Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

In early June, Erynn Chambers stepped onto her porch, just outside the front door of her North Carolina home, opened TikTok on her phone, and began to film herself.

"Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime," she sang to her own tune. "And white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime."

Chambers, 27, who started using the short-form video app during quarantine, had just watched a TikTok by drag queen Online Kyne discussing the manipulation of statistics to make Black Americans appear more violent. Chambers, an elementary school music teacher, set her frustration to music.

"It went viral pretty much overnight," Chambers said. "It was incredible."

Chambers refers to her content, made under the user name @Rynnstar, as "edu-tainment" education and entertainment and she uses it, in part, to raise awareness of the American Black experience. She's one of a number of Black creators on TikTok who have used the app as a platform for advocacy against racism. Chambers' post has nearly 2 million views and was reposted countless times.

But TikTok sits uneasily at the intersection of viral social media, celebrity and activism. The platform has long been accused of elevating white voices over Black voices. While Black creators have been integral to the rise of TikTok some of the most popular dances, challenges and trends were born in the imaginations of Black TikTokers their work hasn't always gotten the same level of attention as that of their white peers.

Black creators said that their content wasn't highlighted on the "For You" page at the same rate as that of their white peers and that their videos have been taken down and audio-disabled without explanation, and experts say they often don't get credit for trends and challenges they start.

Over the last few months, however, in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd in police custody in May and Breonna Taylor in March, TikTok has made some forays into elevating Black creators on the app. Yet some worry that there's a flip side to the elevation of activism: burnout.

In early June, just days before Chambers' viral video was posted, TikTok posted an apology to its Black creators, saying it was sorry to those "who have felt unsafe, unsupported, or suppressed." TikTok promised long-term action to make the platform more diverse and to elevate Black creators. The apology came after a TikTok Blackout in May, an on-app protest against the suppression of Black voices, as protests against police brutality and racism took place worldwide.

Since then, some users of TikTok, including many Black creators, have reported seeing a more diverse and inclusive "For You" page, TikTok's infinite scroll homepage, which feeds users a constant stream of videos. In the past, the "For You" page has been accused of what might be called infinite whiteness.

But grading the app's move toward inclusiveness and how successfully it's amplifying Black voices differs across content creators. Some say they are optimistic that a more inclusive TikTok is in the works; others describe the battle for representation as simply exhausting. Each of the half-dozen Black TikTok creators who spoke to NBC News said they've experienced burnout but some, who say they are tired of arguing with followers and fighting for representation, are considering leaving the app altogether.

One frustration that can lead to burnout is the lack of credit given to Black creators who originate trends on the app, said University of Southern California assistant journalism professor Allissa Richardson, author of "Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism."

"I saw a ton of Black youth creators complaining that even though they made up these dance challenges, they were increasingly being pushed to the bottom of the search results on TikTok," Richardson said.

Most famous is the renegade, a dance phenomenon that helped propel white creators like Charli D'Amelio to over 70 million followers. It was created by a Black 14-year-old named Jalaiah Harmon. Although the trend was, for a time, the most popular on the app, Jalaiah was recognized only toward the end of the trend's life cycle by mainstream media and TikTok alike, garnering profiles in the The New York Times and Teen Vogue. She now has over 1 million followers on TikTok.

TikTok isn't the only social media platform to have come under scrutiny over its handling of race. YouTube, Twitter and Reddit have been accused of allowing hate speech to thrive.

"TikTok is acknowledging the problem. They're not saying it's not real. They're saying we have work to do," said Bria Jones, 26, a fashion, beauty and lifestyle TikTok influencer based in Kansas. Jones, who goes by @HeyBriaJones on the app, has grown a base of more than 278,000 followers in just under a year.

Mutale Nkonde, a fellow at Stanford University's Digital Civil Society Lab who is a member of TikTok's independent advisory board, the Content Advisory Council (she doesn't work for TikTok), said she has been impressed with TikTok's proactiveness in addressing racism on the app.

"They're really leading in terms of seeking out people who will push back against the technology when the technology is not doing right by Black people," Nkonde said.

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The issues of racial bias and content suppression of Black creators on TikTok reached a boiling point on May 19, when Black TikTok creators held a Blackout to uplift their content and raise awareness that their videos were underrepresented.

During the Blackout, users changed their profile pictures to the Black Lives Matter raised fist. Black creators used specific hashtags like "#ImBlackMovement" and posted videos about their content and experiences on TikTok. In solidarity, some white creators agreed not to post content to help amplify their Black counterparts.

June 1 brought the TikTok apology.

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer, along with some of the app's engineers, also held a video conference last month with around a dozen Black creators, including Jones, to learn more about their experiences.

"I do feel like they are making changes," Jones said. Other Black creators said they're noticing more equality on the app, too.

High school activist Deonna Blocker, 17, who goes by @Deesymone on the app, estimates that she now sees 70 percent Black creators on her "For You" page and 30 percent white creators. However, because every user's "For You" page is different based on the content a user interacts with, it's unclear whether any other user is being shown the same breakdown of content.

"I think they're definitely doing a better job at presenting Black creators. Before ... my ['For You' page] was very white, and I would very rarely see a Black creator," Deonna said. "Once everything went down with George Floyd and even Juneteenth and the Blackouts ... it went up significantly." Deonna's videos calling out racism and highlighting Blackouts have gotten thousands of views.

Improvement can be creator-specific: TikTok's "For You" homepage feeds each user a unique stream of content. While some Black creators say they're seeing changes noticing more engagement and increases in followers others say they believe they're shadow banned on the app, or blocked from reaching the main TikTok feed without any kind of notification from TikTok.

TikTok told NBC News it unequivocally does not shadow ban users.

Nkonde, the advisory council member, said the app has also told her it doesn't engage in shadow banning. But she said that if shadow banning still occurs as a glitch in the system, it must be addressed.

"If your app is just going to have all of these glitches and all of these glitches impact Black people, your app is still racist," Nkonde said.

Emily Barbour, 25, who is @emuhhhleebee on the app, said she feels as though she's being gaslighted when she's told that the app is working to highlight Black creators. Some videos Barbour has posted that she felt would typically get high levels of engagement have hardly made a blip on the radar of other TikTokers.

"It's exhausting, because it's just following along this pattern that's been going on for decades, years, centuries, where Black people aren't being heard and everybody's pretending it's not happening," Barbour said.

Chambers, who created the viral song, had used her platform to convey a wealth of information, from linguistics to history to activism, long before this spring's Black Lives Matter protests. But Chambers said that after the May Blackout and the June apology, she noticed that her account was starting to pick up traction. Her account has more than 400,000 followers.

Other TikTokers, like Jones, moved toward activism after Floyd's death.

"I started speaking on Black lives, and I started speaking on my experiences, and I started this series where I talked about my experiences with microaggressions, and that went very, very viral and brought in a lot of new followers for me, and those were just straight up stories I experienced," Jones said.

Jones said she shifted her TikTok's focus to include education when she interacted with followers who told her they had changed their behavior after learning from her.

But a large following can be excessively demanding.

"When you've got 400,000 people who want to hear you and are expecting to hear from you, it can be exhausting," Chambers said.

All of the creators who spoke to NBC News said they have experienced burnout at one point or another especially those whose pages have been elevated and whose follower counts have skyrocketed.

"People assume because you're willing to speak up about something, you're now an ambassador to everybody else in your demographic, and it's not true. ... It does contribute a lot to the burnout, because I don't know everything. Not one of us knows everything," Barbour said.

Barbour said that for Black creators, sharing their trauma in the name of education can feel draining and that having to argue with followers about their experiences can lead them to want to quit altogether.

"It's so unrealistic to assume because you like this Black creator and because they speak up about these things that they're going to speak up about everything and give their opinions about everything," she said. "It can't work, especially considering this is an app and it's something we're not getting paid for."

Frustration and burnout aren't the only side effects Black creators experience when their content isn't elevated and they're not given credit for their work, said Richardson, the journalism professor.

"For some of these kids, they do want to have that level of clout that will enable them to do other things that they love," she said. "And without that necessary audience, those eyeballs, without that metric in place to prove that they are an influencer, they're denied the lucrative endorsements that maybe their white peers receive more regularly."

Jones said she believes a more equitable TikTok is coming, particularly after the meeting with other Black creators and TikTok executives last month.

