Data for Black Lives

CTL-E-6243 · Organization · civil-rights · 2017–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07437 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6243.

Data for Black Lives (D4BL) is a movement organization founded in 2017 by Yeshimabeit Milner, with Lucas Mason-Brown as co-founder, to use data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. It began publicly with its inaugural conference at the MIT Media Lab on November 17–19, 2017, organized by Mason-Brown, Milner, and Max Clermont, which drew hundreds of scientists, mathematicians, technologists, and community activists, with hundreds more on a waiting list. Milner, who leads the organization as its founder and chief executive, frames its work as turning data from a weapon of political oppression into a tool for social change; its signature campaign, Abolish Big Data, calls for dismantling the structures that concentrate data power and putting data in the hands of the people who need it most. The organization has campaigned against predictive policing, risk-based sentencing, and predatory lending, built a COVID-19 database tracking the pandemic's impact on Black communities, and grown, by the JFK Library's account, to more than 4,000 members while raising over $2 million.

The record

• Also known as: D4BL, Data 4 Black Lives

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 6 — 747 Program, Wave 13; sixth Scan Tail packet at the founder’s 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (script + hand-checked 2026-10-16): no Data for Black Lives entity, alias, or variant in the live graph (3,910 entities). ID CTL-E-6243 free at staging. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger — scan string #2552 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json), banked in the Scan Tail Wave 5 reserve (Appendix E), re-screened CLEAR against the live graph at 3,910 entities by this wave. The supply supplied the name only; every fact is sourced under CTL-GOV-004. SCOPE GATE: National-scope Organization record (founded around the MIT Media Lab convening; Milner's organizing roots are in Miami). No Chicago claim is made; co-organizer Max Clermont was Chicago-based per MIT News, but that is an individual's base, not the organization's, and is not carried as a Chicago claim. Vital status: Active — the organization's own site carries programming and reports through 2024–2025, and Milner is titled Founder & CEO there (opened 2026-10-16). Founded 2017: stated by the JFK Library profile and consistent with the inaugural November 2017 conference documented by MIT News and the organization's own site. STATISTICS — Membership and fundraising figures are the JFK Library's, dated to its 2021 award profile (opened 2026-10-16): more than 4,000 members; over $2 million raised. MIT News (December 2017) counted more than 300 people on the first conference's waiting list. Leadership title varies by surface and date — MIT News (2017) and the JFK Library call Milner executive director, while the organization's current site styles her Founder & CEO; the record uses the current title and preserves the variance here. Role framing also varies slightly: the JFK Library names Milner founder with Mason-Brown as co-founder, while MIT News credits Mason-Brown as the conference's organizer alongside Milner and Clermont — both framings are recorded, not blended. MEDIA: photo HELD (HELD — candidate: the portrait of Yeshimabeit Milner published on her Data for Black Lives people page (d4bl.org, the organization's own site). No image file was read at file level and NO license is claimed — PHOTO-001 verification deferred.); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6243-data-for-black-lives.svg); video HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (233 rows, grepped 2026-10-16 for Data for Black Lives / D4BL / Milner); no near-miss title found.); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A. MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Non-place record; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record’s sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (233 rows, grepped 2026-10-16 for Data for Black Lives / D) | audio = HELD (HELD: No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists at staging.)

Relationships

• Yeshimabeit Milner — founded by
  The JFK Library states Milner founded D4BL in 2017 and the organization's own site titles her Founder & CEO. Organization→Person is an allowed founded_by pairing.
• Yeshimabeit Milner — led by
  Milner currently leads the organization as Founder & CEO (organization's own site, opened 2026-10-16). Organization→Person is an allowed led_by pairing.

Sources

• Data for Black Lives (d4bl.org) — Yeshimabeit Milner, Founder & CEO (organization's own site) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Milner is Founder & CEO of Data for Black Lives and started it to harness the power of data to make change in the lives of Black people; inaugural D4BL conference held November 17–19, 2017 at the MIT Media Lab; Abolish Big Data campaign (2019) calls to dismantle structures concentrating Big Data power; COVID-19 database recognized by a 2020 New York Times Good Tech Award; Milner received the JFK New Frontier Award in 2021 — https://d4bl.org/people/9-yeshimabeit-milner (primary source · build store)
• MIT News — Calculating the cost of tech-fueled discrimination (December 13, 2017) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Lucas Mason-Brown, an MIT mathematics PhD candidate, organized the Data for Black Lives conference with Yeshimabeit Milner and Max Clermont; the conference convened at the MIT Media Lab in November 2017 with more than 300 people on the waiting list; Milner was then D4BL's executive director; the work targets predictive policing, risk-based sentencing, and predatory lending — https://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-data-for-black-lives-conference-calculates-cost-of-tech-driven-discrimination-1213 (build store)
• John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum — Yeshimabeit Milner, 2021 New Frontier Award recipient (accessed 2026-10-16) — in 2017 Milner founded D4BL; Lucas Mason-Brown is named as co-founder; D4BL compiles data states and universities do not collect, such as COVID infection rates in marginalized communities; D4BL had raised over $2 million and connected more than 4,000 members nationwide (as of the 2021 award profile) — https://www.jfklibrary.org/events-and-awards/new-frontier-award/award-recipients/yeshimabeit-milner-2021 (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6243 · Combined Graph record U-07437 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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