User:DraconicDark/Black Lives Matter Portal
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Introduction
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people and to promote anti-racism. Its primary concerns are police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The movement began in response to the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Rekia Boyd, among others. BLM and its related organizations typically advocate for various policy changes related to black liberation and criminal justice reform. While there are specific organizations that label themselves "Black Lives Matter", such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the overall movement is a decentralized network with no formal hierarchy. As of 2021[update], there are about 40 chapters in the United States and Canada. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" itself has not been trademarked by any group.
In 2013, activists and friends Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi originated the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two more African Americans, Michael Brown—resulting in protests and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri—and Eric Garner in New York City. 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.
The movement gained international attention during global protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. An estimated 15 to 26 million people participated in Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, making it one of the largest protest movements in the country's history. Despite being characterized by opponents as violent, the overwhelming majority of BLM demonstrations have been peaceful.
The popularity of Black Lives Matter has shifted over time, largely due to changing perceptions among white Americans. In 2020, 67% of adults in the United States expressed support for the movement, declining to 51% of U.S. adults in 2023. Support among people of color has, however, held strong, with 81% of African Americans, 61% of Hispanics and 63% of Asian Americans expressing support for Black Lives Matter as of 2023. (Full article...)
Selected general articles
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Image 1
The Black Lives Matter street mural in Indianapolis is a large, colorful mural reading "#BLACKLIVESMATTER", with a raised fist, that 18 artists painted across a downtown roadway in August 2020, as part of the George Floyd protests. The mural is located on Indiana Avenue, the historic hub of the city's Black culture, on the same corner as the Madam C. J. Walker Building.
18 individual local African American artists created the artwork, each artist responsible for one of the images in the message, and organized activists working with local Black Lives Matter groups. In contrast to several of the other Black Lives Matter street murals created around the same time, Indianapolis's is not painted in yellow road markings, but instead consists of many different contributions from artists painting in their own distinct style, which comes together as a single artwork. (Full article...) -
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His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice is a 2022 biography about murder victim George Floyd written by Washington Post journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa. (Full article...) -
Image 3Save the Boards is an American nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis that collects and preserves street art that emerged during local protests of the murder of George Floyd in 2020. (Full article...)
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Tishaura Oneda Jones (/tɪʃɑːrʌ/ tish-ARE-ə; born March 10, 1972) is an American politician who has served as the mayor of St. Louis, Missouri since April 2021. A member of the Missouri Democratic Party, Jones served from 2008 to 2013 in the Missouri House of Representatives; and as Treasurer of the City of St. Louis from 2013 to 2021.
Born in St. Louis to a former city comptroller, Jones studied at Hampton University in Virginia, returning to St. Louis upon graduating in 1994. Following a failed attempt to start a restaurant that left her bankrupt, she entered nursing, graduating from the Saint Louis University College for Public Health with a Master of Health Administration in 2001 and working for Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital for two years. (Full article...) -
Image 5Marcellis Stinnette, a 19-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by police officer Dante Salinas
in Waukegan, Illinois, United States shortly before midnight on October 20, 2020. He was the passenger in a vehicle that was stopped by police, who were attempting to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. According to police, the officer opened fire when the vehicle moved in reverse towards the officer. The driver, Tafarra Willams, was also wounded but survived. The officer has been fired, and another officer has been placed on administrative leave. Body camera, dashboard camera, and surveillance video of the incident has been publicly released, and the Illinois State Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation have opened investigations. Demonstrations were held in Waukegan in the ensuing days. (Full article...) -
Image 6Generation Revolution is a 2016 British documentary film directed by Cassie Quarless and Usayd Younis. It follows the stories of Black and Asian activists in London who aim to change the social and political landscape in the capital. The film preceded the inception of the UK's Black Lives Matter movement.
The film premiered at Sheffield Doc/Fest on 14 June 2016. It released on Netflix UK & Ireland on 1 October 2020. (Full article...) -
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In June 2020, the Trump administration began deploying federal law enforcement forces to select cities in the United States in response to rioting and monument removals amid the George Floyd protests. Federal law enforcement elements were deployed under Operation Legend, Operation Diligent Valor, and the Protecting American Communities Task Force (PACT). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cited an executive order regarding "monuments, memorials and statues" as allowing federal officers to be deployed without the permission of individual U.S. states, as the federal government "has the right to enforce federal laws, investigate crimes and make arrests" within states.
