Valarie Kaur is a civil rights leader, lawyer, documentary filmmaker, educator, faith leader, mother and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project, where she leads a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice. Valarie burst into global consciousness when her Watch Night Service address went viral with 40 million views. Her question — “The future is dark: Is this the darkness of the tomb — or the darkness of the womb?” is a beacon for people fighting for our future.
Valarie became an activist when a Sikh American father, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was murdered in hate in the aftermath of 9/11. For 25 years, Valarie has led campaigns to tell untold stories — at the sites of mass shootings, inside America’s prisons, in the wake of hate violence, and at detention camps — winning policy change on issues ranging from hate crimes to solitary confinement. The communities she served taught her an essential ingredient to birthing a healthy future: love. In 2021, she led the People’s Inauguration, inspiring millions of Americans to renew their role in building a healthy, multiracial democracy. Today, the Revolutionary Love Project equips people with tools to harness love for courageous action. In 2022, Valarie was honored at the White House in the first-ever Uniters Ceremony, recognizing her as a visionary leader whose work is healing America. In 2024, she led the Revolutionary Love Bus Tour, a healing odyssey to 45+ cities across the U.S., igniting one message: “Revolutionary Love is the call of our times.”
Valarie earned degrees at Stanford, Harvard Divinity School and Yale Law School, and she’s created groundbreaking initiatives at the intersection of spirituality, storytelling and social justice. Her books envision a world rooted in the ethic of love: “See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love,” a No. 1 LA Times bestseller, is based on her acclaimed TED talk, and “Sage Warrior” is a journey into Sikh wisdom and spiritual handbook for apocalyptic times.
A daughter of Punjabi farmers, Valarie grew up on the farmlands of California, where her family has lived for more than a century. Her grandfather gave her Sikh wisdom through stories and songs that showed the way of the sant-sipahi, sage-warrior. The sage loves; the warrior fights — it is a path of revolutionary love.
