. I’ll continue to do my part."

The first woman, Kyra, to publicly state that London had raped her commented:

"I refuse to sugarcoat how angry and hurt I am that after a year and a half long accountability process, Malcolm made the choice to continue raping Black women. So many people, including Mariame Kaba and myself, poured hundreds of hours of labor into him out of the kindness of our hearts and a commitment to ending carceral justice. The process had many goals, but the main hope was that at the very least Malcolm wouldn’t rape anyone else. That was the bare minimum and I am beyond incensed that he couldn’t even do that much. I made the choice to engage in a 15-month process with my rapist not for Malcolm’s sake, but for the safety of other Black women.

For Malcolm to continue to attack Black women in the exact same way that he attacked me is a slap to the face to me, to everyone who worked to re-educate him and hold him accountable, to the movement of transformative justice, to the movement to abolish police and prisons, and to Black survivors around the world. Malcolm has failed so many people.

However, despite the outrage I feel towards Malcolm, I am still incredibly thankful that I engaged in the transformative justice process. Contrary to the belief of some Twitter trolls, I didn’t do the process to “save” Malcolm. I did it to save myself. The process gave me support. It pushed me to finally start to heal from the hurt I had been carrying silently for years. It connected me with Mariame, who I love so dearly and still speak to regularly. It radicalized me in new ways and gave me the opportunity to learn about prison abolition from the lens of how it would benefit survivors. It helped me imagine what a world without police and prisons could look like, where we prioritize care for the most harmed and marginalized.

Transformative justice did not fail. Malcolm did."

2020 Free Write Arts & Literacy Complicity

In 2020, despite widely published allegations against London, Roger Bonair-Agard attempted to hire Malcolm London as a teaching artist for Free Write Arts & Literacy, an organization that serves incarcerated and criminalized youth. Bonair-Agard had also been accused of sexual abuse multiple times, as early as 2013, but still worked for Free Write up until 2020. From 2011 to 2013, Bonair-Agard acted as a mentor for London at Young Chicago Authors.

2021 Young Chicago Authors Complicity

Since 2011, London had worked with Kevin Coval who led Young Chicago Authors, an organization that empowers youth to build self-expression and literacy through creative writing, performance and publication. According to Chicago Reader, "London was considered by many to be Coval’s favorite mentee—he even lived in Coval’s spare bedroom for some time."

In March 2021, Chicago Public Schools suspended its partnership with Young Chicago Authors, due to the allegations against Bonair-Agard and London, as well as outcries from the poetry community. This included a statement from the president of Button Poetry, alleging that leadership, namely Koval, within the YCA organization knew Bonair-Agard, London, and other YCA affiliates, were dangerous and did not act. This triggered journalism by Chicago Reader that logged two decades of survivors' accounts of abuse by predators affiliated with YCA.