"It's a difficult issue, because it's so much deeper than an algorithm," Jones said. "It's a society thing. It's going to take a lot of work."

TikTok executives told Jones that they planned to check in with the creators who were invited to the meeting after 90 days to discuss whether they've seen improvements in the app's equity.

Jones said she's optimistic that the future of TikTok is one in which Black creators are on a level playing field with their white counterparts.

"It will come in time. I don't know what that timeline's going to look like, but I'm very hopeful TikTok has the resources and brainpower on their team to make this happen," she said.

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From the renegade to Black Lives Matter: How Black creators are changing TikTok culture - NBC News

The Black Lives Matter movement is a turning point in thehistory of our country.

The Los Angeles Dodgers know a lot about history, especiallywhen it comes to racial inequality. The organization that broke the colorbarrier in sports by signing Jackie Robinson on April 10, 1947, announced thatthey would auction off game-worn jerseys featuring the MLB's Black Lives Matterpatch that was worn by the team on Opening Day.

The Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF) is responsible for the auction that is currently available at Dodgers.com/auctions. The team announced that all of the net proceeds from the auction will be donated to the California Funders for Boys & Men of Color Southern California: Our Kids, Our Future Fund.

The auction features game-worn jerseys from entirety of the team's 30-man roster and coaching staff from their 8-1 Opening Day win over the rival San Francisco Giants.

Fans can place a bid on their favorite player's game-wornjersey, or a player or coach they feel a connection with. Among the featuredgame-used jerseys are reigning National League MVP Cody Bellinger,, JustinTurner, Kenley Jansen, Corey Seager, Max Muncy, Will Smith, Joc Pederson,Walker Buehler, A.J. Pollock, Ross Stripling, Alex Wood, and manager DaveRoberts.

The auction includes other Dodger memorabilia as well andwill run through August 9th.

The Dodgers Foundation has been an integral part of the community since 1995, and recently won ESPN's Sports Humanitarian Team of the Year Award. Their newest auction is part of a continued display of solidarity with social justice organizations.

Earlier this month, many of the white players on the Dodgers delivered a powerful video with a strong message speaking out against racial injustice in America, and showing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as their black teammates. As part of the video, the players wore specialty "In This Together" t-shirts, and matched all funds raised from the sale of those t-shirts.

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Dodgers to Auction Off Opening Day Black Lives Matter Jerseys - NBC Southern California

Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac chose not to join his teammates in protest Friday. While the rest of the Magic got down on one knee during the national anthem, Isaac chose to stand.

Isaac, 22, was the only player to do so. Isaac was also the lone player on the court who didnt wear a Black Lives Matter shirt. Instead, he wore his Magic jersey and warmup pants during the anthem.

With the move, Isaac becomes the first NBA player to stand during the national anthem since the restart. During Thursdays game, every coach and player on the Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans and Utah Jazz took a knee in protest of racial injustice and police brutality in the United States. Following Thursdays game, LeBron James said he hopes NBA players made former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick proud.

Isaac spoke about his decision after the game, saying he believes Black Lives Matter, but that kneeling and wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt doesnt go hand in hand with supporting Black lives.

Isaac began his answer by stating:

Absolutely. I believe that Black Lives Matter. A lot went into my decision. And part of it is, first off, is my thought that kneeling or wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt dont go hand in hand with supporting Black lives. So I felt like, just me personally, what it is that I believe is standing on the stance that: I do believe that Black Lives Matter, but I just felt like it was a decision that I had to make and I didnt feel like putting that shirt on and kneeling went hand in hand in supporting Black lives, or that it made me support Black lives or not.

He then spoke about his faith, saying he believes the answer to getting past all the evils of our society including racism is the gospel.

When asked to explain how kneeling correlates with his religion, Isaac said he didnt think kneeling or putting on a t-shirt, for me personally, is the answer. For me, Black lives are supported through the gospel.

Isaac echoed that sentiment in an interview with Click Orlando in June. In that interview, Isaac addressed George Floyds murder, racism in the United States and police brutality, saying he believes the answer is Jesus. Isaac is an ordained minister.

Following the national anthem demonstration, the Magic released a statement supporting Magic players for kneeling in protest.

The team said it was proud of its players, and stressed that the protests are not about the military, but about bigotry, racial injustice and the unwarranted use of violence by police.

The NBA has a rule stating kneeling is not allowed during the national anthem. Isaac followed that rule. NBA commissioner Adam Silver, however, said Thursday he would not punish players for kneeling during the anthem. Other players have yet to react to Isaacs decision to stand.

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Magic forward Jonathan Isaac only player to stand, not wear Black Lives Matter shirt during national anthem - Yahoo Sports

Over the last two months, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has been a leader of protests against systemic racism and police brutality. Among elected officials, Williams has been the most effective at channeling activists emotions and its led to some progressives hoping that the democratic socialist Williams would run for mayor in 2021. A mayoral campaign is unlikely, but many candidates are running to succeed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and they have all had to respond to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Heres a brief look at the top candidates and what theyve done.

The New York City Council speaker attended protest marches, ushered through a package of police reform bills, such as a law criminalizing chokeholds by the police, and he negotiated a city budget that shifted millions of dollars away from the NYPD though he expressed disappointment that he could not cut the agencys budget even more. Johnson is now being accused of retaliating against council members and nonprofits who attacked his measures as insufficient, but he denies the charges.

The New York City Comptroller joined marches against racism and harshly criticized the NYPDs tactics during protests. He initially proposed reducing the departments budget by $1.1 billion over four years, then decried the council and the mayor for not reaching $1 billion in cuts in one year.

The Brooklyn borough president has helped paint Black Lives Matter murals around the city, and has joined marches and bike rides against racism. The former NYPD captain has criticized the tactics of certain police officers and certain protesters, while emphasizing that the Black Lives Matter movement should also look at street violence and not just police violence.

The former nonprofit executive has made defunding the NYPD a top priority of her campaign and has proposed creating a new organization of first responders. Morales joined protest marches and later testified to the state attorney generals office on the NYPDs conduct.

The former secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Barack Obama has been using his expertise to talk about racism in housing discrimination. Donovan has criticized the NYPDs tactics controlling protests, and joined a march on his own.

The retired Army general and former city veterans services commissioner has aligned herself with police unions in blaming city political leaders for an increase in violence. Sutton opposes defunding the police and has said that protesters should get city permits, though she called herself an ally of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The former chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board is no stranger to NYPD oversight, and is now likely to enter the mayoral race with police reform as part of her pitch. In July, she became one of the most high-profile New Yorkers to call for NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea to be fired.

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How the NYC mayoral candidates have responded to the Black Lives Matter protests - City & State

It happened again.

Following reports earlier this month of multiple acts of theft and intimidation across Cook County, a Black Lives Matter sign was again damaged and vandalized along the Gunflint Trail.

WTIP was provided information today (July 31) that a Black Lives Matter sign in the Middle Gunflint Trail area was again damaged. The incident was captured on video July 30 bya business on the Gunflint Trail near Poplar Lake.

A video captured on a trail cam shows an adult male who was a passenger in a large white Ford crew cab pickup grabbing and hurling a Black Lives Matter sign into the woods along the Gunflint Trail.

