BLM international movement
In 2015, after the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, black activists around the world modeled efforts for reform on Black Lives Matter and the Arab Spring. This international movement has been referred to as the "Black Spring". Connections have also been forged with parallel international efforts such as the Dalit rights movement.
On July 18, 2020, thousands of protesters marched near Paris to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of Adama Traoré, a man with color who died in police custody. Adama Traoré was arrested in July 2016. He fainted after being pinned to the ground by police officers and later died at a police station. An anti-racism march also took place in the Berlin to condemn police brutality. More than 1,500 protesters marched holding posters saying, "racism kills, mentally, physically, globally".
Australia
Following the death of Ms Dhu in police custody in August 2014, protests often made reference to the BLM movement. In July 2016, a BLM rally was organized in Melbourne, Australia, which 3,500 people attended. The protest also emphasized the issues of mistreatment of Aboriginal Australians by the Australian police and government.
In May 2017, Black Lives Matter was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, which "honors a nominee who has promoted 'peace with justice', human rights and non-violence".
In early June 2020, following the recent George Floyd protests in the US, there were protests across Australia, with many of them focusing on the local issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody, racism in Australia and other injustices faced by Indigenous Australians.
Canada
In July 2015, BLM protesters shut down Allen Road in Toronto, Ontario, protesting the shooting deaths of two black men in the metropolitan area—Andrew Loku and Jermaine Carby—at the hands of police. In September, BLM activists shut down streets in Toronto, citing police brutality and solidarity with "marginalized black lives" as reason for the shutdown. Black Lives Matter was a featured part of the Take Back the Night event in Toronto.
In June 2016, Black Lives Matter was selected by Pride Toronto as the honored group in that year's Pride parade, during which they staged a sit-in to block the parade from moving forward for approximately half an hour. They issued several demands for Pride to adjust its relationship with LGBTQ people of color, including stable funding and a suitable venue for the established Blockorama event, improved diversity in the organization's staff and volunteer base, and that Toronto Police officers be banned from marching in the parade in uniform. Pride executive director Mathieu Chantelois signed BLM's statement of demand, but later asserted that he had signed it only to end the sit-in and get the parade moving, and had not agreed to honor the demands. In late August 2016, the Toronto chapter protested outside the Special Investigations Unit in Mississauga in response to the death of Abdirahman Abdi, who died during an arrest in Ottawa.
The other focal point of the Black Lives Matter movement in Canada is addressing issues, racism and other injustices faced by Indigenous Canadians.
New Zealand
On June 1, 2020, several BLM solidarity protests in response to the death of George Floyd were held in several New Zealand cities including Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Tauranga, Palmerston North and Hamilton. The Auckland event, which attracted between 2,000 and 4,000 participants, was organized by several members of New Zealand's African community. Auckland organizer Mahlete Tekeste, African-American expatriate Kainee Simone, and sportsperson Israel Adesanya compared racism, mass incarceration, and police violence against African Americans to the over-representation of Māori and Pacific Islanders in New Zealand prisons, the controversial armed police response squad trials, and existing racism against minorities in New Zealand including the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Hip hop artist and music producer Mazbou Q also called on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to condemn violence against black Americans.
The left-wing Green Party, a member of the Labor-led coalition government, has also expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement, linking the plight of African Americans to the racism, inequality, and higher incarceration rate experienced by the Māori and Pasifika communities. The BLM protests in New Zealand attracted criticism from Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters for violating the country's COVID-19 pandemic social distancing regulations banning mass gatherings of over 100 people.
United Kingdom
On August 4, 2016, BLM protesters blocked London City Airport in London, England. Several demonstrators chained themselves together on the airport's runway. Nine people were arrested in connection with the incident. There were also BLM-themed protests in other English cities including Birmingham and Nottingham. The UK-held protests marked the fifth anniversary of the shooting death of Mark Duggan.
On June 25, 2017, BLM supporters protested in Stratford, London over the death of Edson Da Costa, who died in police custody. There were no arrests made at the protest.
Black Lives Matter UK has worked with the coalition Wretched of the Earth to represent the voices of indigenous people and people of color in the climate justice movement.
Black Lives Matter UK held protests in 2020 in support of the Black Lives Matter protests in the USA. London protests took place in Trafalgar Square on May 31, Hyde Park on June 3, Parliament Square on June 6, and outside the US Embassy on June 7. Similar protests took place in Manchester, Bristol, and Cardiff. The UK protests not only showed solidarity with USA protesters, they also commemorated black people who have died in the UK, with protesters chanting, carrying signs, and sharing social media posts with names of victims including Julian Cole, Belly Mujinga, Nuno Cardoso, Sarah Reed, and more.
