With the death of Chelsea Glass, we lost a fierce, funny organizer
Community organizer Chelsea Glass died Sunday from a rare lung disease. Glass was the lead organizer for DeCarcerate Memphis, an organization formed in response to “Operation LeGend,” the Department of Justice’s initiative that brought more federal agents to Memphis. Glass was also instrumental in leading the advocacy to pass ordinances reforming policing after Tyre Nichols’ beating death by Memphis Police Department officers. Glass was married and the mother of two boys. You can support them here.
I have struggled to find words to write about Chelsea partly because I don’t feel qualified to put sentences together that even come close to describing all that she was to all of us, but also because of the crushing weight of her absence — from this earth, from this community, from my life.
This. Is. So. Hard.
She did so much, knew so many people, supported so many causes and campaigns, lifted up so many, called out so many, and fought for the rights of so many that it feels like our friendship is just a tiny portion of the full picture of her life. That is probably true, but our friendship was such a huge part of my life that I want to try and honor her whatever way I can with these insufficient words.
Let me share some of the little details of her life that many people know and, I think, will want to remember along with me. Her voice was low and breathy and beautiful. Her laugh was loud and contagious and absolutely uninhibited — no matter the context or location. She loved her friends, family, and community fiercely, and she had copious amounts of compassion for people … even people who openly despised her. She was FUN.
Her spirit was so powerful, and righteous, and determined, and persistent that sometimes it would frighten me — her more cautious, introverted, and insecure sidekick. I can’t recall all the times Chelsea challenged me to step beyond my comfort zone to do something we knew needed to be done, but I was too scared to do.
Glass (left) speaks during a press conference in August 2020. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50I imagine a lot of people could say this about her, too. It would start with a single-word text from Chelsea: “hey.” Then you knew it was time to suit up and get ready for something big and important that could be truly meaningful if you would do it with her. She would hold your hand if you needed it. She would let you cry if you needed to. She sometimes probably even yelled at you (if you needed it), and then when you did the VERY HARD THING together, she was still right there with you, ready for whatever was next. I have never known anyone else like her, ever.
Chelsea and I did a lot of things together, but one of my favorites was running for office in Collierville — Chelsea for school board, and I for alderman. From our joint petition-signing event in my front yard to our joint election night party surrounded by family and friends, we were inseparable the whole way (and to our immediate families, insufferable the whole way).
Chelsea was already sick during that time and struggling to breathe, but that indomitable spirit she had compelled her to keep standing up for students’ rights and to amplify their voices. She was the one who blew the whistle on the book banning in our school district, and she made sure that the issue was addressed during a candidate forum in the most Chelsea way possible.
She was too much for some people in this town. She did not care.
As a part of DeCarcerate Memphis, Glass (left) helped in the work of bringing light to the Memphis Police Department’s use of pretextual stops. The organization held a series of free brake light clinics, like this one in October 2021, for communities most affected as a part of that campaign. Photo by Brandon Dill for MLK50When she and I joined the decades-long fight to remove the Lost Cause Confederate markers from our town square, she received death threats online. When some young people vandalized one of those markers, she was royally pissed, but she also organized a bail fund to get them out while they waited for trial. Lord, that made people mad! They are STILL mad. What they don’t know is that when her school board opponent (who ultimately won the election) was arrested for shoplifting, Chelsea’s uncompromising belief in the immorality of our cash bail system meant she was preparing to bail out the school board member if needed.
When her complaint against a Memphis police officer for his racist social media posting led to an internal investigation, the officer tried to intimidate Chelsea online. She spoke up again despite the danger, and the world found out that the Memphis Police Department didn’t have a written policy about this sort of harassment by officers.
When we announced we were running for office in Collierville, one of our biggest “fans” created posters about each of us to put up all over town. “Meet Chelsea Glass!” hers read “… She is the most dangerous candidate for school board in Collierville history. Chelsea is an uneducated social justice warrior with a vivacious potty mouth […] She wears that hammer and sickle and her pronouns with great pride.” The picture included on her flier was her Facebook cover photo at the time: Wonder Woman – an OG Antifascist.
While she always took threats to safety seriously, she also knew how to laugh things off. Those fliers made us weep from laughing so hard NUMEROUS times. “It’s fine,” she would say so often that the viral dog-in-the-burning-house meme will forever be synonymous with Chelsea in my mind. She was so fucking funny.
There is nothing that can replace what we have individually and collectively lost with the death of Chelsea Glass. But if every person whose life she touched could pour just one ounce of that love/rage/power/justice back into our community, we would be able to build the kind of world that Chelsea wanted us to have. We could create the kind of world Chelsea deserved to see realized in her lifetime.
It seems fitting to close with some words Chelsea wrote back in December 2021 describing that world she was fighting for.
Dear Gods,
I want to be delivered from systems of racism that trickle down on to everyone but especially my Black and Brown friends and the strangers I have yet to meet. I want to be delivered from this fucking bullshit subpar inhumane crumbling ass healthcare system. I want deliverance from apartheids and plantation economics. I want to be delivered from systemic poverty, wage theft. Water and housing is a human right. I want this land and all the lands across the world to be free of colonialism and imperialism. I want to be free from a system that not only denies people their most basic needs being met but denies people their freedom, dignity and humanity. I want to be liberated from all of this and I want it for everyone else too because this is no way to live and it has cost far too many lives. I’m madder than hell sitting in this stupid ass hospital. I want better damn it. For all of us. Ok. I’m going back to bed. Good night.
Rest now, Chelsea. We will take it from here.
Chelsea Glass sits for a portrait while at Crosstown Concourse with her family in May 2023. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50Emily Fulmer is an educator, activist, and longtime friend of Chelsea Glass. Together they founded Collierville Community Justice (colliervillejustice.org), a diverse, intergenerational coalition of Collierville residents working for racial and economic justice in their community.
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