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
- Image 1The Hate U Give is a 2018 American coming-of-age teen drama film produced and directed by George Tillman Jr. from a screenplay by Audrey Wells (who died the day before the film's release), based on the 2017 young adult novel of the same name by Angie Thomas. The film was produced by Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, Robert Teitel and Tillman Jr., and stars Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Lamar Johnson, KJ Apa, Sabrina Carpenter, Common, and Anthony Mackie, and follows the fallout after a high school student witnesses a police shooting.
The project was announced on March 23, 2016, and casting took place during August and September 2017. Principal photography began on September 12, 2017, in Atlanta, Georgia. On February 5, 2018, it was announced that Kian Lawley's role was recast after a video of his use of racially offensive slurs resurfaced. A month later, it was announced that Lawley had been replaced by Apa. (Full article...) - Image 2Assata's Daughters is an American black power organization of young radical African-American women and girls in Chicago, which operates through a Black, queer, feminist lens, that focuses on political education, organizing, and revolutionary services. The group is dedicated to radical liberatory activism in the tradition of Assata Shakur, a former member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA). The organization is often criticised for this connection, as Assata Shakur was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and other crimes in 1977 in the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper.
The group has adopted and expanded upon the tenants of the Ten-Point Program as its platform. This program was written by Huey Newton as the manifesto for the Black Panther Party, a Black Power organization which he co-founded. The group is part of the Police abolition movement. Assata's daughters was founded in March 2015. Assata's Daughters is part of a cluster of black activist organizations known as the Movement for Black Lives. As of 2016, Assata's Daughters had 68 active members. (Full article...) - Image 3
The police abolition movement gained momentum in the U.S. city of Minneapolis during protests of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and culminated in the failed Question 2 ballot measure in 2021 to replace the city's police department with a public safety department. The measure would have removed minimum staffing levels for sworn officers, renamed the Minneapolis Police Department as the Minneapolis Department of Public Safety, and shifted oversight of the new agency from the mayor's office to the city council. It required the support of 51 percent of voters in order to pass. In the Minneapolis municipal election held on November 2, 2021, the measure failed with 43.8 percent voting for it and 56.2 percent voting against it.
The ballot measure was part of the political movement in the aftermath of Floyd's murder by local political activists that sought to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with another system of public safety and divert its budget towards social services programs in the city, such as affordable housing, violence prevention, education, and food security. A public pledge by nine of the 13 elected members of the Minneapolis City Council on June 7, 2020, to "defund police" garnered significant attention for the police abolition movement, as well as considerable political backlash. The goals of the "defund police" pledge were never fully defined by city council members at the time of the pledge and the effort largely collapsed in the following months. A majority of Minneapolis city residents, including a large number of persons from the Black community, opposed a reduction in the size of the city's police force. (Full article...) - Image 4James Craig Anderson was a 47-year-old American man who was murdered in a hate crime in Jackson, Mississippi on June 26, 2011, by 18-year-old Deryl Dedmon of Brandon. At the time of his death, Anderson was working on the assembly line at the Nissan plant in Canton, and raising an adopted son with his partner.
According to police, Dedmon and his friends, a group of white teenagers, robbed and repeatedly beat Anderson before Dedmon ran him over, causing fatal injuries. A motel security camera showed Dedmon and his associates, as well as Dedmon running Anderson over with his truck. (Full article...) - Image 5
The Wall of Moms is a group primarily made up of women who identify as mothers, who have demonstrated in George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon, as well as other groups in U.S. cities including Chicago, Seattle, and Tampa, Florida. The group's first protest was attended by approximately 40 women; hundreds to thousands have participated since then. (Full article...) - Image 6"Shopping while black" is a phrase used for the type of marketplace discrimination that is also called "consumer racial profiling", "consumer racism" or "racial profiling in a retail setting", as it applies to black people. Shopping while black is the experience of being denied service or given poor service because one is black. (Full article...)
- Image 7The 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 8
Black Guns Matter is an organization aimed at educating African Americans about gun culture in the United States, primarily around defending Second Amendment rights. The organization is led by Maj Toure, who founded it in 2016. Black Guns Matter has hosted workshops in multiple cities to teach the basics of firearm safety, U.S. gun laws, and conflict resolution. (Full article...) - Image 9A "Black Lives Matter" street mural was painted in Capitol Hill, Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington in June 2020. Maintained by the Seattle Department of Transportation, the artwork has survived longer than many Black Lives Matter street murals across the United States. (Full article...)