On June 7, 2020 protests continued in many towns and cities. During a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol, the city center statue of Edward Colston, a philanthropist, politician and slave trader, was pulled down by protesters, rolled along the road and pushed into Bristol Harbour. The act was later condemned by Home Secretary Priti Patel who said "This hooliganism is utterly indefensible."
In London, after it was defaced a few days earlier, protesters defaced the statue of Winston Churchill, Parliament Square, Westminster with graffiti for a second time. Black spray paint was sprayed over his name and the words "was a racist" were sprayed underneath. A protester also attempted to burn the Union Jack Flag flying at the Cenotaph, a memorial to Britain's war dead. Later in the evening violence broke out between protesters and Police. A total of 49 Police Officers were injured after demonstrators threw bottles and fireworks at them.
Over the weekend, a total of 135 arrests were made by Police. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson commented on the events saying "those who attack public property or the police – who injure the police officers who are trying to keep us all safe – those people will face the full force of the law; not just because of the hurt and damage they are causing, but because of the damage they are doing to the cause they claim to represent.
Peaceful protests took place in Leeds' Millennium Square on 14 June 2020 organized by a coalition of organizations: Black Voices Matter', which included Black Lives Matter Leeds. A second protest was held on Woodhouse Moor on 21 June, organized by Black Lives Matter Leeds.
On 18 June 2020, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab aroused controversy when he said in a radio interview that the "taking the knee" gesture associated with Black Lives Matter "feels to me like a symbol of subjugation and subordination, rather than one of liberation and emancipation", and suggested that it had originated in the TV series Game of Thrones.
On 28 June 2020, Black Lives Matter UK faced criticism for making a series of tweets from their verified Twitter account regarding Israel, including one that claims "mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism". The Premier League, who are carrying the Black Lives Matter logo on their football shirts for the rest of the 2019/20 season, subsequently said that attempts by groups to hijack the cause to suit their own political ends are entirely unwelcome. The BBC banned presenters and guests from wearing Black Lives Matter badges on air to avoid showing “visual symbols of support” for Black Lives Matter on screen.
Germany
On June 6, 2020, tens of thousands of people gathered across Germany to support the Black Lives Matter movement.
Denmark
In Denmark, an organization named Black Lives Matter Denmark was in 2016 founded by Bwalya Sørensen [da], a woman from Zambia that came to Denmark when she was 19 years old. The organization is centered around Sørensen and mainly focus on rejected asylum seekers and criminals foreigners sentenced to expulsion from Denmark. The connection to the US organization is unclear, but Sørensen have said she was encouraged be someone in the US to start a Danish chapter, and that she in 2017 were visited by US co-founder Opal Tometi. As of June 2020, the Danish organization is not listed as a chapter on the Black Lives Matter website.
In June 2020, following the death of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter Denmark held a demonstration in Copenhagen that attracted 15,000 participants. Following the demonstration, the organization and Sørensen in particular received much criticism because rules separated people by ethnicity: at the demonstration, only black people could be in front, and white people were disallowed to participate in some chants. Other controversy included Sørensen refusing to co-host a demonstration with Amnesty International because their employees were white, and illegally raising money while calling the missing permit for "civil disobedience". Sørensen herself have been criticized for splitting the movement with her confrontational style.
A new organization named Afro Danish Collective was announced in June 2020, with Roger Matthisen [da], former member of the Folketing for The Alternative, as spokesperson. The organization has similar goals as Black Lives Matter Denmark, but will take a more moderate approach, including not distinguishing between people at demonstrations based on their skin color. Matthisen said Afro Danish Collective was in part established because the leadership of Black Lives Matter Denmark had not been professional enough.
Japan
In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, several demonstrations took place in Japan, including a 1,000-person demonstration in Osaka on June 7, 2020, and a 3,500-person march through the streets of Shibuya and Harajuku areas of Tokyo on June 14, 2020.
2016 US presidential election
Primaries
Democrats
At the Netroots Nation Conference in July 2015, dozens of Black Lives Matter activists took over the stage at an event featuring Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders. Activists, including Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, asked both candidates for specific policy proposals to address deaths in police custody. The protesters chanted several slogans, including "if I die in police custody, burn everything down" and "Shut this crap down". The expression "Shut it down" would go on to become a popular phrase in Black Lives Matter protests and on social media.
After conference organizers pleaded with the protesters for several minutes, O'Malley responded by pledging to release a wide-ranging plan for criminal justice reform. Protesters later booed O'Malley when he stated "Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter." O'Malley later apologized for his remarks, saying that he did not mean to disrespect the black community.
