Black Lives
Matter movement’s members are eager to change. They think that they have to
widen frames of the nationalism that is too prevalent in Black communities.
They affirm and accept different people. Undocumented people, transgender
people, disabled people and people with dark skin.
So, how did
it all start?
A war on
racism has been lasting for centuries but Black Lives Matter movement began
after Trayvon Martin murder’s acquittal. 3 radical women were the ones who
began a life-changing movement uniting hundreds of thousands of people all over
the USA and the whole world. The people, who are indifferent to victims of
unfairness. Their names were Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometti.
Alicia
Garcia is a queer women and a political organizer. She is based in California
Bay Area. She used the tools of Facebook to share her feelings after the judge’s
verdict. Her series of posts called “A Love Letter to Black People” got a lot of
public attention. She concluded her writing with the words “Black people. I
love you. I love us. Our lives matter”. Patrisse Cullors wrote the hashtag in the
comment section “#BlackLivesMatter”. That’s how the movement was born.
Opal Tometi
was an activist on immigration problems and was reached out to by Garcia and
Cullors the next day. She knew how social media worked and that really came handy
because BLM started functioning on the Internet first.
The hashtag
was tweeted around 30 times per day in the second half of 2013 which turned out
to be 5,106 times.
Social networks
can really make a change in the modern world and BLM is a great example of it.
Therefore we should never neglect its usefulness.
Links:
1) https://www.biography.com/news/patrisse-cullors-alicia-garza-opal-tometi-black-lives-matters-origins
2) https://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/
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