Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin is a veteran community and anti-racist, anti-colonialist, and anti-prison organizer and a former political prisoner. He was a member of SNCC, The Black Panther Party, and is a founding member of the Black Autonomy Federation.

He was also a member of the Chattanooga Three, who alongside Damon McGhee and Mikail Musa Muhammad (Ralph R. Mitchell) was arrested in 1998 for violating Tennessee's "disruption" law during a 1998 rally to protest police brutality. Chattanooga has a long history of police brutality and racial discrimination and the rally was held in response to the police murders of two Black men, Montrail Collins and Kevin McCullough. At the rally police attacked the three men as they tried to speak and subsequently charged all three under Tennessee's disruption law. Finally in 2001, a judge gave Ervin a 60-day suspended sentence and 10 days of community service. McGee and Muhammad each received 30-day suspended sentences and five days community service. In addition, the judge ruled that the three must pay court costs.