On August 8, 2015, a speech by Democratic presidential candidate and civil rights activist Bernie Sanders was disrupted by a group who would go on to found the Seattle Chapter of Black Lives Matter including chapter co-founder Marissa Johnson who walked onstage, seized the microphone from him and called his supporters racists and white supremacists. Sanders issued a platform in response. Nikki Stephens, the operator of a Facebook page called "Black Lives Matter: Seattle" issued an apology to Sanders' supporters, claiming these actions did not represent her understanding of BLM. She was then sent messages by members of the Seattle Chapter which she described as threatening, and was forced to change the name of her group to "Black in Seattle". The founders of Black Lives Matter stated that they had not issued an apology. In August 2015, the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution supporting Black Lives Matter.
In the first Democratic primary debate, the presidential candidates were asked whether black lives matter or all lives matter. In reply, Bernie Sanders stated, "Black lives matter." Martin O'Malley said, "Black lives matter," and that the "movement is making is a very, very legitimate and serious point, and that is that as a nation we have undervalued the lives of black lives, people of color." In response, Hillary Clinton pushed for criminal justice reform, and said, "We need a new New Deal for communities of color." Jim Webb, on the other hand, replied: "As the president of the United States, every life in this country matters." Hillary Clinton was not directly asked the same question, but was instead asked: "What would you do for African Americans in this country that President Obama couldn't?" Clinton had already met with Black Lives Matter representatives, and emphasized what she described as a more pragmatic approach to enacting change, stating "Look, I don't believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws". Without policy change, she felt "we'll be back here in 10 years having the same conversation." In June 2015, Clinton used the phrase "all lives matter" in a speech about the opportunities of young people of color, prompting backlash that she may misunderstand the message of "Black Lives Matter."
A week after the first Democratic primary debate was held in Las Vegas, BLM launched a petition targeted at the DNC and its chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz demanding more debates, and "specifically for a #BlackLivesMatter themed Presidential debate." The petition received over 10,000 signatures within 24 hours of being launched, and had over 33,000 signatures as of October 27, 2015. The DNC said that it would permit presidential candidates to attend a presidential town hall organized by activists, but that it would not add another debate to its official schedule. In response, the organization released a press statement on its Facebook page stating that "[i]n consultation with our chapters, our communities, allies, and supporters, we remain unequivocal that a Presidential Town Hall with support from the DNC does not sufficiently respond to the concerns raised by our members", continuing to demand a full additional debate.
In February 2016, two Black Lives Matters activists protested at a private fundraiser for Clinton about statements she made in 1996 in which she referred to young people as "super-predators". One of the activists wanted Clinton to apologize for "mass incarceration" in connection with her support for her husband, then-President Bill Clinton's 1994 criminal reform law.
Republicans
Republican candidates have been mostly critical of BLM. In August 2015, Ben Carson, the only African American vying for the Republican nomination for the presidency, called the movement "silly". Carson also said that BLM should care for all black lives, not just a few. In the first Republican presidential debate, which took place in Cleveland, one question referenced Black Lives Matter. In response to the question, Scott Walker advocated for the proper training of law enforcement and blamed the movement for rising anti-police sentiment, while Marco Rubio was the first candidate to publicly sympathize with the movement's point of view.
In August 2015, activists chanting "Black Lives Matter" interrupted the Las Vegas rally of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. As Bush exited early, some of his supporters started responding to the protesters by chanting "white lives matter" or "all lives matter".
Several conservative pundits have labeled the movement a "hate group". Candidate Chris Christie, the New Jersey Governor, criticized President Obama for supporting BLM, stating that the movement calls for the murder of police officers. Christie's statement was condemned by New Jersey chapters of the NAACP and ACLU.
BLM activists also called on the Republican National Committee to have a presidential debate focused on issues of racial justice. The RNC, however, declined to alter their debate schedule, and instead also supported a townhall or forum.
In November 2015, a BLM protester was physically assaulted at a Donald Trump rally in Birmingham, Alabama. In response, Trump said, "maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing." Trump had previously threatened to fight any Black Lives Matter protesters if they attempted to speak at one of his events.
In March 2016, Black Lives Matter helped organize the 2016 Donald Trump Chicago rally protest that forced Trump to cancel the event. Four individuals were arrested and charged in the incident. Two were "charged with felony aggravated battery to a police officer and resisting arrest", one was "charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting and obstructing a peace officer", and the fourth "was charged with one misdemeanor count of resisting and obstructing a peace officer". A CBS reporter was one of those arrested outside the rally. He was charged with resisting arrest.
