Brandon Sturdivant developed his movement leadership through supporting formerly incarcerated individuals and their loved ones to abolish the criminal legal system. He spent two decades helping people free themselves and others from the carceral system and carceral thinking. Brandon co-founded the Justice Reinvestment Coalition, which, through several means, expanded opportunities for formerly incarcerated people. He became a somatic practitioner to help people heal and regain the safety, belonging, and dignity taken by systems of oppression. He conceptualized the Return & Reclaim program, taking Black, formerly-incarcerated and impacted organizers on a journey to Ghana to reclaim ancestral heritage and return to the homeland in an act of generational resistance.
Brandon coaches, trains, and mentors directors and organizers of some of the most dynamic organizations as they work to dismantle the criminal justice system jurisdiction by jurisdiction and create new ways to address harm that do not perpetuate systems of punishment. At Mesa, he wrote about embodied organizing and building abolitionist bodies.