On June 1, 2020, in Washington, D.C., federal law enforcement deployed riot control tactics and munitions against protesters to expand a security perimeter, which allowed for President Donald Trump to later walk from the White House to the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square for a brief photo op. Days later, anonymous federal personnel in tactical and riot gear began to appear on D.C. streets, with many refusing to identify themselves. In July 2020, federal forces were deployed in Portland, Oregon as part of the PACT, where their use of unmarked cars and officers in camouflage without clear identification badges generated outrage. DHS officials defended the use of unmarked vehicles and unidentified officers in camouflage; acting DHS deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli said "Unmarked police vehicles are so common it's barely worth discussion" and that officers wore the same uniforms and equipment each day, so demonstrators could nevertheless identify them. (Full article...) -
Image 8Deacon Johhny Hollman Sr. was a 62-year-old man killed by Atlanta Police officer Kiran Kimbrough on August 10, 2023. (Full article...)
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Image 9On August 30, 2022, 20-year-old African-American man Donovan Lewis (born (2002-05-14)May 14, 2002) was shot and killed by Officer Ricky Anderson of the Columbus Division of Police (CDP) in the Hilltop neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio as officers served a warrant at his apartment. Police were serving a warrant against Lewis for domestic violence against his pregnant girlfriend, assault and improper handling of a firearm. After officers detained two men at the apartment, police opened the door to Lewis's bedroom, after which point Anderson fired a single shot at Lewis who was laying in bed. (Full article...)
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Image 10The shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, two Black American individuals, occurred in East Cleveland, Ohio on November 29, 2012, at the conclusion of a 22-minute police chase which started in downtown Cleveland, when police erroneously claimed shots were fired at them as Russell and Williams drove by a squad car; the result of the shots was their vehicle's exhaust pipe backfiring.
Over 60 officers participated in a 23-mile police chase that ended in Russell and Williams' vehicle being surrounded. Thirteen police officers surrounding the vehicle fired at Russell and Williams, who are unarmed, over 137 times while they were in their car at a parking lot of a middle school, killing both. In May 2014, one of the officers involved, Michael Brelo, was charged with two counts of voluntary manslaughter, and was acquitted by a Cuyahoga County judge of the charges on May 23, 2015. (Full article...) -
Image 11On March 25, 2019, 27-year-old Danquirs Franklin was shot and killed by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Wende Kerl.
In the released body-worn camera footage from the confrontation, Franklin appears to have been lowering a gun toward the ground at the time the officer fatally shot him. Kerl was responding to frantic 911 calls about a man with a gun threatening people at a Burger King. The footage shows that Kerl and a male officer instructed Franklin to put the gun down more than 15 times in the roughly 40 seconds before he was shot. The gun is not visible in the video during that timespan. Franklin was shown squatting next to an open car door with another man in the car's passenger seat. (Full article...) -
Image 12The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGN or BLMGNF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to promoting the Black Lives Matter movement. The organization is often mistaken for other organizations within the Black Lives Matter movement because it often solely employs the phrase "Black Lives Matter" as its name and it also owns the domain name "blacklivesmatter.com" as its official website. While BLMGN often simply calls itself "Black Lives Matter," it is not the sole organization within the broader Black Lives Matter social movement. It is, however, the largest and most well-funded, and it also claims to speak on behalf of the movement. Efforts which were started in late 2020 by its then Executive Director Patrisse Cullors began to centralize its operations.
The organization was founded in 2013 by three female activists. International but largely based in the United States, the organization advocates for the eradication of systematic racism and the prevention of police violence. Among its core beliefs is that the entire US legal system, mainstream media, and society is inherently white supremacist; and that "policing at-large is an irredeemable institution" and should be defunded. (Full article...) -
Image 13Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging is a 2018 book by the journalist Afua Hirsch. The book is part-memoir and discusses black history, culture and politics in the context of Britain, Senegal and Ghana. It received mixed critical reception. (Full article...)
