How We Got Here: The Meaning Behind the Black Lives Matter Movement
Story by Amelia Matheson, "BLM" photograph by Mattia Faloretti
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, protesters all across the United States have been chanting “Black Lives Matter”. But members of certain communities think this is hate speech. It is possible that these citizens were not provided with proper historical context to inform their opinions. So here is a description of the Black Lives Matter movement and why millions of Americans shout this simple phrase for all to hear.
‘Black Lives Matter’ Mural (photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency) via Getty images) in Fulton St. in Brooklyn, June 15 - Forbes Magazine
Ever since its creation, the Black Lives Matter Movement has been the object of great controversy; some Americans even call it a terrorist organization. However, this is not what the hashtag founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi wanted it to be known as. #BlackLivesMatter took Twitter by storm in 2013 after George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of Trayvon Martin. According to its website, the movement was meant to “explicitly combat implicit bias and anti-Black racism and to protect and affirm the beauty and dignity of all Black lives.” These incredible women recognized that Martin’s murderer should have been found guilty and the justice system’s refusal to convict Zimmerman implied that Trayvon’s life did not matter. What is worse is the fact that Martin was not the first nor the last.
In the years that followed this killing, there were more unarmed black men and women who died in police custody or through interactions with law enforcement. BBC News writes of only a few of the black men killed since 2014: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice (2014), Walter Scott (2015), Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile (2016). There are dozens and dozens more. For all of them, protesters of all races marched for miles chanting “Black Lives Matter” because they saw a disproportionate number of unarmed black citizens being killed by police. And it was because they were black.
Several Americans believe the cause of these deaths was not the race of the victims but rather that they were not doing what they were supposed to. That there is no race problem in America’s police departments. That the officers simply feared for their lives. These are the beliefs of Americans who are blind to the pattern of police misconduct in regards to black people and criminality.
For generations, black men have been deemed as evil, predatory people. A 1915 movie by D. W. Griffith titled The Birth of a Nation sought to portray African American men as rapists. In contrast, the film “portrayed the Klansmen as great heroes” of the South who protected their women from savage Negroes (PBS). After watching this film, a man named “Colonel” William Joseph Simmons sought out Klansmen and proposed to lead their new campaign against Black Americans and Jews.
Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans decided to force society and the government to acknowledge the fact that Blacks mattered just as much as Whites. Black parents peacefully and legally fought in 1954 for their children’s right to good and equal education; the Little Rock Nine had to be escorted to school by National Guards. In 1955, Miss Rosa Parks peacefully refused to give up her seat in the “Colored” section of a Montgomery bus to a white man; she was arrested. Her supporters then peacefully boycotted the bus service for several months; it took the Supreme Court one whole year to rule segregation unconstitutional. Martin Luther King Jr. preached peaceful protest and civil disobedience; he was assassinated in 1968. African Americans have been trying for years to tell white America that Black people matter, the message falling on deaf ears to this very day. If the actions of the great civil rights leaders secured racial equality and criminal justice reform 65 years ago, Black people would see in the institutions of our society that their lives matter today. But they do not.
Still, black men are accused of crimes they never commit by their white counterparts. A white woman named Praticia Ripley, for example, was charged on March 23 with the first-degree murder of her autistic son only after she reported to police that “two black men” abducted him (ABC News). There is also Amy Cooper who, just this May, called officers on a black man in Central Park. She told 911 operators that he threatened her life even though all he did was politely ask her to put her dog on a leash. Society is trained to see African Americans as criminals and threats to the personal safety of others. This same rhetoric has found its place in American police departments, causing some officers to see little value in a black person’s life.
This is why protesters chant “Black Lives Matter”. The saying is meant to reiterate the importance and worth of black lives only because it seems like the criminal justice system does not recognize either. 401 years have passed. What will we do today?
Works Cited and Consulted
BBC News. (2020, June 26). George Floyd: Timeline of black deaths caused by police. Retrieved July 29, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52905408
Black Lives Matter. (2019, September 07). Our Co-Founders. Retrieved July 30, 2020, https://blacklivesmatter.com/our-co-founders/
Carrega, C. (2020, May 31). 'Because they can get away with it': Why African Americans are blamed for crimes they didn't commit: Experts. Retrieved July 30, 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/US/african-americans-blamed-crimes-commit-experts/story?id=70906828
PBS, A. (n.d.). The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Retrieved July 30, 2020, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-klan/
