Devi Peacock

Devi Peacock is a South Asian non-binary storyteller, performing artist and community organizer based in Oakland, California. At the time of this interview, they were the founding Artistic and Executive Director of Peacock Rebellion, an Oakland-based BIPOC, queer- and trans-led arts organization, as well as the co-organizer of the Liberated 23rd Ave. cultural land trust in Oakland. They additionally were an organizer at the Queer Cultural Center, home of the National Queer Arts Festival and a cultural equity Fellow with Emerging Arts Professionals and the Community Arts Stabilization Trust. In this oral history interview, Peacock discusses their upbringing in rural Pennsylvania in a large, tight-knit family, their early interest in the arts and storytelling, the development of their abolitionist politics at Penn State and in the ecosystem of anti-violence organizations in the Bay Area in the 2000s, and their work with Peacock Rebellion and the Liberated 23rd Ave. cultural land trust, the first queer and trans BIPOC land trust in the United States. Additionally, they discuss their thoughts on and critiques of the nonprofit industrial complex, fundraising and philanthropy as it relates to social movements, and transformative and restorative justice, their time co-running the anti-violence group Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA,) and their work with the Kearny Street Workshop and performance group Mangos with Chili.