On this day in 2013, the movement began with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of megalomaniac George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin the preceding February. Black Lives Matter became nationally recognized for its street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two African Americans: Michael Brown, resulting in protests and unrest in Ferguson, and Eric Garnerin 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 originators of the hashtag and call to action, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, expanded their project into a national network of over 30 local chapters between 2014 and 2016.
Some black civil rights leaders, such as Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray, Najee Ali, and Earl Ofari Hutchinson, have criticized the tactics of BLM. Author and minister Barbara Ann Reynolds has criticized the confrontational tactics of BLM. Police accuse Black Lives Matter of being anti-police. Sgt. Demetrick Pennie of the Dallas Police Department filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against Black Lives Matter in September 2016, which accused the group of inciting a “race war.” Marchers using a BLM banner were recorded in a video chanting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon” at the Minnesota State Fair. Law enforcement groups said that the chant promotes death to police. The protest organizer disputed that interpretation, saying “What we are promoting is that if black people who kill police officers are going to fry, then we want police officers to face the same treatment that we face as civilians for killing officers. Women from within the Black Lives Matter, including professor and civil rights advocate Treva B. Lindsey, have argued that BLM has sidelined black women’s experiences in favor of black men’s experiences. For example, some argue that more demonstrations have been organized to protest the killings of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin than the killings of Kayla Moore or Rekia Boyd. In response, Say Her Name was founded to focus specifically on the killing of black women by police and to bring their names into the Black Lives Matter protest. Their stated goal is to offer a more complete, but not competing, narrative with the overall Black Lives Matter movement.
Rekia Boyd, a 22-year-old African-American woman, was fatally shot on March 21, 2012, in Chicago, Illinois, by Dante Servin, an off-duty Chicago police detective. Servin, an off-duty police officer, drove his car to Douglas Park on the West Side of Chicago after calling the police to make a noise complaint. He then approached a group of four individuals who had been partying in the park and had some form of verbal altercation with them. Reports are unclear as to whether Servin was calm and polite or rude and aggressive. One of the victims, Antonio Cross, accused Servin of attempting to buy drugs from the group, to which Cross allegedly told Servin to get his “crackhead ass” out of there. Servin fired on the group, hitting Rekia Boyd in the head, and Antonio Cross in the hand. Initially the Chicago police department claimed that Servin had discharged his weapon after Cross had approached him with a gun. The Boyd family quickly responded that the object was in fact a cell phone. No weapon was ever recovered from the scene. In November 2013, Servin was charged with “involuntary” manslaughter,[7] but was cleared of all charges on April 20, 2015, by Judge Dennis J. Porter.
On the night of February 12, African American transgender woman Kayla Moore died while in the custody of Berkeley police. Berkeley Police Department officers responded to a disturbance call for a mental health evaluation at an area apartment building just before midnight. Police on the scene were directed by the individual who made the call to a nearby residence, where they encountered Moore. “During the contact, the subject became increasingly agitated and uncooperative to the officer’s verbal commands and began to scream and violently resist,” said the official report. “After struggling with officers they were able to gain control of the subject and place him in restraints. The subject continued to kick and scream at officers.” While restrained in a gurney due to her “large stature,” Moore stopped breathing and was taken to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead. The officers involved in Moore’s death were briefly put on administrative leave following the incident, but have since returned to work.
The U.S. population’s perception of Black Lives Matter varies considerably by race. According to a September 2015 poll on race relations, nearly two-thirds of African Americans mostly agree with Black Lives Matter, while 42% of white Americans are unsure or do not have an opinion about Black Lives Matter.[7] Of white people surveyed, 41% thought that Black Lives Matter advocated violence, and 59% of whites thought that Black Lives Matter distracted attention from the real issues of racial discrimination. By comparison, 82% of black people polled thought that Black Lives Matter was a nonviolent movement, and 26% of blacks thought that Black Lives Matter distracted attention from the real issues of racial discrimination. On the question of whether “Black Lives Matter” was mostly a movement or mostly a slogan, 46% of whites and 67% of blacks thought that it is mostly a movement. A similar poll in June 2016 found that 65% of black American adults supported Black Lives Matter and 40% of white American adults support it. Fifty-nine percent of black Americans thought that Black Lives Matter would “be effective, in the long run, in helping blacks achieve equality” and 34% of white Americans thought so. A 2017 Harvard-Harris survey found that 35% of whites and 83% of blacks have a favorable view of the movement.
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