EXPOSING THE UNSPOKEN TRUTH: IDA B. WELLS
Black Lives Matter
The Fight Continues
Wells was the forerunner against lynching of Blacks in the late 1800s. Now, her legacy continues through those who use similar devices to continue the present-day battle for a world free of anti-blackness.
In just over two years, the young movement has reinvigorated confrontation politics, giving voice to a popular and righteous rage, establishing a new touchstone of grassroots resistance ... The upsurge, which has centered on the crucial, galvanizing issue of police misconduct, also shows signs of addressing larger questions of social inequity. - Russel Rickford, specialist in African-American political culture after World War II and the author of We Are an African People: Black Power
We are clear that all lives matter, but we live in a world where that's not actually happening in practice. So if we want to get to the place where all lives matter, then we have to make sure that black lives matter, too. - Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter
Our continued commitment to liberation for all Black people means we are continuing the work of our ancestors and fighting for our collective freedom because it is our duty. - Black Lives Matter
Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, Co-Founders of Black Lives Matter (Ben Baker, Redux.)
CASES THAT STARTED IT ALL
In 2013, three radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — created a Black-centered political will and movement building project called #BlackLivesMatter. It was in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman. - Black Lives Matter
On Sunday, February 26, 2012, George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in a gated Sanford, Florida, community, called the police to report a suspicious person walking in his neighborhood. Mr. Zimmerman, a twenty-eight-year-old man of mixed Hispanic ethnicity, was instructed by the dispatcher not to approach the person in question. Mr. Zimmerman disregarded those instructions, engaged in an altercation with the individual, and then fatally shot and killed Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old unarmed African American teenager. Martin had been walking back to his father’s house after buying snacks at a local convenience store. - Bobo Lawrence D., "Foreword: The Racial Double Homicide of Trayvon Martin."
Geroge Zimmerman smiling in court while testifying in 2016. (Red Huber / Orlando Sentinel)
Trayvon Martin in an aircraft hanger in 2009. Credit: Martin Family, via Associated Press
In August 2014 the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, resulted in days of civil unrest and protests fueled by tensions between Ferguson’s predominantly black population and its predominantly white government and police department. - Noah Tesch, Britannica.
A year later, we set out together on the Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride to Ferguson, in search of justice for Mike Brown and all of those who have been torn apart by state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism. Forever changed, we returned home and began building the infrastructure for the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which, even in its infancy, has become a political home for many. - Black Lives Matter
Protestors during the Freedom Ride To Ferguson. (Aaron P. Bernstein)
Injustice Continues Today
In July 2014, Eric Garner was accused of illegally selling cigarettes and choked to death by the police unarmed.
"The chokehold. The swarm of officers. The 11 pleas for breath.
Mr. Garner’s final words — “I can’t breathe” — became a rallying cry for a protest movement."
- Al Baker. David Goodman and Benjamin Mueller, New York Times
WARNING: CONTAINS UPSETTING IMAGES
'I can't breathe': Eric Garner put in chokehold by NYPD officer, Source: Daily News
Like Wells, The Black Lives Matter Movement vows to protect Black rights.