BLACK LIVES MATTER: THE HISTORY BEHIND THE MOVEMENT

Everyone and everything has a story, whether we really know the tale or not – though some know it better than others.

A story that has always caught my eye has been the Black Lives Matter movement, including how and why it began and what it truly stands for, not as the media tries to portray it.

Let’s set the stage: It’s the year 2012, and 17-year-old Black boy was shot dead on the 26th of February. He was walking home from a 7/11 store in Sanford, Florida, when his killer, George Zimmerman, took notice, and the rest, as we say, is history.

Trayvon Martin’s death sparked national outrage and people screamed for justice. For weeks, peaceful protest would be seen on TV, in newspapers and on social media platforms, as streets were flooded and demands of justice in prosecuting Zimmerman were made.

It took 45 days before Zimmerman was arrested, and you might think it would have been an open-and-shut case. To me, the evidence was right there and the facts don’t lie, but on July 13, 2013, he was found not guilty by a jury.

At this point, Alicia Garza, a domestic worker rights organizer in Oakland, California, had seen enough. Her social media page said what it needed when it took on two paths: those who knew and were tired, and those who made excuses.

So with that, she began writing a series of letters on her social media page titled “A love letter to black people.” When ending her final letter she stated “…..our lives matter.” Her close friend, Patrisse Cullors, an anti-police violence organizer in Los Angeles, responded with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, to which their friend Opal Tometi, an immigration rights worker in Phoenix, gave her support – and thus a movement was born.

This is not the first story but just one of many, many tales of death, hatred, and violence against a race of people, but maybe after true reform the tale can change with time, until we no longer need hashtags and we won’t see another life taken too soon on our TV screen.

The BLM movement didn’t happen because of the brutality we were facing from the police, but because of the fact that innocent black lives were being taken without cause and without justice from people who took the law into their own hands.

Then came 2014, when 18-year-old Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. His body lay on the ground for four hours before it was eventually taken to the city’s morgue. Thank God for cell phones, right? It was because of bystanders documenting with their cell phones that news began to spread around the world via social media.

Once again, protests began. In Ferguson, people took to the streets just as they had before. But by this time, our beautiful women who had originated the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag had spent the previous year working with cultural workers, artists, designers, and even technicians to grow what was originally just a hashtag, a single word, into something more – they moved it from the internet and onto the streets.

It took three weeks for the hashtag to blow up, being used over 58,000 times a day on average, and you better believe that number increased three months later – to 172,772 times a day – after a grand jury decided not to charge Wilson with murder. Within three weeks, the hashtag had appeared about 1.7 million times.

This was not something that would just fade into the darkness.

Fun fact: Cullors, with the help of Darnell L. Moore, started the Black Lives Matter freedom rides to St. Louis, adjacent to Ferguson. Basically, the pair sent over 500 of their members from across the nation to help join the ongoing protests in Missouri.

The BLM movement is and has always been inspiring, but it was built upon the foundation of the 1960 civil rights movement, the Black feminist movement from the 1980s, the Pan-African movement, the 2000s LGBTQ+ movement and the political hip hop movement that have all fueled the ongoing fight today.

I took some time to seek out and ask a few people about this whole topic – the past, present and future – hoping for candid answers and opinions. Here’s their response (kept anonymous for privacy reasons):

Q) How do you feel the BLM protest contributes to making a change not only for our generation, but also future generations?
A)These BLM protests across the country make a statement. They allow for those who do not see this as an issue to become aware of the issues that need to be addressed.

Because these protests were/are so massive, they make people question what exactly is going on. It also becomes a more standard talking point at the “dinner table.” Who knows what conversation is happening? But you cannot ignore massive protests happening across the country.

Q) In what way are these protests different from ones in the past – for example, the Rodney King riots and the protests and marches during Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s time?
A) These are different because it is not surrounded by one individual. With Rodney King and MLK, these men were catalysts. BLM is a group; there is no one individual at the focus (although individuals such as George Floyd have been at the center of a lot of the movement, it is not solely his movement.)

BLM is an entity that allows for many people to get behind it. It would be easy for a racist to disregard an individual, but how do you disregard an entire race?

Q) In light of BLM and what we are and what we have been fighting for, how do you feel about the larger movement, its evolution and how our words (message) have changed over time? Do you feel the message should be made even more stronger, to be more “heard”?

A) The BLM movement started years ago but it was only just recently during COVID that it has taken off in a more mainstream way. More white people are behind it, more corporations are behind it, the amount of signs I see in white people’s yards is pretty expansive.

This wave of support, hitting during COVID especially, has allowed so many more people to point their focus at it and realize it is an issue they not only cannot just ignore, but can actually get behind and see the issues being raised more clearly. I imagine it like rolling a ball on a teeter-totter (go with me here!) – the ball will hit a point where the teeter-totter will shift and the ball will cascade to the other side.

There is also a call-out culture that has come up – where white people, companies, are being put in the spotlight if they say racist things, or behave in racist ways, and that has had power, as well.

Honestly, I do not know if the movement would be more heard or understood if the message was altered too heavily. In altering it, I worry you risk muddling up the water and making the heart of the message lost.

However, our society, especially white people, need to understand that THIS IS THE BEGINNING… this is just the ‘Aha’ moment… that there are layers, and layers, and layers and LAYERS to this that continuously need to be peeled back in order for that message to be achieved.

Unfortunately, there are still so many people that are still at that beginning stage. But hey, maybe evolving that message is beneficial. Finally we can be like, OK, so now that we ALL agree that Black Lives Matter, let’s evolve that very simple concept a bit more. I think in some cities, it would work, but in some, we are still at that initial teaching point.

Q) Do you think we have made any progress, or could be making more progress, in a search to improve not only African American lives but the lives of all people of color?
A) Oh, man, this is a big question. First of all, there is always more progress to be made. We have only just opened a door and shown a light on what may be behind that door. I’m impressed I’m hearing people talk about racial issues pretty regularly, so that is progress. But, it’s not enough. The fact that every day we are still seeing killings of black individuals on the news, and it is talked about almost like it’s normal, is an issue.

There are so many systemic issues at play that are just so incredibly difficult to parse out. I mean, our whole friggin’ government is still a white-washed sea of old men. So, we have made steps, but there are so many more steps that need to be made until African American lives and the lives of People of Color are seen more fairly.

Q) What changes you would like to see in how the protests are being handled in order to get the message through and make sure real progress is made?
A) We MUST continue to lift the voices of BIPOC individuals. We must have representation in the media of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) individuals – news, TV, social media, government, schools, neighborhoods, etc. We must have police reform; money that is going to our military industrialized complex should go to schools and into neighborhoods.

Where possible, we must have BIPOC leaders making these decisions. Get the old white men out of our government, allow the government to reflect the people and diversity of our country/states, which it does not (now), at all. And tax the rich. Tax the rich and give the money to the communities that have suffered at the hands of the rich the most. Call it reparations, but call it equity.

Of course, there are more things that could be done, but we must look to those BIPOC leaders to be part of that decision making.