Black Lives Matter Movement Outline

Black Activism: Online and Offline

The uproar against law enforcement regarding the marginalization of African Americans is a supplementary issue. The rise of Black Lives Matter movement functions as protesters take responsibility of rallying the ongoing continuance of police brutality against the African American community, like the notorious Black Panthers Party once did. From 1966 to 1982, Huey Newton, alongside Bobby Seale, began a resistance against the corruption of law enforcement officers who targeted the African American community. Huey Newton, as co-founder and visionary, led the people utilizing a Ten-point program as a self-defense mechanism against institutionalized racism and the aggressive policing of African American people.

The unsettling verdict of his trial evoked Alicia Garza, Patricia Cullors and Opal Tometi to create, “#BlackLivesMatter,” a social media hashtag. It was primarily to demand justice for Trayvon Martin; but fundamentally to protest the criminalization and murder of Black people by the legal authorities. The usage of the hashtag is a rallying cry and a call to action for justice and equality to be served within the Black community. According to the Malcolm X grassroots movement, which used police data, every twenty-eight hours a black person lost their life at the hands of a police officer in 2012. The hashtag movement soon took form in the streets as a protest of police brutality. Protesters crafted, “Trayvon’s Law,” new legislation addressing an end to school-to-prison pipeline, racial profiling and the repeal of “Stand Your Ground”. The Black Lives Matter movement is a millennial resurgence of national Black socio-political activism after the demise of the Black Panther

Former Black Panther Chairman, Elaine Brown, critiques the movement as a “plantation mentality” in reference to protesters solely complaining about the mistreatment and murder of Black people online but not acting upon it. Brown discusses that her party had an agenda where they advocated community self-defense, beared arms and assumed their rightful human rights. The Black Panther Party often had notoriety because they demanded to carry armed weapons as a way of self-defense. During grassroots lobbies and protests, the party carried armed guns which stimulated a violent portrayal of the members. They published newspapers with drawings and pictures by Emory Douglas, depicting the police as pigs which infuriated the