In a previous statement from this month sent to WTIP about the theft and damage of Black Lives Matter signs in the region, Cook County Sheriff Pat Eliasen said: We have experienced some calls for service regarding the damage and removal of Black Lives Matter signs in Cook County. Please know that it is a crime to damage the property of another, and when we receive these calls, we will investigate them, and charges may follow if suspects are identified. Although you may not agree with others' choices or views, I am asking for your respect in recognizing that everyone has the freedom of expression in this country. Everyone also has the right to display their property in legal methods without the fear of it being destroyed.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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New reports of vandalism to Black Lives Matter sign on the Gunflint Trail - wtip.org

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized movement in the United States advocating for non-violent civil disobedience in protest against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against African-American people.[2] An organization known simply as Black Lives Matter[a] exists as a decentralized network with about 16 chapters in the United States and Canada, while a larger Black Lives Matter movement exists consisting of various separate like-minded organizations such as Dream Defenders and Assata's Daughters. The broader movement and its related organizations typically advocate against police violence towards black people, as well as for various other policy changes considered to be related to black liberation.[7]

In July 2013, the movement began with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin 17 months earlier, in February 2012. The movement became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans: Michael Brownresulting in protests and unrest in Ferguson Missouri, a city near St. Louisand Eric Garner in New York City.[8][9] Since the Ferguson protests, participants in the movement have demonstrated against the deaths of numerous other African Americans by police actions or while in police custody. In the summer of 2015, Black Lives Matter activists became involved in the 2016 United States presidential election.[10] The originators of the hashtag and call to action, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, expanded their project into a national network of over 30 local chapters between 2014 and 2016.[11] The overall Black Lives Matter movement is a decentralized network of activists with no formal hierarchy.[12]

The movement returned to national headlines and gained further international attention[13] during the global George Floyd protests in 2020 following George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. An estimated 15 million to 26 million people participated (though not all are members of the organization) in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, making Black Lives Matter one of the largest movements in U.S. history.[14] The movement has advocated to defund the police and invest directly into black communities and alternative emergency response models.[15]

The popularity of Black Lives Matter has rapidly shifted over time. Whereas public opinion on Black Lives Matter was net negative in 2018, it grew increasingly popular through 2019 and 2020.[16] A June 2020 Pew Research Center poll found that the majority of Americans, across all racial and ethnic groups, have expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement.[17]

The phrase "Black Lives Matter" can refer to a Twitter hashtag, a slogan, a social movement, or a loose confederation of groups advocating for racial justice. As a movement, Black Lives Matter is grassroots, decentralized, and leaders have emphasized the importance of local organizing over national leadership.[18][19] Activist DeRay McKesson has commented that the movement "encompasses all who publicly declare that black lives matter and devote their time and energy accordingly."[20]

In 2013, Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi formed the Black Lives Matter Network. Alicia Garza described the network as an online platform that existed to provide activists with a shared set of principles and goals. Local Black Lives Matter chapters are asked to commit to the organization's list of guiding principles but operate without a central structure or hierarchy. Alicia Garza has commented that the Network was not interested in "policing who is and who is not part of the movement."[21][22]

The loose structure of Black Lives Matter has contributed to confusion in the press and among activists, as actions or statements from chapters or individuals are sometimes attributed to "Black Lives Matter" as a whole.[23][24] Matt Pearce, writing for the Los Angeles Times, commented that "the words could be serving as a political rallying cry or referring to the activist organization. Or it could be the fuzzily applied label used to describe a wide range of protests and conversations focused on racial inequality."[25]

According to the Black Lives Matter website, there are thirteen guiding principles that should apply to those who choose to become involved under the Black Lives Matter banner, among them Diversity, Globalism, Empathy, Restorative justice and Intergenerationality.[26]

Concurrently, a broader movement involving several other organizations and activists emerged under the banner of "Black Lives Matter" as well.[11][27] For example, BLM is a member organization of the Movement for Black Lives established to respond to sustained and increasingly visible violence against black communities in the U.S. and globally.[28] In 2015 Johnetta Elzie, DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett, and Samuel Sinyangwe, initiated Campaign Zero, aimed at promoting policy reforms to end police brutality. The campaign released a ten-point plan for reforms to policing, with recommendations including: ending broken windows policing, increasing community oversight of police departments, and creating stricter guidelines for the use of force.[29] New York Times reporter John Eligon reported that some activists had expressed concerns that the campaign was overly focused on legislative remedies for police violence.[30]

Black Lives Matters also voices support for movements and causes outside the reach of black police brutality, including LGBTQ activism, feminism, immigration reform and economic justice.[31]

Politico reported in 2015 that the Democracy Alliance, a gathering of Democratic-Party donors, planned to meet with leaders of several groups who were endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement.[32] According to Politico, the donor coalition named Solidaire, focussing on "movement building" and led by Texas oil fortune heir Leah Hunt-Hendrix, a member of the Democracy Alliance, had donated more than 200,000 dollars to the BLM movement by 2015.[32] In 2016, the Ford Foundation announced plans to fund M4BL in a "six-year investments" plan, further partnering up with others to found the Black-led Movement Fund.[33][34][35]

The sum donated by the Ford Foundation and the other donors to M4BL was reported as 100 million dollars by The Washington Times in 2016; another donation of 33 million dollars to M4BL was reportedly issued by the Open Society Foundations.[36][37]

In 2016, Black Lives Matter and a coalition of 60 organizations affiliated with BLM called for decarceration in the United States, reparations for slavery in the United States, an end to mass surveillance, investment in public education, not incarceration, and community control of the police: empowering residents in communities of color to hire and fire police officers and issue subpoenas, decide disciplinary consequences and exercise control over city funding of police.[38][39]

Black Lives Matter originally used various social media platformsincluding hashtag activismto reach thousands of people rapidly.[40] Since then, Black Lives Matters has embraced a diversity of tactics.[41]

Analysis of the usage of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on Twitter in response to major news events.

In 2014, the American Dialect Society chose #BlackLivesMatter as their word of the year.[42][43] Yes! Magazine picked #BlackLivesMatter as one of the twelve hashtags that changed the world in 2014.[44] From July 2013 through May 1, 2018, the hashtag "#Black Lives Matter" had been tweeted over 30 million times, an average of 17,002 times per day;[45] by June 10, 2020, it had been tweeted roughly 47.8 million times.[46] with the period of July 717, 2016, having the highest usage, at nearly 500,000 tweets a day.[45][b] On May 28, 2020, there nearly 8.8 million tweets with the hashtag, and the average had increased to 3.7 million a day.[46]

The 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers saw the online tone of the movement become more negative than before, with 39% of tweets using the hastag #BlackLivesMatter expressing opposition to the movement.[47] Nearly half in opposition tied the group to violence with many decrying the group to be terrorist.[47]

Dr. Khadijah White, a professor at Rutgers University, argues that BLM has ushered in a new era of black university student movements. The ease with which bystanders can record graphic videos of police violence and post them onto social media has driven activism all over the world.[48]

On Wikipedia, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement was created in June 2020.[49]

BLM generally engages in direct action tactics that make people uncomfortable enough that they must address the issue.[50] BLM has been known to build power through protest and rallies.[51] BLM has also staged die-ins and held one during the 2015 Twin Cities Marathon.[52]

Political slogans used during demonstrations include the eponymous "Black Lives Matter", "Hands up, don't shoot" (a later discredited reference attributed to Michael Brown[53]), "I can't breathe"[54][55] (referring to Eric Garner), "White silence is violence",[56] "No justice, no peace",[57][58] and "Is my son next?",[59] among others.

According to a 2018 study, "Black Lives Matter protests are more likely to occur in localities where more black people have previously been killed by police."[60]

Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter,[61] the movement has been depicted and documented in film, song, television, literature, and the visual arts. A number of media outlets are providing material related to racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement. Published books, novels, and TV shows have increased in popularity in 2020.[62] Songs such as Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us" and Kendrick Lamar's "Alright" have been widely used as a rallying call at demonstrations.[63][64]

The Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc., a global organization in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom,[65] established Black Lives Matter Arts+Culture to add to and maintain cultural awareness of this movement, uplift black artists, and diversify art institutions in keeping with the "art culture of the Civil rights, Black Power, and Women's rights movements" of the 1960s and 1970s.[66]

The short documentary film Bars4justice features brief appearances by various activists and recording artists affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement. The film is an official selection of the 24th Annual Pan African Film Festival. Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement is a 2016 American television documentary film starring Jesse Williams about the Black Lives Matter movement.[67][68]

The February 2015 issue of Essence magazine and the cover was devoted to Black Lives Matter.[69] In December 2015, BLM was a contender for the Time magazine Person of the Year award, coming in fourth of the eight candidates.[70]

A number of cities have painted murals of "Black Lives Matter" in large letters on their streets. The cities include Washington, D.C., Dallas, Denver, Charlotte, Seattle, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Birmingham, Alabama.[71][72]

On May 9, 2016, Delrish Moss was sworn in as the first African-American police chief in Ferguson, where he acknowledges he faces such challenges as diversifying the police force, improving community relations, and addressing issues that catalyzed the Black Lives Matter movement.[73]

According to a study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2002 to 2011, among those who had contact with the police, "blacks (2.8%) were more likely than whites (1.0%) and Hispanics (1.4%) to perceive the threat or use of nonfatal force was excessive."[74]

According to The Washington Post, police officers shot and killed 1,001 people in the United States in 2019. About half of those killed were white, and one quarter were black, making the rate of deaths for black Americans (31 fatal shootings per million) more than twice as high as the rate for white Americans (13 fatal shootings per million).[75][76]

