The Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement began first gained notoriety in the summer of 2014, when two unarmed young black men, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, were killed by the police; Brown being shot and Garner strangled. (Chokshi 2016) The movement, represented by a hashtag (i.e. #BlackLivesMatter), began to gain a small following but the movement didn’t take off until the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November of that same year. The young boy was playing with an airsoft pistol in his local park when two nearby officers heard a call about an emergency situation they took the call drove within a few feet of Tamir and shot him at point blank range, before giving him any warnings. (Dewan and Oppel 2015) The movement continued to grow as the officer who had Garner in a chokehold wasn’t indicted, as other unarmed African American men and women were killed by police officers, such as Alton B. Sterling and Philando Castile, and when politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, supported the movement 's goals. (Chokshi 2016) …show more content…
Protestors would hold “blackouts” where they dressed in all black and either stood or laid in the streets. They would chant “Black lives matter,” “hands up don’t shoot,” and other phrases to express how they stand in solidarity with the black men and women harmed due to police brutality. Unfortunately many of these initially peaceful protests would end in, sometimes fatal, conflicts with protesters and the police force. (Sebastian 2015) This has led to many referring to the BLM organization as a hate group and forming White Lives Matter (WLM) as a response, who dedicated themselves to the, “preservation of the white race,” and to stand against, “integration and preservation.” (Stack 2016) Ironically, WLM was declared a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (Stack 2016), but that doesn’t stop them from protesting against