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Image 14Millennial Activists United (MAU) is social justice organization in the U.S., based in Ferguson Missouri. The group works to end racism as well as police brutality in the United States. (Full article...)
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Image 15In the United States, use of deadly force by police has been a high-profile and contentious issue. In 2022, 1,096 people were killed by police shootings according to The Washington Post, while according to the "Mapping Police Violence" (MPV) project, 1,176 people were killed by police in total. MPV documented 1,213 killings by police for 2023.
A lack of reliable data has made conclusions about race and policing difficult. Several non-government and crowdsourcing projects have been started to address this lack of reliable data. Research has provided mixed results on the extent of racial bias in the police use of deadly force, with some studies finding no racial bias, while other studies conclude there is racial bias in the use of deadly force. (Full article...) -
Image 16"Freedom" is a song by American singer Beyoncé featuring American rapper Kendrick Lamar. It is the tenth track on her sixth studio album, Lemonade (2016), released through Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. The song's music video is part of Beyoncé's 2016 film Lemonade, aired on HBO alongside the album's release. In the years since, the song has become an anthem for various social and political movements.
Beyoncé performed the song live as part of the set list of The Formation World Tour (2016), and at the 2016 BET Awards with Lamar. It received a nomination for Best Rap/Sung Performance at the 2017 Grammy Awards. (Full article...) -
Image 17Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story is an American documentary television series that premiered on July 30, 2018 on Paramount Network. The six-episode series documents the killing of Trayvon Martin and explores the racial tension in the United States that was brought about in its wake. The series is executive produced by Sybrina Fulton, Tracy Martin, Jay-Z, Chachi Senior, Michael Gasparro, Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nason, and Nick Sandow. Furst and Nason also directed the series as well. (Full article...)
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Image 18
Cat Brooks is an American activist, playwright, poet and theater artist. She was a mayoral candidate in Oakland's 2018 election. (Full article...) -
Image 19On August 25, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from Antioch, Illinois, shot and killed two men and wounded another man in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The shootings occurred during the protests, riots, and civil unrest that followed the shooting of Jacob Blake. Race was a major theme in U.S. media commentary, although Rittenhouse and those he shot were white. Rittenhouse was armed with an AR-15 style rifle and had joined a group of armed people in Kenosha who said that they were in Kenosha to protect businesses.
Joseph D. Rosenbaum, a 36-year-old unarmed Kenosha man, ran at Rittenhouse and grabbed the barrel of his rifle after throwing a plastic shopping bag of clothing at him. Rittenhouse shot Rosenbaum four times at close range, killing him. Rittenhouse fled and was pursued by a crowd. Anthony Huber, a 26-year-old-resident of Silver Lake, struck Rittenhouse in the head with a skateboard and attempted to wrest his rifle away; Rittenhouse shot him once, fatally. Gaige Paul Grosskreutz, a 26-year-old West Allis man who pointed a handgun at Rittenhouse, was shot by Rittenhouse once in the right arm and survived. (Full article...) -
Image 20
In May 2020, a young transgender woman of color named Nina Pop was stabbed to death in her own Missouri apartment.
The Human Rights Campaign stated that her death is at least the 10th violent death of an American transgender person or gender non-conforming person in 2020. (Full article...) -
Image 21Police officers using tear gas on protesters
The Ferguson unrest (sometimes called the Ferguson uprising, Ferguson protests, or the Ferguson riots) was a series of protests and riots which began in Ferguson, Missouri on August 10, 2014, the day after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by FPD officer Darren Wilson. The unrest sparked a vigorous debate in the United States about the relationship between law enforcement officers and Black Americans, the militarization of police, and the use-of-force law in Missouri and nationwide. Continuing activism expanded the issues by including modern-day debtors prisons, for-profit policing, and school segregation.