A study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that after adjusting for crime, there was "no systematic evidence of anti-Black disparities in fatal shootings, fatal shootings of unarmed citizens, or fatal shootings involving misidentification of harmless objects".[77] A study by Harvard economist Roland Fryer found that blacks and Hispanics were 50% more likely to experience non-lethal force in police interactions, but for officer-involved shootings there were "no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account".[78]

A study in PLOS One found "significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans" by police. The average bias measure was that unarmed African Americans had 3.49 times the probability of being shot compared to unarmed whites, although in some jurisdictions the risk could be as much as 20 times higher. The study also found that the documented racial bias in police shootings could not be explained by differences in local crime rates.[79]

A study published in the Nature found that official government statistics of police brutality were potentially compromised by Simpson's paradox. It argued that if a black person was more likely to be encountered by police or pulled over for no justifiable reason, and a white person only interacted with police for serious crimes where they were definitely guilty, then the additional unnecessary police encounters with black people means that black people have many more interactions with police in non-deadly situations a dynamic exacerbated by racism. Which artificially dilutes the official black death rate per police encounter and consequently create misleading statistics.[clarification needed][80][81]

The U.S. population's perception of Black Lives Matter varies considerably by race;[82] however, the majority of Americans, across all racial and ethnic groups, have expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement.[17] A 2020 Pew Research Center poll found that 60% of white, 77% of Hispanic, 75% of Asian and 86% of African-Americans either "strongly support" or "somewhat support" BLM.[17]

The phrase "All Lives Matter" sprang up as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, but has been criticized for dismissing or misunderstanding the message of "Black Lives Matter".[83][84] Following the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, the hashtag Blue Lives Matter was created by supporters of the police.[85] A few civil rights leaders have disagreed with tactics used by Black Lives Matter activists.[86][87]

In the weeks following the death of George Floyd, many corporations came out in support of the movement, donating and enacting policy changes in accordance with group's ethos.[88]

In 2014, Black Lives Matter demonstrated against the deaths of numerous African Americans by police actions, including those of Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, John Crawford III, Michael Brown, Ezell Ford, Laquan McDonald, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Antonio Martin, and Jerame Reid, among others.[89]

In July, Eric Garner died in New York City, after a New York City Police Department officer put him in a banned chokehold while arresting him. Garner's death has been cited as one of several police killings of African Americans that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.[90]

In August, during Labor Day weekend, Black Lives Matter organized a "Freedom Ride", that brought more than 500 African-Americans from across the United States into Ferguson, Missouri, to support the work being done on the ground by local organizations.[91][92] The movement continued to be involved in the Ferguson unrest, following the death of Michael Brown.[93] The protests at times came into conflict with local and state police departments, who typically responded in a armed manner. At one point the National Guard was called in and a state of emergency was declared.[19]

Also in August, Los Angeles Police Department officers shot and killed Ezell Ford; BLM protested his death in Los Angeles into 2015.[94]

In November, a New York City Police Department officer shot and killed, Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old African-American man. Gurley's death was later protested by Black Lives Matter in New York City.[95] In Oakland, California, fourteen Black Lives Matter activists were arrested after they stopped a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train for more than an hour on Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. The protest, led by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, was organized in response to the grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson for the death of Mike Brown.[96][97]

Also in November, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African-American boy was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer. Rice's death has also been cited as contributing to "sparking" the Black Lives Matter movement.[90][98][99]

In December, 2,0003,000 people gathered at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, to protest the killings of unarmed black men by police.[100] The police at the mall were equipped with riot gear and bomb-sniffing dogs; at least twenty members of the protest were arrested.[101][102]

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, BLM protested the police shooting of Dontre Hamilton, who died in April.[103] Black Lives Matter protested the shooting of John Crawford III.[104] The shooting of Renisha McBride was protested by Black Lives Matter.[105]

Also in December, in response to the decision by the grand jury not to indict Darren Wilson on any charges related to the death of Michael Brown, a protest march was held in Berkeley, California. Later, in 2015, protesters and journalists who participated in that rally filed a lawsuit alleging "unconstitutional police attacks" on attendees.[106]

A week after the Michael Brown verdict, two police officers were killed in New York City by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who expressed a desire to kill police officers in retribution for the deaths of Garner and Brown. Black Lives Matters condemned the shooting, though some right-wing media attempted to connect the group to it, with the Patrolman's Benevolent Association president claiming that there was "blood on [the] hands [of] those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protests".[19] A conservative television commentator also attempted to connect Black Lives Matter to protesters chanting that they wanted to see "dead cops," at the December "Millions March" which was organized by different groups.[19]

In 2015, Black Lives Matter demonstrated against the deaths of numerous African Americans by police actions, including those of Charley Leundeu Keunang, Tony Robinson, Anthony Hill, Meagan Hockaday, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, William Chapman, Jonathan Sanders, Sandra Bland, Samuel DuBose, Jeremy McDole, Corey Jones, and Jamar Clark as well Dylan Roof's murder of The Charleston Nine.[107][108]

In March, BLM protested at Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office, demanding reforms within the Chicago Police Department.[109] Charley Leundeu Keunang, a 43-year-old Cameroonian national, was fatally shot by Los Angeles Police Department officers. The LAPD arrested fourteen following BLM demonstrations.[110]

In April, Black Lives Matter across the United States protested over the death of Freddie Gray which included the 2015 Baltimore protests.[111][112] The national guard was called in.[19] After the shooting of Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, Black Lives Matter protested Scott's death and called for citizen oversight of police.[113]

In May, a protest by BLM in San Francisco was part of a nationwide protest, Say Her Name, decrying the police killing of black women and girls, which included the deaths of Meagan Hockaday, Aiyana Jones, Rekia Boyd, and others.[114] In Cleveland, Ohio, after an officer was acquitted at trial in the shooting of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, BLM protested.[115] In Madison, Wisconsin, BLM protested after the officer was not charged in the shooting of Tony Robinson.[116]

In June, after Dylann Roof's shooting in a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, BLM issued a statement and condemned the shooting as an act of terror.[117][deprecated source] BLM across the country marched, protested and held vigil for several days after the shooting.[118][119] BLM was part of a march for peace on the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in South Carolina.[120] After the Charleston shooting, a number of memorials to the Confederate States of America were graffitied with "Black Lives Matter" or otherwise vandalized.[121][122] Around 800 people protested in McKinney, Texas after a video was released showing an officer pinning a girlat a pool party in McKinney, Texasto the ground with his knees.[123]

In July, BLM activists across the United States began protests over the death of Sandra Bland, an African-American woman, who was allegedly found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas.[124][125] In Cincinnati, Ohio, BLM rallied and protested the death of Samuel DuBose after he was shot and killed by a University of Cincinnati police officer.[126] In Newark, New Jersey, over a thousand BLM activists marched against police brutality, racial injustice, and economic inequality.[127] Also in July, BLM protested the death of Jonathan Sanders who died while being arrested by police in Mississippi.[128][129]

In August, BLM organizers held a rally in Washington, D.C., calling for a stop to violence against transgender women.[130] In Charlotte, North Carolina, after a judge declared a mistrial in the trial of a white Charlotte police officer who killed an unarmed black man, Jonathan Ferrell, BLM protested and staged die-ins.[131] In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Janelle Mone, Jidenna, and other BLM activists marched through North Philadelphia to bring awareness to police brutality and Black Lives Matter.[132] Around August 9, the first anniversary of Michael Brown's death, BLM rallied, held vigil and marched in St. Louis and across the country.[133][134]

In September, over five hundred BLM protesters in Austin, Texas rallied against police brutality, and several briefly carried protest banners onto Interstate 35.[135] In Baltimore, Maryland, BLM activists marched and protested as hearings began in the Freddie Gray police brutality case.[136] In Sacramento, California, about eight hundred BLM protesters rallied to support a California Senate bill that would increase police oversight.[137] BLM protested the shooting of Jeremy McDole.[138]

In October, Black Lives Matters activists were arrested during a protest of a police chiefs conference in Chicago.[139] "Rise Up October" straddled the Black Lives Matter Campaign, and brought several protests.[140] Quentin Tarantino and Cornel West, participating in "Rise Up October", decried police violence.[141]

