Our People

COOPERATIVE DIRECTOR

Kwame Taylor has an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a masters degree in supply chain management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His supply chain knowledge has helped build several of our cooperative businesses, including wholesale sea moss with our product “Community Sea Moss”, a produce Buying Group in food deserts across Southwest Atlanta, and an aquaponics system sustainably growing shrimp and heirloom tomatoes for wholesale.

All of these cooperatives are meant to source residents, local corner stores, restaurants, farmer markets, and larger retail stores with locally grown and fresh produce, shrimp, and health supplements. These worker-owned cooperative initiatives are a proven method to help stabilize and strengthen a community’s economy.

As an organizer with Community Movement Builders, Kwame has led an anti-gentrification petition campaign, collecting over 400 signatures. As part of this campaign, he helped organize a forum with community members discussing the history of gentrification in Atlanta and what residents can do to ensure they are able to stay in their homes. Kwame has also led and organized several anti-police brutality/murder protests and helped start and run a mutual aid program for the SW Atlanta community, providing COVID-19 relief and funds so legacy residents can pay their bills amid gentrification.

Operations and Program Manager

Tunde Osazua is the Operations and Program Manager for Community Movement Builders where he works to create and maintain standard operational procedures that support reliable ways to track organizational information and build membership and organizational growth. He also serves as a co-coordinator of the Political Education and People and Administration Committees and is a member of CMB’s Coordinating Committee.

Tunde is the Outreach Coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace and a member of BAP’s Coordinating Committee. In these roles, he supports efforts to build from the bottom up, bring new elements into the movement, and facilitate their ideological, organizational, and political development through an internal political education process, campaign work, and organizing.

Tunde serves as the coordinator of the U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN), which is a network of activists and organizers committed to strategizing around creative and radical tactics for the complete withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Africa, the demilitarization of the African continent, the closure of U.S. military bases throughout the world, pressuring the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to unequivocally oppose AFRICOM and conduct hearings on its impact on the African continent. The USOAN is the driving force for the US Out of Africa/Shutdown AFRICOM campaign of the Black Alliance for Peace.

POLITICAL EDUCATION DIRECTOR

Zahir is a political theorist, author of Becoming African: Radical Transformation in the Art of Mageuzi, and a practitioner of the African spiritual system of Ewe Vodu. As the Political Education Coordinator Zahir leads the organization in political education classes teaching critical political and organizing theory. He has also created the Afrikan People’s Holiday list and facilities Afrikan inspired cultural programs in the community. He holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science and Masters in Public Administration from Clayton State University. 

DALLAS CHAPTER LEAD ORGANIZER

Yafeuh Balogun has always been surrounded by the socially conscious movement through his parents and extended family who were active in the Black Power era. He was taught the value of community by his father’s consistent example of love for his fellow neighbor. Yafeuh has developed many social programs in Dallas including Community Unification Day to detour fratricide, seek unity and to promote a holistic lifestyle and healthy living.

He is a co-founder of Guerrilla Mainframe (GMF) and the Huey P. Newton Gun Club. He and his comrade Rakem Balogun were targeted by the FBI for advocating community self-defense. Rakem was arrested by the FBI under the guise of the Black Identity Extremist Label.  Yafeuf started the Balogun Defense Committee which helped in the dropping of all charges against Rakem. Yafeuh is a graduate of El Centro College with a Degree in Applied Science. Yafeuh has been interviewed about his work within the community by some top publications, include: CBS, NBC,  and The New York Times.

FOUNDER

Kamau Franklin is the founder of Community Movement Builders, Inc. Kamau has been a dedicated community organizer for over thirty years, beginning in New York City and now based in Atlanta. For 18 of those years, Kamau was a leading member of a national grassroots organization dedicated to the ideas of self-determination and the teachings of Malcolm X.

He has spearheaded organizing work in various areas including youth organizing and development, police misconduct, and the development of sustainable urban communities. Kamau has coordinated and led community cop-watch programs, liberation/freedom schools for youth, electoral and policy campaigns, large-scale community gardens, organizing collectives and alternatives to incarceration programs. Kamau was an attorney for ten years in New York with his own practice in criminal, civil rights and transactional law. He now lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and two children.