The Social Movement: The Black Lives Matters Movement

An act of civil disobedience by definition, “hopes to set a moral example that will provoke the majority or the government into effecting meaningful political, social, or economic change,” (Encyclopædia Britannica 2015). Similarly, this is a method that the social movement, Black Lives Matter, has recently been known to practice. This is a new age of civil disobedience; the Black Lives Matters movement mixes social media with less contemporary means of civil disobedience. Black Lives Matter started off as a simple hash-tag on social media after an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, was shot and killed by police officer George Zimmerman. In just a number of hours, it rapidly developed into an activist movement against police brutality (Condon 2015). The organization spread further in 2014 when two more unarmed African-Americans also fell victim to police brutality. Unfortunately, these are just a few cases out of 11 where African-Americans who all share the tragic fact that they had their lives taken from them by racially profiling cops. …show more content…
Of these eleven cases, only a few officers that shot and killed these unarmed citizens have been charged for their wrongful actions. Why is it that the black community is still being treated with such prejudice notions when the constitution explicitly states equal treatment under the law? Until the justice system determines them guilty, justice will not be served. This racism caught the attention of the nation, causing a lot of people to believe that these actions were extremely unethical and unjust. This movement is more than just raising awareness; it’s about serving justice where justice has not been