In November, BLM activists protested after Jamar Clark was shot by Minneapolis Police Department.[142] A continuous protest was organized at the Minneapolis 4th Precinct Police. During the encamped protest, protesters, and outside agitators clashed with police, vandalized the station and attempted to ram the station with an SUV.[143][144] Later that month a march was organized to honor Jamar Clark, from the 4th Precinct to downtown Minneapolis. After the march, a group of men carrying firearms and body armor[145] appeared and began calling the protesters racial slurs according to a spokesperson for Black Lives Matter. After protesters asked the armed men to leave, the men opened fire, shooting five protesters.[146][147] All injuries required hospitalization, but were not life-threatening. The men fled the scene only to be found later and arrested. The three men arrested were young and white, and observers called them white supremacists.[148][149] In February 2017, one of the men arrested, Allen Scarsella, was convicted of a dozen felony counts of assault and riot in connection with the shooting. Based in part on months of racist messages Scarsella had sent his friends before the shooting, the judge rejected arguments by his defense that Scarsella was "nave" and sentenced him in April 2017 to 15 years out of a maximum 20-year sentence.[150][151]

From November into 2016, BLM protested the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, calling for the resignation of numerous Chicago officials in the wake of the shooting and its handling. McDonald was shot 16 times by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke.[152]

In 2016, Black Lives Matter demonstrated against the deaths of numerous African Americans by police actions, including those of Bruce Kelley Jr., Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Joseph Mann, Abdirahman Abdi, Paul O'Neal, Korryn Gaines, Sylville Smith, Terence Crutcher, Keith Lamont Scott, Alfred Olango, and Deborah Danner, among others.

In January, hundreds of BLM protesters marched in San Francisco to protest the December 2, 2015, shooting death of Mario Woods, who was shot by San Francisco Police officers. The march was held during a Super Bowl event.[153] BLM held protests, community meetings, teach-ins, and direct actions across the country with the goal of "reclaim[ing] the radical legacy of Martin Luther King Jr."[154]

In February, Abdullahi Omar Mohamed, a 17-year-old Somali refugee, was shot and injured by Salt Lake City, Utah, police after allegedly being involved in a confrontation with another person. The shooting led to BLM protests.[155]

In June, members of BLM and Color of Change protested the California conviction and sentencing of Jasmine Richards for a 2015 incident in which she attempted to stop a police officer from arresting another woman. Richards was convicted of "attempting to unlawfully take a person from the lawful custody of a peace officer", a charge that the state penal code had designated as "lynching" until that word was removed two months prior to the incident.[156]

On July 5, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, was shot several times at point-blank range while pinned to the ground by two white Baton Rouge Police Department officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. On the night of July 5, more than 100 demonstrators in Baton Rouge shouted "no justice, no peace," set off fireworks, and blocked an intersection to protest Sterling's death.[157] On July 6, Black Lives Matter held a candlelight vigil in Baton Rouge, with chants of "We love Baton Rouge" and calls for justice.[158]

On July 6, Philando Castile was fatally shot by Jeronimo Yanez, a St. Anthony, Minnesota police officer, after being pulled over in Falcon Heights, a suburb of St. Paul. Castile was driving a car with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter as passengers when he was pulled over by Yanez and another officer.[159] According to his girlfriend, after being asked for his license and registration, Castile told the officer he was licensed to carry a weapon and had one in the car.[160] She stated: "The officer said don't move. As he was putting his hands back up, the officer shot him in the arm four or five times."[161] She live-streamed a video on Facebook in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Following the fatal shooting of Castile, BLM protested throughout Minnesota and the United States.[162]

On July 7, a BLM protest was held in Dallas, Texas that was organized to protest the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. At the end of the peaceful protest, Micah Xavier Johnson opened fire in an ambush, killing five police officers and wounding seven others and two civilians. The gunman was then killed by a robot-delivered bomb.[163] Before he died, according to police, Johnson said that "he was upset about Black Lives Matter", and that "he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers."[164] Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and other conservative lawmakers blamed the shootings on the Black Lives Matter movement.[165][166] The Black Lives Matter network released a statement denouncing the shootings.[167][168][169] On July 8, more than 100 people were arrested at Black Lives Matter protests across the United States.[170]

In the first half of July, there were at least 112 protests in 88 American cities.[171] In July 2016, NBA stars LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Dwyane Wade opened the 2016 ESPY Awards with a Black Lives Matter message.[172] On July 26, Black Lives Matter held a protest in Austin, Texas, to mark the third anniversary of the shooting death of Larry Jackson Jr.[173] On July 28, Chicago Police Department officers shot Paul O'Neal in the back and killed him following a car chase.[174] After the shooting, hundred marched in Chicago, Illinois.[175]

In Randallstown, Maryland, near Baltimore, on August 1, 2016, police officers shot and killed Korryn Gaines, a 23-year-old African-American woman, also shooting and injuring her son.[176] Gaines' death was protested throughout the country.[177]

In August, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Black Lives Matter protested the death of Bruce Kelley Jr. who was shot after fatally stabbing a police dog while trying to escape from police the previous January.[178]

In August, several professional athletes began participating in National Anthem protests. The protests began in the National Football League (NFL) after Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers sat during the anthem, as opposed to the tradition of standing, before his team's third preseason game of 2016.[179] During a post-game interview he explained his position stating, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder,"[180] a protest widely interpreted as in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.[181][182][183] The protests have generated mixed reactions, and have since spread to other U.S. sports leagues.

In September 2016, BLM protested the shooting deaths by police officers of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina.[184][185][186] The Charlotte Observer reported "The protesters began to gather as night fell, hours after the shooting. They held signs that said 'Stop Killing Us' and 'Black Lives Matter,' and they chanted 'No justice, no peace.' The scene was sometimes chaotic and tense, with water bottles and stones chucked at police lines, but many protesters called for peace and implored their fellow demonstrators not to act violently."[187] Multiple nights of protests from September to October 2016 were held in El Cajon, California, following the shooting of Alfred Olango.[188][189]

In 2017, in Black History Month, a month-long "Black Lives Matter" art exhibition was organized by three Richmond, Virginia artists at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond in the Byrd Park area of the city. The show featured more than 30 diverse multicultural artists on a theme exploring racial equality and justice.[190]

In the same month Virginia Commonwealth University's James Branch Cabell Library focused on a month-long schedule of events relating to African-American history[191] and showed photos from the church's "Black Lives Matter" exhibition on its outdoor screen.[192] The VCU schedule of events also included: the Real Life Film Series The Angry Heart: The Impact of Racism on Heart Disease among African-Americans; Keith Knight presented the 14th Annual VCU Libraries Black History Month lecture; Lawrence Ross, author of the book Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on America's Campuses talked about how his book related to the "Black Lives Matter" movement; and Velma P. Scantlebury, M.D., the first black female transplant surgeon in the United States, discussed "Health Equity in Kidney Transplantation: Experiences from a surgeon's perspective."

Black Lives Matter protested the shooting of Jocques Clemmons which occurred in Nashville, Tennessee on February 10, 2017.[193] On May 12, 2017, a day after Glenn Funk, the district attorney of Davidson County decided not to prosecute police officer Joshua Lippert, the Nashville chapter of BLM held a demonstration near the Vanderbilt University campus all the way to the residence of Nashville mayor Megan Barry.[194][195]

On September 27, 2017, at the College of William & Mary, students associated with Black Lives Matter protested an ACLU event because the ACLU had fought for the right of Unite the Right rally to be held in Charlottesville, Virginia.[196] William & Mary's president Taylor Reveley responded with a statement defending the college's commitment to open debate.[197][198]

In February and March, as part of its social justice focus, First Unitarian Church Church of Richmond, Virginia in Richmond, Virginia presented its Second Annual Black Lives Matter Art Exhibition.[199] Works of art in the exhibition were projected at scheduled hours on the large exterior screen (jumbotron) at Virginia Commonwealth University's Cabell Library. Artists with art in the exhibition were invited to discuss their work in the Black Lives Matter show as it was projected at an evening forum in a small amphitheater at VCU's Hibbs Hall. They were also invited to exhibit afterward at a local showing of the film A Raisin in the Sun.