General election
A group called Mothers of the Movement, which includes the mothers of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and other mothers whose "unarmed African-American children have been killed by law enforcement or due to gun violence," addressed the 2016 Democratic National Convention on July 26.
Commenting on the first of 2016 presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, some media outlets characterized Clinton's references to implicit bias and systemic racism as speaking "the language of the Black Lives Matter movement," while others pointed out neither Clinton nor Trump used the words "Black Lives Matter."
In a Washington Post op-ed, DeRay Mckesson endorsed Hillary Clinton, because her "platform on racial justice is strong". He articulated that voting alone is not the only way to bring about "transformational change". He said that "I voted my entire life, and I was still tear-gassed in the streets of St. Louis and Baltimore. I voted my entire life, and those votes did not convict the killers of Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray or Michael Brown".
Counter-slogans and movements
"All Lives Matter"
The phrase "All Lives Matter" sprang up as response to the Black Lives Matter movement, shortly after the movement gained national attention. Several notable individuals have supported All Lives Matter. Its proponents include Senator Tim Scott. NFL cornerback Richard Sherman supports the All Lives Matter message, saying "I stand by what I said that All Lives Matter and that we are human beings." According to an August 2015 telephone poll, 78% of likely American voters said that the statement "all lives matter" was closest to their own personal views when compared to "black lives matter" or neither. Only 11% said that the statement "black lives matter" was closest. Nine percent said that neither statement reflected their own personal point of view.
According to professor David Theo Goldberg, "All Lives Matter" reflects a view of "racial dismissal, ignoring, and denial". Professor Charles "Chip" Linscott said that "All Lives Matter" promotes the" erasure of structural anti-black racism and black social death in the name of formal and ideological equality and post-racial colorblindness".
Founders have responded to criticism of the movement's exclusivity, saying, "#BlackLivesMatter doesn't mean your life isn't important – it means that black lives, which are seen without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation." President Barack Obama spoke to the debate between Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. Obama said, "I think that the reason that the organizers used the phrase Black Lives Matter was not because they were suggesting that no one else's lives matter ... rather what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that is happening in the African American community that's not happening in other communities." He also said "that is a legitimate issue that we've got to address."
"Blue Lives Matter"
Blue Lives Matter is a countermovement in the United States advocating that those who are prosecuted and convicted of killing law enforcement officers should be sentenced under hate crime statutes. It was started in response to Black Lives Matter after the homicides of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in Brooklyn, New York on December 20, 2014. Following the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson and in response to BLM, the hashtag #BlueLivesMatter was created by supporters of the police. Following this, Blue Lives Matter became a pro-police officer movement in the United States. It expanded after the killings of American police officers.
Criticized by the ACLU and others, the movement inspired a state law in Louisiana that made it a hate crime to target police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical service personnel.
"White Student Union" Facebook groups
In response to BLM, Facebook pages emerged purporting to represent "White Student Unions" on college campuses in the United States. The pages often promise a "safe space" for white students and condemn alleged anti-white racism on campus. The New York Times reported in 2015: "Whether the Facebook groups were started by students at the universities or by an outside group seeking to stir up debate is unclear." Representatives of the schools as well as some students have said that the groups do not represent their values. Other students complained that attempts by the universities to remove these pages are a violation of free speech.
"White Lives Matter"
White Lives Matter is an activist group created in response to Black Lives Matter. In August 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center added "White Lives Matter" to its list of hate groups. The group has also been active in the United Kingdom. The "White Lives Matter" slogan was chanted by torch-wielding alt-right protesters during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. On October 28, 2017, numerous 'White Lives Matter' rallies broke out in Tennessee. Dominated in Shelbyville particularly, protesters justified their movement in response to the increasing number of immigrants and refugees to Middle Tennessee.
Criticism of "Black Lives Matter"
Tactics
Some black civil rights leaders, such as Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, Najee Ali, and Earl Ofari Hutchinson, have criticized the tactics[clarification needed] of BLM. Author and minister Barbara Ann Reynolds has criticized the confrontational tactics of BLM. Economist Glenn Loury, while supportive of the fundamentals of the movement, has criticized public retribution against "White politicians who state All Lives Matter" and the apparent polarizing effects of the movement.
Disagreement over racial bias
David French, in a 2015 piece in the National Review, disagreed with Black Lives Matter's assertions of racial bias in police violence. French later recanted this view, noting that since 2015 it had become clear that police violence was often under-reported and describing his previous commentary on the subject as "contributing more to a particular partisan narrative than to a tough, clear-eyed search for truth".
