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. , 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
A "Black Lives Matter" street mural has been painted in Cincinnati, in the U.S. state of Ohio.
The mural appears on Plum Street between Eighth and Ninth streets. (Full article...) -
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The police abolition movement is a political movement, mostly active in the United States, that advocates replacing policing with other systems of public safety. Police abolitionists believe that policing, as a system, is inherently flawed and cannot be reformed—a view that rejects the ideology of police reformists. While reformists seek to address the ways in which policing occurs, abolitionists seek to transform policing altogether through a process of disbanding, disempowering, and disarming the police. Abolitionists argue that the institution of policing is deeply rooted in a history of white supremacy and settler colonialism and that it is inseparable from a pre-existing racial capitalist order, and thus believe a reformist approach to policing will always fail.
Police abolition is a process that requires communities to create alternatives to policing. This process involves the deconstruction of the preconceived understandings of policing and resisting co-option by reformists. It also involves engaging in and supporting practices that reduce police power and legitimacy, such as defunding the police. (Full article...) -
Image 3On August 13, 2016, a riot began in the Sherman Park neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sparked by the fatal police shooting of 23-year-old Sylville Smith. During the three-day turmoil, several people, including police officers, were injured and dozens of protesters arrested. A nightly curfew was set up for teenagers in the area.
Smith was running on foot and armed with a stolen handgun when he was shot. Smith and the officer who fired the fatal shots, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, were both African-American. Video from the officer's bodycam showed that Smith had turned with the gun in his hand toward the officer just before the officer shot him. (Full article...) -
Image 4On 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 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 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 5Rashan Charles, a 20-year-old British man, died on 22 July 2017 following contact with an officer from the Metropolitan Police in Dalston, England. Charles died after swallowing and choking on a package containing caffeine and Paracetamol, after being chased and restrained by a police officer.
This was the second death in little more than a month of a young black man in London following police contact, after the death of Edson Da Costa. The footage of Charles being restrained was shared on social media As with Da Costa's death, it led to multiple protests. An inquest in June 2018 concluded that Charles had died as a result of the object obstructing his airway, and that the officers were not responsible. (Full article...) -
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#SayHerName is a social movement that seeks to raise awareness for Black women victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence in the United States. The movement's name was created by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF). #SayHerName aims to highlight the gender-specific ways in which Black women are disproportionately affected by fatal acts of racial injustice. In an effort to create a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter, the AAPF coined the hashtag #SayHerName in December 2014.
In May 2015, the AAPF released a report entitled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women", which outlined the goals and objectives of the #SayHerName movement. In July 2015, Sandra Bland, a woman who had been taken into police custody after a traffic violation, was found hanged three days later in her jail cell. Following Bland's death, the AAPF, the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, and Andrea Ritchie issued an updated version of the original report. (Full article...) -
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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 8The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) is a coalition of more than 50 groups representing the interests of black communities across the United States. Members include the Black Lives Matter Network, the National Conference of Black Lawyers, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. They are endorsed by groups such as Color of Change, Race Forward, Brooklyn Movement Center, PolicyLink, Million Women March Cleveland, and ONE DC, and the coalition receives communications and tactical support from an organization named Blackbird.
On July 24, 2015 the movement first convened at Cleveland State University where between 1,500 and 2,000 activists gathered to participate in open discussions and demonstrations. The conference initially attempted to "strategize ways for the Movement for Black Lives to hold law enforcement accountable for their actions on a national level". However, the conference resulted in the formation of a much more significant social movement. At the end of the three day conference, on July 26, the Movement for Black Lives initiated a year long "process of convening local and national groups to create a United Front". This year long process ultimately resulted in the establishment of an organizational platform that articulates the goals, demands, and policies for which the Movement for Black Lives supports in order to achieve the "liberation" of black communities across America.
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Following the murder of George Floyd, M4BL released the BREATHE Act, which called for sweeping legislative changes surrounding policing. The policy bill included calls to divest from policing and reinvest funds directly into community resources and alternative emergency response models. (Full article...) -
Image 9Jen Reid (born 2 November 1970) is a British Black Lives Matter activist from Bristol. After the statue of Edward Colston was pushed into Bristol Harbour, Reid stood on the empty plinth and made a Black Power salute. This pose was then recreated in the sculpture A Surge of Power (Jen Reid) 2020. (Full article...)
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Image 10Dolal Idd was a 23-year-old Somali-American man who was killed in an exchange of gunfire with Minneapolis police officers at approximately 6:15 p.m. CST on December 30, 2020, after he shot at them from inside the car he was driving. The fatal encounter happened in the U.S. state of Minnesota during a police sting operation.