In April 2018, CNN reported that the largest Facebook account claiming to be a part of the "Black Lives Matter" movement was a "scam" tied to a white man in Australia. The account, with 700,000 followers, linked to fundraisers that raised $100,000 or more, purportedly for U.S. Black Lives Matter causes; however, some of the money was instead transferred to Australian banks accounts, according to CNN. Facebook has suspended the offending page.[200][201][202]

On February 23, Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot while jogging in Glynn County, Georgia.[203] Arbery had been pursued and confronted by three white residents driving two vehicles, including a father and son who were armed.[204] All three men have been indicted on nine counts, including felony murder.[205]

On March 13, Louisville police officers knocked down the apartment door of 26-year-old African American Breonna Taylor, serving a no-knock search warrant for drug suspicions. Police fired several shots during the encounter which led to her death. Her boyfriend who was present at the time had called 911 and said, "someone kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend".[206] Protests were held in Louisville with calls for police reform.[207]

On May 25, Christian Cooper, a black bird-watcher at New York's Central Park experienced a confrontation with a white woman after he asked her to put her dog on a leash in the Ramble, a no-dogs-off-leash area. The interaction escalated when the white woman called the police to say that an African American man was threatening her.[208][209] On July 6, the Manhattan District Attorney's office announced that the woman would be charged with falsely reporting an incident in the third degree.[210]

At the end of May, spurred on by a rash of racially charged events including those above, over 450 major protests[211][212] were held in cities and towns across the United States and three continents.[213] The breaking point was due primarily to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin,[214] eventually charged with second degree murder after a video circulated showing Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd pleaded for his life, repeating, "I can't breathe."[215][216] Following protesters' demands for additional prosecutions, three other officers were charged with aiding and abetting second degree murder.[217]

Black Lives Matter organized rallies in the United States and worldwide[218] from May 30 onwards,[219][220] with protesters enacting Floyd's final moments, many lying down in streets and on bridges, yelling "I can't breathe," while others marched by the thousands, some carrying signs that read, "Tell your brother in blue, don't shoot""Who do you call when the murderer wears a badge?" and "Justice for George Floyd."[221] While global in nature and supported by several unassociated organizations, the Black Lives Matter movement has been inextricably linked to these monumental protests.[222] Black Lives Matter called to "defund the police", a slogan with varying interpretations from police abolition to divestment from police and prisons to reinvestment in social services in communities of color.[223]

On June 5, 2020, Washington, D.C.'s Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that part of the street outside of the White House had been officially renamed to Black Lives Matter Plaza posted with a street sign.[224]

On June 7, 2020, in the wake of global George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter's call to "defund the police", the Minneapolis City Council voted to "disband its police department" to shift funding to social programs in communities of color. City Council President Lisa Bender said, "Our efforts at incremental reform have failed. Period." The council vote came after the Minneapolis Public Schools, the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis Parks and Recreation cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department.[225]

This section needs to be updated. Please update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2020)

In 2015, after the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, black activists around the world modeled efforts for reform on Black Lives Matter and the Arab Spring.[40][226] This international movement has been referred to as the "Black Spring".[227][228] Connections have also been forged with parallel international efforts such as the Dalit rights movement.[229]

On July 18, 2020, thousands of protesters marched near Paris to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of Adama Traor, a man with color who died in police custody. Adama Traor was arrested in July 2016. He fainted after being pinned to the ground by police officers and later died at a police station. An anti-racism march also took place in the Berlin to condemn police brutality. More than 1,500 protesters marched holding posters saying, "racism kills, mentally, physically, globally".[230]

Following the death of Ms Dhu in police custody in August 2014, protests often made reference to the BLM movement.[231][232] In July 2016, a BLM rally was organized in Melbourne, Australia, which 3,500 people attended. The protest also emphasized the issues of mistreatment of Aboriginal Australians by the Australian police and government.[233]

In May 2017, Black Lives Matter was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which "honours a nominee who has promoted 'peace with justice', human rights and non-violence".[234]

In early June 2020, following the recent George Floyd protests in the US, there were protests across Australia, with many of them focusing on the local issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody, racism in Australia and other injustices faced by Indigenous Australians.[235]

In July 2015, BLM protesters shut down Allen Road in Toronto, Ontario, protesting the shooting deaths of two black men in the metropolitan areaAndrew Loku and Jermaine Carbyat the hands of police.[236] In September, BLM activists shut down streets in Toronto, citing police brutality and solidarity with "marginalized black lives" as reason for the shutdown. Black Lives Matter was a featured part of the Take Back the Night event in Toronto.[237]

In June 2016, Black Lives Matter was selected by Pride Toronto as the honored group in that year's Pride parade, during which they staged a sit-in to block the parade from moving forward for approximately half an hour.[238] They issued several demands for Pride to adjust its relationship with LGBTQ people of color, including stable funding and a suitable venue for the established Blockorama event, improved diversity in the organization's staff and volunteer base, and that Toronto Police officers be banned from marching in the parade in uniform.[239] Pride executive director Mathieu Chantelois signed BLM's statement of demand, but later asserted that he had signed it only to end the sit-in and get the parade moving, and had not agreed to honour the demands.[240]In late August 2016, the Toronto chapter protested outside the Special Investigations Unit in Mississauga in response to the death of Abdirahman Abdi, who died during an arrest in Ottawa.[241]

The other focal point of the Black Lives Matter movement in Canada is addressing issues, racism and other injustices faced by Indigenous Canadians.[242][243][244][245]

On June 1, 2020, several BLM solidarity protests in response to the death of George Floyd were held in several New Zealand cities including Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Tauranga, Palmerston North and Hamilton.[246][247][248][249] The Auckland event, which attracted between 2,000 and 4,000 participants, was organised by several members of New Zealand's African community. Auckland organiser Mahlete Tekeste, African-American expatriate Kainee Simone, and sportsperson Israel Adesanya compared racism, mass incarceration, and police violence against African Americans to the over-representation of Mori and Pacific Islanders in New Zealand prisons, the controversial armed police response squad trials, and existing racism against minorities in New Zealand including the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Hip hop artist and music producer Mazbou Q also called on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to condemn violence against black Americans.[250]

The left-wing Green Party, a member of the Labour-led coalition government, has also expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement, linking the plight of African Americans to the racism, inequality, and higher incarceration rate experienced by the Mori and Pasifika communities. The BLM protests in New Zealand attracted criticism from Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters for violating the country's COVID-19 pandemic social distancing regulations banning mass gatherings of over 100 people.[251]

On August 4, 2016, BLM protesters blocked London City Airport in London, England. Several demonstrators chained themselves together on the airport's runway.[252][253] Nine people were arrested in connection with the incident. There were also BLM-themed protests in other English cities including Birmingham and Nottingham. The UK-held protests marked the fifth anniversary of the shooting death of Mark Duggan.[254]

On June 25, 2017, BLM supporters protested in Stratford, London over the death of Edson Da Costa, who died in police custody. There were no arrests made at the protest.[255][256]

Black Lives Matter UK has worked with the coalition Wretched of the Earth to represent the voices of indigenous people and people of color in the climate justice movement.[257]

Black Lives Matter UK held protests in 2020 in support of the Black Lives Matter protests in the USA. London protests took place in Trafalgar Square on May 31, Hyde Park on June 3, Parliament Square on June 6, and outside the US Embassy on June 7. Similar protests took place in Manchester, Bristol, and Cardiff.[258] The UK protests not only showed solidarity with USA protesters, they also commemorated black people who have died in the UK, with protesters chanting, carrying signs, and sharing social media posts with names of victims including Julian Cole,[259] Belly Mujinga,[260] Nuno Cardoso,[261] Sarah Reed,[262] and more.

On June 7, 2020 protests continued in many towns and cities.[263] During a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol, the city centre statue of Edward Colston, a philanthropist, politician and slave trader, was pulled down by protesters, rolled along the road and pushed into Bristol Harbour.[264] The act was later condemned by Home Secretary Priti Patel who said "This hooliganism is utterly indefensible."[265]

In London, after it was defaced a few days earlier,[266] protesters defaced the statue of Winston Churchill, Parliament Square, Westminster with graffiti for a second time. Black spray paint was sprayed over his name and the words "was a racist" were sprayed underneath.[265] A protester also attempted to burn the Union Jack Flag flying at the Cenotaph, a memorial to Britain's war dead.[267] Later in the evening violence broke out between protesters and Police. A total of 49 Police Officers were injured after demonstrators threw bottles and fireworks at them.[268]

Over the weekend, a total of 135 arrests were made by Police.[263] British Prime Minister Boris Johnson commented on the events saying "those who attack public property or the police who injure the police officers who are trying to keep us all safe those people will face the full force of the law; not just because of the hurt and damage they are causing, but because of the damage they are doing to the cause they claim to represent.[269]

Original post:

Black Lives Matter - Wikipedia

Black Lives Matter has delivered a ten-point manifesto of what they want. I have to say, it isnt as bad as I expected. In fact, some of it makes a lot of sense. For example, they ask for the end of broken windows policing, the end of for-profit policing practices such as civil asset forfeiture as well and the end of the police use of military equipment.

