Black Lives Matter Movement
Overview:
What is it? – Social movement and organization
Where?- International, based in the United States
Purpose? – Advocacy and Protest for Black rights
Founders? – Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter is an international organization, network and movement advocating for the civil rights of Black people
all over the world. It was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. From their official website they describe themselves: “Black Lives Matter Foundation Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and counteracting acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.”BLM is a movement advocating for nonviolent civil disobedience in protest against police brutality and all racially motivated violence against Black people. Find out more
Black Lives Matter Canada
Black Lives Matter Canada is another chapter of BLM, that exists to support Black communities and actively work against anti-Black racism and systems. They “work to forge critical connections and to work in solidarity with Black communities, Black-centric networks, solidarity movements, and allies in order to to dismantle all forms of state-sanctioned oppression, violence, and brutality committed against all Black communities, including African, Caribbean, Afro
-Indigenous, migrant, queer, trans, and disabled Black communities.” They are creating spaces and events for Black communities, art and culture. Black Lives Matter Canada also makes it a point to support the Indigenous community of Canada. On their webpage they say: “In our movement for Black liberation, we join calls to decolonize Turtle Island and Nunavut Nunangat. Our struggles are tied up with the struggles of the Indigenous people of the land on which many of our ancestors were brought and forced into brutalization—a living apocalypse. There is no Black Liberation without Indigenous Liberation on Turtle Island.” A main focus of their organization is the defunding of the police and other demands they have include education, policy changes and incarceration. Find out more
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