Kina Collins

Kina Collins is a nationally recognized gun violence prevention and health care advocate. Born and raised in the Austin neighborhood, Kina's gun violence prevention advocacy started early after she witnessed firsthand the mental, physical, and long-term health issues that friends and family have struggled with after a shooting. She is one of the activists featured in the 16 Shots documentary filmed in Chicago. Biography from Kina Collins - "In 2015, I was standing on the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago linking arms with other activists and organizers across the city, protesting the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. People mocked us, they spat at us, they pushed us, but for 12 hours straight they couldn't move us. We stayed the entire day outside businesses from open to close enacting an economic boycott, and at the end my toes and fingers were frozen and I couldn't feel my face, but my heart and soul were full. I knew we had done something special, and we did it peacefully and in solidarity. That day, we collectively changed the course of history in Chicago. Before the Black Friday shutdown happened in November 2015, there had been an immense amount of strategic organizing going on behind the scenes. Seeing the video of Laquan being shot 16 times, I physically felt a burning sensation in my back as I watched Officer Van Dyke pull that trigger. I remember feeling like time had stopped. Within 24 hours of the video being released, we had a plan. We knew what we were capable of, and that we did not want our rage to result in burning the city down because that would not further our collective movement. In order to take bold action and put the power back into the hands of the people, we wanted to stop the city from doing business on the biggest financial day of the year. We knew that direct action would not suffice on its own; we wanted policy changed, laws rewritten, and we wanted elected officials to be held accountable. We had no idea on that day that this was the spark that would eventually lead to Chicago getting a new police superintendent, electing a new state's attorney, ousting the mayor responsible for the cover up, and actually seeing a police officer convicted of murder-- something that no other major city has accomplished in the Black Lives Matter era. As painful as it was to watch, this beautiful documentary really showed how the murder of Laquan McDonald was a symptom of larger systemic issues. When everything got peeled back about the cover up and the power players, it showed just how much we were able to change the political landscape of Chicago."