What I am, however, surprised about is that the list doesnt at all mention ending the failed Drug War even though many of their demands are to end policies (like the ones mentioned above) that are by-products of the Drug War. It is even more surprising since manyhave noted how the black community suffers disproportionately from the policy.

I find this essay from John McWhorter extremely compelling and moving about the disastrous results the Drug War has had on Black families. Far from finding excuses for the decisions made by those who choose employment in the illegal drug market rather than lower-paying jobs in the legal labor market due to the incentives created by the Drug War, McWhorter explains the consequences and the vicious cycle that follows. He writes:

The War on Drugs destroys black families. It has become a norm for black children to grow up in single-parent homes, their fathers away in prison for long spells and barely knowing them. In poor and working-class black America, a man and a woman raising their children together is, of all things, an unusual sight. The War on Drugs plays a large part in this. It must stop.

I know this is a controversial issue among conservatives, even though acknowledging that the Drug War has failed and needs to be scaled back is different from condoning the use of drugs.National Review even called for legalization of Marijuana back in 1996, long before the New York Times did in 2014.

That being said, no matter what conservatives think about the policy, it remains strange that it doesnt appear on the BLMs list of demands.

Less surprising, but important, is a failure to ask for the end of minimum-wage policies. Over at Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux posted a great discussion between George Mason Universitys Walter Williams and the Hoover Institutions Thomas Sowell on, as Boudreaux writes, the minimum wage governments practice of ordering low-skilled workers to remain unemployed if, and for however long as, those workers are unable to persuade or entice employers to hire them at wages at least as high as the wage that government dictates. As Williams says during the interview:

The minimum-wage law has been, and continues to be, one of the most effective tools in the arsenal of racists everywhere around the world.

It is worth also reading the article published a few months ago over at the TNR about the racist origins of the minimum-wage laws. While the intentions behind the law have changed dramatically, it doesnt mean that the policy has become low-income-worker friendly. As we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Even less surprising is the absence on the BLMs list of the need to reform Social Security. As I have mentioned before Social Security redistributes money from blacks and other minorities to white people. You would think that considering the stakes, BLM would put it on their list.

All this goes to say that while the list wasnt as bad as I expected, it fails to address important policy changes that would really make a difference.

Continued here:

Black Lives Matter -- Manifesto in Ten Points | National ...

Summary of eRumor:Los Angeles Police found 12 white female bodies in a garage freezer with Black Lives Matter written on them.The Truth:False rumors that Los Angeles Police found a dozen white females tagged Black Lives Matter in a garage freezer came from a website known for publishing fictional news stories.The story appeared at Now 8 News in September 2017 under the headline, Los AngelesPolice: 12 WhiteFemale Bodies inGarage FreezerTagged, BlackLives Matter. The report, which was quickly shared more than 2,000 times on Facebook, falsely claimed that police found a man under the influence of drugs after responding to reports of suspicious activity:

Upon arriving at the scene, police knockedon the door to be greeted by a man whoseemedunder the influence of drugs.Uponfurther investigation, they found 12 WhiteFemale Bodies in Garage Freezer Tagged,Black Lives Matter.

The bodies had several things in common they were all white women in their mid-20s, blonde hair and all had the writingsmarked on them which readBlack LivesMatterandBLM.Mathis, who was knownfor his involvement in the Black LivesMatter movement was arrested withoutincident and booked into the county jail onno bond.

The first clue that the story is a hoax is a mugshot that appears with it. The mugshot shows aman who was arrested on charges of drug dealing and sex trafficking a minorin 2015 not a murder suspect.The second clue is the shoddy reputation of Now 8 News. Weve investigated many fictional reports from Now 8 News site over the years. The site doesnt clearly identify itself as fake or satirical news, which misleads readers.In fact, the site falsely reportedin September 2016 that 19 white female bodies tagged with Black Lives Matter were found in a garage freezer. The September 2017 version was just the latest take on an old hoax.

Original post:

12 White Female Bodies in Garage Freezer Tagged "Black ...

#BlackLivesMatter, #TakeAKnee. Slogans, symbols and emblems have proven to have the power to fuel social progress and advance the fight for equality.

Presently, social justice movements take shape within a digital landscape. Hashtags, viral videos and online petitions all contribute to getting messages out in seconds to millions of people.

In centuries past, it was a much different story. Ceramics, glassware, metal and paper were the primary ways to mass produce any sort of messaging about a social movement.

Slogans, emblems and symbols help reduce justice movements to "its most basic part," said Bonnie Siegler, a New York-based graphic designer and author of "Signs of Resistance: A Visual History of Protest in America."

Siegler said graphical representation is also one of the most "beautiful ways" to deliver messaging about a movement and that there is indeed precedence before Black Lives Matters. "'I Am a Man' -- from the Memphis sanitation march [in 1968] -- that was essentially saying Black lives matter," said Siegler.

"And then 200 years earlier, the abolition symbol, 'Am I not a man and brother?,' all the same sentiment. And now we've been able to reduce it to just three words. And that gives us all something to gather round without it being an essay or a book," she said.

The cover of Bonnie Siegler's book "Signs of Resistance, A Visual History of Protest in America."

Siegler said one of the reasons she wrote her book was to let designers know the power of their graphics to represent and fuel social movements.

"The thing about graphic designers throughout history [is] people's conscience has been the client. And that's really powerful. [The Vietnam War] was a time when artists and designers really stepped up."

Siegler said that there are images and symbols representing social change that stand out for her. One was a flag with the words "A Man Was Lynched Yesterday" raised in front of the NAACP office in New York City between 1920 and 1938. They would hoist the flag every time a person, usually African American, was lynched.

A flag hanging outside the headquarters of the NAACP bears the words 'A Man was Lynched Yesterday', circa 1938.

Another example of an image that Siegler believes helped change the country's feelings about the Vietnam War was a poster featuring a photograph of the My Lai massacre.

"Just dead bodies. It's incredibly difficult to look at," she said.

Centuries before BLM, there were civil rights slogans and symbols, handcrafted and delivered to the masses, to educate about injustice and inequality.

National Guard troops block off Beale Street as Civil Rights marchers wearing placards reading, "I AM A MAN" pass by on March 29, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn.

Wedgwood's "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" medallion

The brand Wedgwood is synonymous with fine china dinnerware (full sets of Wedgwood dishware can sell for upwards of thousands of dollars). But some may not know that that the founder, Josiah Wedgwood, who started the company in 1759, was one of the first abolitionists who fought for the end of the slave trade.

In 1787, Wedgwood was already a famous potter. His artistry in crafting intricate ceramics had earned him the title of "Potter to Her Majesty," in 1766 after he created earthenware for England's Queen Charlotte.

But Wedgwood, who was also the grandfather of evolutionist Charles Darwin, had another calling -- seeing the end of the enslavement of African people. In 1787, Wedgwood engaged a sculptor and modeler to create a medallion made of Jasper featuring a cameo of an enslaved man with his wrists in manacles. Above the man was the inscription: "AM I NOT A MAN, AND A BROTHER?"

Josiah Wedgwood created a Jasper medallion to advance Britain's slavery abolition movement.

"The distribution and circulation of these medallions is very central to the whole ethos of the movement for the abolition of slavery," wrote Gaye Blake-Roberts, historian and archivist for the Wedgwood company, in a research document.

One recipient of the Jasper medallion was Benjamin Franklin, who had become actively involved in the abolitionist movement in his later years. In 1788, Wedgwood sent Franklin (at the time the head of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery), a packet of medallions and wrote, "I ardently hope for the completion of our wishes."

"I am persuaded [the medallion] may have an Effect equal to that of the best written Pamphlet in procuring favour to those oppressed people," Franklin wrote to Wedgwood, according to the Smithsonian Natural Museum of American History's website.

The medallions became fashionable throughout England. "Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff-boxes. Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length the taste for wearing them became general, and thus a fashion was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom," wrote Thomas Clarkson, another abolitionist and a Wedgwood contemporary.

