As a young man from Fayetteville, N.C., Lamont Lilly served four years in the U.S. Army as well as received a degree in criminal justice, but soon found out there were many contradictions, and injustices, for black Americans.

Lilly, who went on to become one of the most prominent political activists in the nation, gave a presentation and discussion on police abolitionism Thursday at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford in the Harriett B. Wick Chapel on campus. The lecture, which is part of the University of Pittsburgh’s Year of Pitt Global initiative, was organized by Dr. Tony Gaskew, professor of criminal justice at Pitt-Bradford.

In his opening comments to the audience, Gaskew said the idea of Lilly’s presentation “is to inspire critical thinking outside the box that may inspire alternatives to policing.

“His feet have touched the soil of Standing Rock, Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore” and other communities that held demonstrations against black injustice, Gaskew said in giving a brief overview of Lilly’s background.

In response to Gaskew’s request to share information on the lifestyle of an activist, the speaker responded, “A political activist is seeking to serve people, seeking to serve the community, seeking to serve justice …”

Lilly said he has participated in this role the past 10 years, but doesn’t hail from a political family or background. Instead, he had earned a degree in criminal justice and had planned to attend law school, but didn’t take that path after “seeing contradictions in the community I was living in.

“I would ask myself, ‘What’s wrong, why are these issues such as poverty and police brutality so pervasive in a country that has so many resources and so much wealth” along with a number of other societal disparities.

Lilly said this led him into journalism for a time until he discovered words on paper “were not good enough,”  inspiring him to become involved with organizations such as the Occupy movement which opposes social and economic inequality and the lack of “real democracy” around the world.

Lilly said many people label his views on police abolitionism as anarchy, but he says this is not the case. Instead, he is seeking different ways for communities to maintain social order.  

“I’m simply asking if there other alternatives to robocops running around with impunity to kill people,” he stated while adding he doesn’t believe police agencies can be reformed.

When a student asked Lilly who would respond to a mass shooting if police are not available and military would be slow to respond, the speaker didn’t have a ready solution.

Instead, Lilly, who was born in 1979, noted that when he was in school, there weren’t issues with shootings at schools or in society.

To that the student responded, “Times are changing.”

Lilly then conjectured that crime prevention “has to be worked on at the front end, not the back end” and starts with working with children in schools and education.

Toward the end of the hour-long lecture, Lilly said he believes the activism and protests he was involved with several years ago have been repressed and stopped by government, and because of this he is done with reform.

A student named Scott Reed didn’t agree with this conjecture and said Lilly’s presentation was part of the continued movement for reform.

“I disagree that the movement is halted,” Reed said. “That’s what we’re doing now.”