Minneapolis police were investigating Idd for illegal possession and sale of firearms. Idd was prohibited from possessing firearms as part of his probation from a prior felony conviction. A confidential police informant intermediated as a buyer for a semi-automatic pistol, and made arrangements for a buyer to purchase the gun from Idd so that police officers could arrest him. Video captured by a police body camera the evening of December 30 showed police officers attempting to arrest Idd who struck several police vehicles with the car he was driving. After the vehicle driven by Idd was blocked by several police vehicles to prevent escape, Idd fired a handgun from inside the car he was driving through a rolled up window that shattered outward and hit a police vehicle containing several police officers. Minneapolis police officers Paul Huynh, Darcy Klund, and Jason Schmit returned several rounds of gunfire, killing Idd at the scene. (Full article...) -
Image 11African Americans, and African American males in particular, have an ethnic stereotype in which they are portrayed as dangerous criminals. This stereotype is associated with the fact that African Americans are proportionally over-represented in the numbers of those that are arrested and convicted for committing crimes. It has appeared frequently in American popular culture, reinforcing the negative consequences of systemic racism. (Full article...)
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Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an American academic, writer, and activist. She is a professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016). For this book, Taylor received the 2016 Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book from the Lannan Foundation. She is a co-publisher of Hammer & Hope, an online magazine that began in 2023. (Full article...) -
Image 13On December 22, 2020, 47-year-old Andre Hill was shot and killed by Officer Adam Coy of the Columbus Division of Police in Columbus, Ohio. Coy had been called to the neighborhood in response to a non-emergency call from a neighbor who reportedly witnessed someone sit in an SUV and turn the car on and off. Hill was leaving a friend's house when Coy confronted and shot him. Hill was unarmed, and was holding a smartphone. Coy was fired from the Columbus Police less than a week later.
The shooting was the second killing by police in Columbus in December 2020, following the shooting of Casey Goodson on December 4 by a Franklin County Sheriff's deputy. (Full article...) -
Image 14Oscar Grant III was a 22-year-old African-American man who was killed in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009 by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California. Responding to reports of a fight on a crowded Bay Area Rapid Transit train returning from San Francisco, BART Police officers detained Grant and several other passengers on the platform at the Fruitvale BART Station. BART officer Anthony Pirone kneed Grant in the head and forced Grant to lie face down on the platform. Mehserle drew his pistol and shot Grant. Grant was rushed to Highland Hospital in Oakland and pronounced dead later that day. The events were captured on bystanders’ mobile phones. Owners disseminated their footage to media outlets and to various websites where it went viral. Both protests and riots took place in the following days.
Some of the other passengers on the train, along with Grant's girlfriend Sophina, were able to break up the fight. Shortly afterward, the train conductor announced to the passengers that the police had been contacted and were on their way to the station at which they were stopped. As the passengers began to exit the train, Grant and his girlfriend saw the police walking towards them and split up. As they got closer to the train, police started to pick out people they believed to have been involved in the fight. Pirone walked up to two African-American men and ripped the jacket off one. Pirone threw three people against the wall and then turned to the train, yelling for everyone involved in the fight to exit the train and come to him. Everyone remained on the train, so Pirone walked into the train to see if there was anyone who looked as if they were involved in the fight. Pirone saw Grant and removed him. (Full article...) -
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Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights. Woke has also been used as shorthand for some ideas of the American Left involving identity politics and social justice, such as white privilege and reparations for slavery in the United States.
The phrase stay woke has been present in AAVE since the 1930s. In some contexts, it referred to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans. The phrase was uttered in recordings from the mid-20th century by Lead Belly and, post-millennium, by Erykah Badu. (Full article...) -
Image 16On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk alleged that he made a purchase using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face-down in a street. Two other police officers, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, assisted Chauvin in restraining Floyd. Lane had also pointed a gun at Floyd's head before Floyd was handcuffed. A fourth police officer, Tou Thao, prevented bystanders from intervening.
Before being placed on the ground, Floyd had exhibited signs of anxiety, complaining about having claustrophobia, and being unable to breathe. After being restrained, he became more distressed, still complaining of breathing difficulties, of the knee on his neck, and of fear of imminent death. After several minutes, Floyd stopped speaking. For the last few minutes, he lay motionless, and Kueng found no pulse when urged to check. Despite this, Chauvin ignored bystanders' pleas to lift his knee from Floyd's neck. The next day, after videos recorded by witnesses and security cameras became public, the Minneapolis Police Department fired all four officers. Two autopsies, and one autopsy review, found Floyd's death to be a homicide. (Full article...) -
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The Charleston church shooting, also known as the Charleston church massacre, was an anti-black mass shooting and hate crime that occurred on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed, and one was injured, during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest black church in the southern United States. Among the fatalities was the senior pastor, state senator Clementa C. Pinckney. All ten victims were African Americans. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting at a place of worship in U.S. history and is the deadliest mass shooting in South Carolina history.
Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist, had attended the Bible study before opening fire. He was found to have targeted members of this church because of its history and status. In December 2016, Roof was convicted of 33 federal hate crime and murder charges. On January 10, 2017, he was sentenced to death for those crimes. Roof was separately charged with nine counts of murder in the South Carolina state courts. In April 2017, Roof pleaded guilty to all nine state charges in order to avoid receiving a second death sentence, and as a result, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He will receive automatic appeals of his death sentence, but he may eventually be executed by the federal justice system. (Full article...) -
Image 18The killing of Greg Gunn occurred on the morning of February 25, 2016, in Montgomery, Alabama. Gunn, a 58-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed near his home after fleeing from a stop-and-frisk initiated by Aaron Cody Smith, a white police officer. Smith was charged with murder and indicted by a grand jury in 2016. The case came to trial in late 2019 following a change of venue to Ozark, Alabama. Smith was found guilty of manslaughter, and, in January 2020, was sentenced to 14 years in prison. (Full article...)