East India "Not Made by Slaves" sugar bowl

In what may have marked the beginnings of conscious consumerism, sugar bowls bearing a logo of a kneeling enslaved person and the motto "East India Sugar, not made by slaves," were promoted and endorsed in 1824 by the British-based Anti-Slavery Society.

Much of England's slave trade activity was connected to sugar manufacturing. These bowls helped make the link between the sugar industry and slavery widespread in English society, according to Clare Midgley in her book, "Feminism and Empire: Women Activists in Imperial Britain, 17901865."

Establishing that helped propel the anti-slavery movement throughout Britain.

The slogan was also printed and distributed on pamphlets. An estimated 300,000 people abandoned sugar as a result, according to the BBC.

"Whipped Peter" photo

Before videos, there were photos. And right around the Civil War in the United States, photography became available to bear witness to the horrors of slavery.

One of the most famous images is that of "Whipped Peter," also referred to as "The Scourged Back," taken in 1863. The photo shows a former slave's back covered in crisscrosses of ugly, raised scars with the caption, "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer. The very words of poor Peter, taken as he sat for his picture. Baton Rouge, Louisiana."

Gordon, also known as "Whipped Peter", a formerly enslaved man, shows his scarred back at a medical examination, Baton Rouge, La., April 2, 1863.

"Peter," who is also referred to as "Gordon" in some historical documents, was an enslaved person who escaped from a Louisiana plantation to a Union army camp in Baton Rouge.

The photo was one of the earliest instances of an image going viral and gave many who would otherwise have never known, a look at the brutality of slavery. Perhaps not until the image of Emmett Till's mutilated corpse was published in The Chicago Defender and Jet magazine almost a century later in 1955 after the 14-year old Till was brutally murdered by two white men, did an image have so much influence in the quest for justice and equality for Black people.

Civil Rights pins

While political lapel pins date back to the Revolutionary War, it wasn't until the presidential elections of 1840-1860 that pins were mass-produced due to the availability of cheap labor and materials.

Two SNCC pins. Founded in 1960, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee worked toward equality in everyday lives and the vote.

In the 1960s, the major civil rights groups at the time used pins to promote their messaging. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Congress for Racial Equality, the NAACP and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee all created pins featuring slogans or the names of the organizations.

Cheap and easy to make, some pins delivered powerful messages with simple images and words. A pin with only the words, "We Shall Overcome," was one of the most popular of the period as was the SNCC's image of a black hand shaking a white hand.

A 'Right On!' button, featuring an illustration of a clenched black fist to symbolize the Black Power movement, circa. early 1970s.

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Before Black Lives Matter: Black justice slogans, symbols dating back to the 1700s - ABC News

Sixty-three percent of Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement and a record 69% -- the most by far in 32 years of polling -- say Black people and other minorities are denied equal treatment in the criminal justice system, two of several signs of deep changes in public attitudes on racial discrimination.

These views don't necessarily translate into majority preferences on policy -- 55% oppose reducing police funding in favor of more social services, for instance, with 40% in favor. Nonetheless, this ABC News/Washington Post poll finds substantial shifts in how Americans view underlying issues of racial justice. Among them:

Fifty-five percent in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, say Black people who live in their own community experience racial discrimination, up from a low of 37% in 2012 and the most since the question was first asked 17 years ago. Among whites, 33% in 2012 saw racial discrimination in their own communities; today this has grown to 52%. It's also at 52% among Hispanic people.

The share of Americans overall who say Black people and other minorities do not receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system has jumped 15 percentage points just since 2014, and 31 points from a low in 1997, to the most in a question that dates to 1988. Among whites, it's up from 44% six years ago to 62%, a majority for the first time. Here, again, views among Hispanics more closely resemble those among whites -- 68% perceive unequal treatment in the criminal justice system.

The number of whites who are confident that police are adequately trained to avoid using excessive force has dropped by 12 points since 2014, from 62 to 50%. Again, it's about the same among Hispanics at 51%. Confidence among whites that the police treat white and Black people equally is down eight points, to 55%. It's also down 11 points among Blacks, to just 10%.

Fifty-five percent of Americans overall see the recent killings of unarmed Black people by police as "a sign of broader problems" in police treatment of Blacks, rather than as isolated incidents. That's up from 43% in 2014, after the deaths of Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Seeing this as a broader problem is up 13 points among whites, to 48%, as well as 12 points among Black people. Among Hispanics, 54% see recent killings as a sign of broader problems.

See PDF for full results, charts and tables.

Along with these changes, the survey also finds increased social contact: Eighty-five percent of whites now say there's a Black person they consider a fairly close personal friend, up from 54% when first asked in 1981. And 89% of Black people say the same about a white person, up from 69% 39 years ago.

In this June 7, 2020, file photo, protesters participating in a Black Lives Matter rally march in Pittsburgh Pittsburgh to protest the death of George Floyd.

On policy matters, as noted, the public overall, by 55-40%, opposes reducing funding for police departments and spending that money on social services instead; substantially more are strongly opposed, 43%, than strongly in favor, 25%. There's a racial and ethnic division on this issue: Fifty-nine percent of Black people support reducing police funding; it's 47% among Hispanics and drops to 34% among white people.

Also, Americans overall side -- by eight or nine points -- against renaming military bases currently named for Confederate generals, 50 to 42%, and against removing statues honoring Confederate generals in public places, 52 to 43%. Results are more lopsided on the question of removing statues honoring U.S. presidents who owned slaves, with 68% opposed.

On another policy question, the public at 63 to 31%, opposes paying money to Black Americans whose ancestors were slaves as compensation for that slavery. That said, support for reparations has grown from 19% in 1997 and opposition is down 14 points, from 77%.

This change has come across groups, if not to the same degree. Support for reparations has risen from 65% of Blacks in 1997 to 82% now; and among whites has risen from 10% in 1997 to 18% now.

There are racial and ethnic gaps on the other policy items as well. Sixty percent of Black people favor renaming military bases, as do 51% of Hispanics, compared with 36% of whites. On Confederate statues, 76% of Black people favor removal; this declines to 38% of whites and 34% of Hispanics. And 60% of Blacks support removing statues of slave-owning presidents, versus 26% of Hispanics and 16% of white people.

There also are large gaps on these issues on the basis of partisanship and ideology. Three-quarters of Democrats, including as many white Democrats, say Black people in their community experience racial discrimination. Fewer, but still 57% of independents, say the same. This drops to 29% of Republicans.

In another example, 80% of Republicans think the police treat Black and white people equally; this drops to 47% among independents and falls to 20% of Democrats, including 25% of white Democrats. There are similar differences in views of whether police are adequately trained to avoid the excessive use of force -- 77% of Republicans say they are, versus 45% of independents and 24% of Democrats.

Protesters chant as they pass down a main thoroughfare during a Black Lives Matter march through a residential neighborhood calling for racial justice, July 13, 2020, in Valley Stream, N.Y.

Ninety-two percent of Democrats, including 91% of white Democrats, support the Black Lives Matter movement, as do a smaller majority of independents at 62% and dropping steeply to 28% of Republicans. By ideology, support ranges from 93% of liberals to 70% of moderates and 34% of conservatives.

Six in 10 Democrats also support reducing police funding in favor of social services, as do 42% of independents, compared with 14% of Republicans. And there are even bigger partisan gaps on renaming military bases and removing Confederate statues.

While there are limited differences between white and Black Democrats on most of these issues, there are wide gaps on two items, reparations and removing statues of slave-owning presidents. Using both Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents for an adequate sample size, 86% of Blacks who are Democrats or lean that way, support reparations; that drops to 35% of white leaned Democrats. And 63% of Black leaned Democrats support removing statues of presidents who owned slaves, versus 31% of white leaned Democrats.

About one in four Democrats is Black, compared with one in 10 independents and fewer than one in 100 Republicans.

Differences among some other groups also emerge. Sixty-two percent of women see police killings of unarmed Black people as a sign of broader problems rather than isolated incidents; 48% of men agree. And there are differences by education in terms of renaming military bases and removing Confederate statues. These are supported by six in 10 Americans with post-graduate educations, compared with roughly a third of those who haven't gone beyond high school.

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone July 12-15, 2020, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 30-24-39%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, New York, with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Maryland See details on the survey's methodology here.

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63% support Black Lives Matter as recognition of discrimination jumps: POLL - ABC News