As the details of the shooting emerged, police established curfews and deployed riot squads in anticipation of unrest. Along with peaceful protests, there was a significant amount of looting and violence in the vicinity of the site of the shooting, as well as across the city. Media criticism of the militarization of the police in Ferguson after the shooting was frequent. The unrest continued on November 24, 2014, after a grand jury did not indict Officer Wilson. It briefly flared again on the first anniversary of Brown's shooting. The Department of Justice (DOJ) concluded that Wilson shot Brown in self-defense. (Full article...) -
Image 22
Benjamin Lloyd Crump (born October 10, 1969) is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits. His practice has focused on cases such as those of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Keenan Anderson, Randy Cox, and Tyre Nichols, people affected by the Flint water crisis, the estate of Henrietta Lacks, and the plaintiffs behind the 2019 Johnson & Johnson baby powder lawsuit alleging the company's talcum powder product led to ovarian cancer diagnoses. Crump is also founder of the firm Ben Crump Law of Tallahassee, Florida.
In 2020, Crump became the attorney for the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Jacob Blake. In 2021, he became the attorney for a passenger in the car with Winston Boogie Smith and for the family of Daunte Wright. Ongoing cases surrounding their killings or injuries led to protests against police brutality in America as well as internationally. (Full article...) -
Image 23Muhiyidin El Amin Moye (April 22, 1985 – February 6, 2018), also known as Muhiyidin d'Baha, was a leading Black Lives Matter activist known nationally for crossing a yellow police tape line to snatch a Confederate battle flag from a demonstrator on live television in Charleston, South Carolina, in February 2017. (Full article...)
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Image 24"What They'll Say About Us" is a song by American singer-songwriter Finneas. It was released by OYOY as a single on September 2, 2020. The song was written and produced by Finneas. A lullaby-influenced ballad, the lyrics were inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests and Nick Cordero's death due to COVID-19. "What They'll Say About Us" was noted by music critics for its lyrical content. A music video for the song was released alongside the song and was directed by Sam Bennett in one take. It is the first single from his debut studio album Optimist. (Full article...)
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Image 25
Did you know...
- ... that Arkansas legislator Denise Jones Ennett took part in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of the Arkansas State Capitol?
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Selected images
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Image 1Black Lives Matter demonstration in Oakland, California, December 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 2Ferguson, Missouri, August 17, 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 3Black Lives Matter protest at Herald Square, Manhattan, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 4Black Lives Matter protester at Macy's Herald Square, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 5Protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 7Vehicle with a BLM sticker, September 18, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 8Protest in response to the Alton Sterling killing, San Francisco, California, July 8, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 9A demonstrator raising awareness of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, April 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 10Black Lives Matter protest against St. Paul police brutality at Metro Green Line, September 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 12Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter activists in Westlake Park, Seattle, August 8, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 14Demonstration at Christiansborg Slotsplads, Copenhagen, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 15Protest march in response to the Jamar Clark killing, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 16Black Lives Matter protest on September 20, 2015, against police brutality in St. Paul, Minnesota (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 18"Black Lives Matter" on the facade of the Washington National Cathedral, June 10, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 19Protest march in response to the killing of Philando Castile, St. Paul, Minnesota, July 7, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 20One-year commemoration of the killing of Michael Brown and the Ferguson unrest at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, August 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 21An activist holds a "Black Lives Matter" sign outside the Minneapolis Police Fourth Precinct building following the officer-involved killing of Jamar Clark on November 15, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 22Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., as seen from space on June 8, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 23A Black Lives Matter die-in over rail tracks, protesting alleged police brutality in Saint Paul, Minnesota (September 20, 2015) (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 24Protests in May 2020 after George Floyd's death (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 25George Floyd protests at Lafayette Square, Washington D.C., May 30, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 26The empty pedestal of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol. Subject to increasing controversy since the 1990s, when his prior reputation as a philanthropist came under scrutiny due to a growing awareness of his slave trading, in June 2020 the statue was toppled, defaced and pushed into Bristol Harbour. (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 29Map depicting rates of police killings by state in the United States in 2018 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 31Al Sharpton led the Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 32Black Lives Matter protest in Aotea Square, Auckland, June 14, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 33A Black Lives Matter protest of police brutality in the rotunda of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, in December 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 34"What happened to 'All Lives Matter'?" sign at a protest against Donald Trump, January 29, 2017 (from Black Lives Matter)
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