A 2019 study in PNAS looked at fatal police shooting statistics from 2015 and concluded there was no racial disparity. The study was used by right-wing commentators to attack the Black Lives Matter movement, starting with an opinion column written by Heather Mac Donald in June 2020. The authors of the study retracted it one month later, saying that its "careless" conclusions had been misinterpreted by the media, and its methodology was too narrow to draw wide inferences.
Views on law enforcement
Some critics 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." A North Carolina police chief retired after calling BLM a terrorist group. A police officer in Oregon was removed from street duty following a social media post in which he said he would have to "babysit these fools", in reference to a planned BLM event.
Ferguson effect
Sam Dotson, chief of the St. Louis Police Department, coined the term "Ferguson effect" to describe what he believed was a change in enforcement behavior following the shooting of Michael Brown and subsequent unrest. According to Dotson, his officers were less active in enforcing the law because they were afraid they might be charged with breaking the law. FBI Director James Comey suggested that the Black Lives Matter movement is partly leading to a national rise in crime rates because police officers have pulled back from doing their jobs. A study published by the Justice Department said there was an increase in homicides in 56 large cities over the course of 2015, and examined the "Ferguson effect" as one of three plausible explanations. Other researchers have looked for this "Ferguson effect" in the rise in crime rates and failed to find evidence for it on a national level. A report over the increased homicide rate in St. Louis concluded there was an "absence of credible and comprehensive evidence" for the Ferguson effect being responsible for that city's homicide increase.
Lack of focus on intraracial violence
John McWhorter wrote that the Black Lives Matter movement had "done the nation a service" by bringing national attention to police killings of unarmed African Americans, and he encouraged it to expand its focus to include "black-on-black crime".
In response, it has been noted that there are already many movements active against violence within the black community. Others have commented that it is reasonable to hold sworn police officers to higher standards than criminals. It has also been pointed out that considerable resources are already deployed to combat violence by civilians (including intraracial violence), with most such acts resulting in efforts to prosecute the perpetrator; in contrast, very few cases of police violence result in criminal accusations, let alone convictions. Others criticize the term 'black-on-black violence' as it may imply that such violence is due to the black race itself, as opposed to various confounding factors. In reality, the proportion of intraracial murders is almost the same among blacks and whites in the United States with less than ten percentage points of difference in one-on-one attacks where the races were reported.
Criticism by Rudy Giuliani
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that Black Lives Matter is "inherently racist" and called the movement anti-American. According to Giuliani, the BLM movement divides people and exacerbates racial tensions. Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza replied, "What those comments show me is that the former mayor doesn't understand racism," adding that his comments were "not rooted in fact." Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart wrote that Giuliani's comments reinforced his sense that the former mayor lives in a "racial world of make-believe".
Insufficient focus on women
Women from within the Black Lives Matter movement, 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.
Financial transparency issues
Some observers have stated that the Black Lives Matter nonprofit does not adequately disclose what their financial contributions are spent on. Executives from Black Lives Matter have denied that it uses ActBlue to donate to the Democratic National Committee. In an AskReddit thread, Black Lives Matter indicated that their expenditures include "… civic engagement, expansion of chapters, Arts & Culture, organizing and digital advocacy resources and tools."
Polls
The US 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. 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, 84% 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.
2020
With the resurgence of Black Lives Matter in national headlines amid global protests, the movement has seen an increase in support in 2020. Although they began from different perspectives, as per the New York Times' The Upshot, "all kinds of voters moved sharply in the direction of supporting the movement" just within the two weeks between late May and early June "as much as [they] had in the preceding two years." Similarly, the Pew Research Center reports that "[m]ost Americans express support for the Black Lives Matter movement."
According to Terrance Woodbury, a researcher of attitudes among young adults, "[the] movement has evolved from Black people vs. the police to young people vs. racism." An online survey of people aged from 18-34 the Global Strategy Group found broad support from the participants, expect by those who identified as pro-Trump Republicans.
Opal Tometi theorizes that increased support was the result of economic anxiety and contempt for the American government's handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Protests led by Black Lives Matter eventually developed into a larger movement, with some crediting the organization as starting the early 21st-century civil rights movement and possibly "the largest movement in U.S. history".
Notes
The Black Lives Matter website has the following information about the formal organizations. A global organization, Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc., was established in 2013 in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom to "eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes." After community-based chapters were formed following the Ferguson unrest of 2014, Black Lives Matter Global Network was established. The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, or BLM Global Network Foundation, a nonprofit organization, provides grants to support grassroots organizing work by its chapters.
This period also saw an increase in tweets using the hashtags "#Blue Lives Matter" and "#All Lives Matter".
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