- Image 10"White Privilege II" is a song by American hip hop duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis from their second album This Unruly Mess I've Made (2016). The song, a sequel to Macklemore's solo song "White Privilege" from his first album The Language of My World (2005), discusses white privilege and the social movement associated with Black Lives Matter. According to the duo, "this song is the outcome of an ongoing dialogue with musicians, activists, and teachers within our community in Seattle and beyond. Their work and engagement was essential to the creative process." The song's lyrics span around nine minutes and 1,300 words. One of the project's collaborators is Chicago singer Jamila Woods, whose voice is featured on the track. "White Privilege II" was released as promotional single on January 22, 2016. (Full article...)
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Protests occurred at several locations in the United States in reaction to the killing of Daunte Wright, an unarmed 20-year-old African-American man who was fatally shot by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 11, 2021. Protests over Wright's death began in Brooklyn Center the day of the fatal shooting. By April 12, protests had spread to other locations in the United States. Many demonstrations were part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
After a jury trial in a Minnesota district court, Kimberly Potter, the police officer who fatally shot Wright, was convicted of first-degree and second-degree manslaughter charges on December 23, 2021. (Full article...) - Image 12Individuals and organizations throughout the United States and the world have responded to the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests and riots. (Full article...)
- Image 13A Terry stop in the United States allows the police to briefly detain a person based on reasonable suspicion of involvement in criminal activity. Reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than probable cause which is needed for arrest. When police stop and search a pedestrian, this is commonly known as a stop and frisk. When police stop an automobile, this is known as a traffic stop. If the police stop a motor vehicle on minor infringements in order to investigate other suspected criminal activity, this is known as a pretextual stop. Additional rules apply to stops that occur on a bus.
In the United States at the federal level, the Supreme Court has decided many cases that define the intersection between policing and the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, Congress has not defined a baseline for police behavior. There has been some state action at both the legislative and judicial levels, and also some cities have passed laws on these issues. (Full article...) - Image 14"This Is America" is a song by American hip hop artist Childish Gambino. Written and produced by Gambino and Ludwig Göransson, with additional writing credits going to American rapper Young Thug, it was released on May 6, 2018 at the same time that Gambino was hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live. The song features background vocals from Young Thug alongside fellow American rappers Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd, BlocBoy JB, Quavo of Migos, and Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage. The lyrics and accompanying music video, reflecting the core of the Black Lives Matter movement, confront issues of ongoing systemic racism, including prejudice, racial violence, the ghetto, and law enforcement in the United States, as well as the wider issues of mass shootings and gun violence in the United States. Originally, Gambino intended it to be a diss record towards fellow rapper Drake.
The song's accompanying music video was directed by filmmaker Hiro Murai, a frequent Gambino collaborator. "This Is America" became the 31st song to debut at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming both Gambino's first number one and top ten single in the country. It has also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The song won in all four of its nominated categories at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best Music Video. This made Gambino the first hip-hop artist to win Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and "This Is America" the first rap song to win these awards. (Full article...) - Image 15Antwon Rose II was a 17-year-old African-American who was fatally shot in East Pittsburgh on June 19, 2018, by police officer Michael Rosfeld after being suspected of attempted murder by participating in a drive-by shooting. According to the police report, Rose had an empty handgun magazine in his pocket and gunshot residue on his hand. Allegheny County Medical Examiner Daniel Wolfe said the residue was likely the result of Rose firing a gun. He was transported to UPMC where he was later declared deceased.
Following the shooting, Rosfeld was charged with criminal homicide, and was found not guilty. In August 2018 Rose’s family filed a civil rights lawsuit against Rosfeld and the borough of East Pittsburgh. The family alleged racial bias, lack of training, and use of excessive force. The suit was settled in October 2019 for $2 million. (Full article...) - Image 16
- Image 17On April 12, 2015, Baltimore Police Department officers arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American resident of Baltimore, Maryland. Gray's neck and spine were injured while he was in a police vehicle and he went into a coma. On April 18, there were protests in front of the Western district police station. Gray died on April 19.
Further protests were organized after Gray's death became public knowledge, amid the police department's continuing inability to adequately or consistently explain the events following the arrest and the injuries. Spontaneous protests started after the funeral service, although several included violent elements. Civil unrest continued with at least twenty police officers injured, at least 250 people arrested, 285 to 350 businesses damaged, 150 vehicle fires, 60 structure fires, 27 drugstores looted, thousands of police and Maryland National Guard troops deployed, and with a state of emergency declared in the city limits of Baltimore. The state of emergency was lifted on May 6. The series of protests took place against a historical backdrop of racial and poverty issues in Baltimore. (Full article...) - Image 18The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.