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Image 19"Loyal Like Sid & Nancy" is a song by American indie pop band Foster the People from their third studio album, Sacred Hearts Club (2017). It was released on June 30, 2017, as the album's second single. (Full article...)
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Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot on September 20, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina, by Brentley Vinson, an African-American city police officer. It sparked both peaceful and violent protests led by Black Lives Matter in Charlotte.
The shooting prompted investigations by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Department of Justice. As is customary for the department, Vinson was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. In November 2016, county prosecutors decided not to charge Vinson, concluding that the shooting was justified. (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 22I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street is a 2017 book by Matt Taibbi, published by Spiegel & Grau, about the killing of Eric Garner. (Full article...)
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Image 23
Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black American man, was fatally shot on February 2, 2022, by SWAT officer Mark Hanneman of the Minneapolis Police Department inside an apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where police were executing a no-knock search warrant in a homicide investigation. The officer-involved shooting was reviewed by the office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the office of Hennepin County attorney Michael Freeman, and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Ellison and Freeman declined to file criminal charges against the officer who shot Locke in a report released on April 6, 2022.
Several protests were held in reaction to the shooting. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey imposed a moratorium on most no-knock warrants on February 4. Multiple reviews of the no-knock warrant policy were announced, including by the Minneapolis City Council Policy and Government Oversight Committee and the Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review, as well as racial justice activist DeRay Mckesson and professor of police studies Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University in coordination with the city. On April 8, Minneapolis banned "no knock" warrants in a new policy. (Full article...) -
Image 24On April 21, 2021, Andrew Brown Jr., a 42-year-old black American, was killed by a gunshot to the back of the head by the Sheriff Department in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, United States. The shooting occurred while deputies were serving drug-related search and arrest warrants at the Brown residence. The arrest warrant, issued on April 20, was for possession with intent to sell "approximately three grams of cocaine." Seven officers were placed on leave as a result of the shooting.
The total amount of footage of the incident is around 2 hours. After being allowed to watch 20 seconds of body camera footage, a Brown family lawyer said that shots were first heard while Brown's car was sitting stationary, in his driveway, and that both of his hands were on the steering wheel. The District Attorney disagreed, saying shots were heard only after Brown put the vehicle in motion, attempted to flee, and caused the car to "make contact" with the arresting officers (none of the deputies sustained injuries). After being allowed to watch around 18 minutes of footage, a second Brown family lawyer said that the videos did not show Brown initiating contact between his car and the deputies. The full body camera videos of the shooting are currently being blocked by a judge's order from being publicly released. (Full article...) -
Image 25The killing of John Crawford III occurred on August 5, 2014. Crawford was a 22-year-old African-American man shot and killed by a police officer in a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio, near Dayton, while he was holding a BB gun that was for sale in the store. The shooting was captured on surveillance video and led to protests from groups including the NAACP and the Black Lives Matter movement.
A grand jury declined to indict the two officers involved on criminal charges. The City of Beavercreek eventually settled civil claims for wrongful death brought by Crawford's estate and family. (Full article...)
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 1"What happened to 'All Lives Matter'?" sign at a protest against Donald Trump, January 29, 2017 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 2One-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 3Demonstration at Christiansborg Slotsplads, Copenhagen, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 5Ferguson, Missouri, August 17, 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 8Black Lives Matter protest at Herald Square, Manhattan, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 9Protest in response to the Alton Sterling killing, San Francisco, California, July 8, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 12George Floyd protests at Lafayette Square, Washington D.C., May 30, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 13Protests in May 2020 after George Floyd's death (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 14A demonstrator raising awareness of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, April 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 15Protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 17Map depicting rates of police killings by state in the United States in 2018 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 18Protest march in response to the Jamar Clark killing, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 19Black Lives Matter demonstration in Oakland, California, December 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 20An 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 21"Black Lives Matter" on the facade of the Washington National Cathedral, June 10, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 22Al 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 24Black Lives Matter protest on September 20, 2015, against police brutality in St. Paul, Minnesota (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 25Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter activists in Westlake Park, Seattle, August 8, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 26Black Lives Matter protest in Aotea Square, Auckland, June 14, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 27Protest march in response to the killing of Philando Castile, St. Paul, Minnesota, July 7, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 28Black Lives Matter protester at Macy's Herald Square, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 29Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., as seen from space on June 8, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 30Black Lives Matter protest against St. Paul police brutality at Metro Green Line, September 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 31A 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 32A 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 33Vehicle with a BLM sticker, September 18, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 34The 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)
In the news
- 16 May 2024 – Murder of Garrett Foster
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott pardons Daniel Perry, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing a man at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. (The New York Times)
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