Melina Abdullah

Melina Reimann Abdullah (born 1972) is an American academic and civic leader. She is the former chair of the department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and is a co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter Grassroots, for which she also serves as co-director.

As an original member of the group that convened to form Black Lives Matter, she serves as a matriarch for the current movement in Los Angeles. In addition to organizing work with BLM Los Angeles, she has hosted three local radio shows, "Move the Crowd" and "Beautiful Struggle" on KPFK and "This Is Not a Drill" on KBLA.

Melina Rachel Reimann was born in the East Oakland section of Oakland, California. Her father, John Reimann, was "a union organizer and self-proclaimed Trotskyist." according to LA Weekly. Her paternal grandfather was Günter Reimann (born Hans Steinicke), a German-Jewish Marxist economist and member of the Communist Party of Germany who opposed Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. Her mother is Linda Fowler Blackston; later remarried Oji "Baba" Blackston (not to be confused with Baba Oje of the music group Arrested Development).

Abdullah graduated from Howard University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in African American Studies. She subsequently earned Master of Arts (M.A.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees in political science from the University of Southern California.

She changed her surname from Reimann to Abdullah due to her marriage to filmmaker Phaylen Abdullah and kept the name after their divorce.

Abdullah is a tenured professor and served as chair of the department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. She was interviewed in 13th, a 2016 documentary about mass incarceration in the United States.

Abdullah has served on the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission since 2014. She is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation chapter in Los Angeles, California, and regularly writes articles for the LA Progressive.

She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.