The Hate U Give was published on February 28, 2017, by HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray, which had won a bidding war for the rights to the novel. The book was a commercial success, debuting at number one on The New York Times young adult best-seller list, where it remained for 50 weeks. It won several awards and received critical praise for Thomas's writing and timely subject matter. In writing the novel, Thomas attempted to expand readers' understanding of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as difficulties faced by black Americans who employ code switching. These themes, as well as the vulgar language, attracted some controversy and caused the book to be one of the most challenged books of 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021 according to the American Library Association. (Full article...) - Image 19A bronze statue of George Floyd (1973–2020), an African-American man who was murdered by police in Minneapolis, was completed by Stanley Watts and unveiled in 2021. It is situated outside Newark, New Jersey's City Hall in Government Center. (Full article...)
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New York City has been the site of many Black Lives Matter protests in response to incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The Black Lives Matter movement began as a hashtag after the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin, and became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans, Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Garner was killed in the Staten Island borough of New York City, leading to protests, demonstrations, and work towards changes in policing and the law. Following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020, the global response included extensive protests in New York City, and several subsequent changes to policy. (Full article...) - Image 2116 Shots is a documentary film about the murder of Laquan McDonald. Written and directed by Richard Rowley, it is an updated and expanded version of the 2018 movie The Blue Wall. It had a limited theatrical release on June 7, 2019, and started streaming on Showtime on June 14, 2019. It was released on DVD on August 4, 2020.
16 Shots won a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigative Documentary and a Television Academy Honor and was nominated for a Peabody Award. (Full article...) - Image 22Dolal 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 23"Driving while black" (DWB) is a sardonic description of racial profiling of African-American motor vehicle drivers. It implies that a motorist may be stopped by a police officer largely because of racial bias rather than any apparent violation of traffic law. It is a word play of "driving while intoxicated." (Full article...)
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Black Birders Week is a week-long series of online events to highlight black nature enthusiasts and to increase the visibility of black birders, who face unique challenges and dangers when they are engaged in outdoor activities. The event was created as a response to the Central Park birdwatching incident and police brutality against Black Americans. The inaugural event ran from May 31 to June 5, 2020. The week of events was organized by a group of STEM professionals and students known as the BlackAFinSTEM Collective. (Full article...) - Image 25
Law enforcement authorities fatally shot Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a 32-year-old black American man, in the Uptown area of Minneapolis at 2:08 p.m. CDT on June 3, 2021. Smith was being pursued by a U.S. Marshals Service task force that apprehends wanted fugitives. The arrest operation had the participation of undercover agents from several local police agencies in Minnesota. The officers did not use body cameras or dashcams when apprehending Smith. Controversy over the lack of law enforcement footage of the arrest operation led to local police agencies ceasing aid to the Marshals Service's fugitive task force, and to changes to body and dash camera policies by the Marshals and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Several protests were held in reaction to Smith's killing, beginning on June 3, and the Uptown area experienced civil disorder over the subsequent weeks. Deona Marie Knajdek was killed and three others were injured on June 13 after a man rammed his vehicle into a group of demonstrators who had blockaded a street. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, law enforcement authorities said publicly that Smith failed to comply with arresting officers and had brandished a gun. An attorney for the passenger in the vehicle with Smith contradicted the law enforcement description of events. The passenger had not seen a gun on Smith or in the vehicle. (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
- Image 1Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., as seen from space on June 8, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 3Protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 4"What happened to 'All Lives Matter'?" sign at a protest against Donald Trump, January 29, 2017 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 5A demonstrator raising awareness of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, April 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 6Protest march in response to the Jamar Clark killing, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 8Black Lives Matter demonstration in Oakland, California, December 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 9Protest march in response to the killing of Philando Castile, St. Paul, Minnesota, July 7, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 10A Black Lives Matter die-in over rail tracks, protesting alleged police brutality in Saint Paul, Minnesota (September 20, 2015) (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 11Ferguson, Missouri, August 17, 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 12Black Lives Matter protester at Macy's Herald Square, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 13Black Lives Matter protest in Aotea Square, Auckland, June 14, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 14Black Lives Matter protest against St. Paul police brutality at Metro Green Line, September 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 15Protests in May 2020 after George Floyd's death (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 17"Black Lives Matter" on the facade of the Washington National Cathedral, June 10, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 18Black Lives Matter protest on September 20, 2015, against police brutality in St. Paul, Minnesota (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 19An 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)
- 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)
- Image 21The 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)
- Image 22A 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)
- Image 24Map depicting rates of police killings by state in the United States in 2018 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 25Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter activists in Westlake Park, Seattle, August 8, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 27Black Lives Matter protest at Herald Square, Manhattan, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 30Demonstration at Christiansborg Slotsplads, Copenhagen, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 31Protest in response to the Alton Sterling killing, San Francisco, California, July 8, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 32Al Sharpton led the Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 33George Floyd protests at Lafayette Square, Washington D.C., May 30, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
- Image 34Vehicle with a BLM sticker, September 18, 2015 (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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