The Black Lives Matter movement reaches a milestone this Thursday (13), celebrating 10 years of existence since its founding in 2013 in response to the acquittal of the man who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
Bullied in a gated community in Florida, where his father lived in 2012, Martin became one of the first symbols of a movement that now influences politics, law enforcement, and broader conversations about racial progress both inside and outside the U.S.
Activists and BLM organizations plan to mark the 10 years of the movement with in-person and virtual events. Calls to action include a renewed effort to reduce funding for police departments and reinvest in Black communities that have disproportionately suffered from police brutality, unequal treatment in the criminal justice systems, and mass incarceration.
Remember the history of the movement
The BLM movement emerged in 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the white and Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer who killed Martin a year earlier. Zimmerman told authorities he acted in self-defense when he shot Martin. He told a rescuer that he had followed and profiled the Black teenager as a potential thief in the gated community of Sanford, Florida.
The delay in arresting and charging the shooter with murder raised questions about how police handle suspicious acts involving Black victims.
On July 13, 2013, a Florida jury of six women, all white except for one, found Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter. The immediate response to the verdict reverberated in Florida and across the United States, energizing a new generation of Black groups eager for racial justice.
BLM co-founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Ayo Tometi – the three activists credited with using the phrase as both a statement and an organizing strategy – initially committed to building a decentralized organization governed by consensus.
The shooting death in August 2014 of 18-year-old Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, helped the phrase Black Lives Matter become a powerful rallying cry for progressives.
But just three years after its creation, only one of the founders remained involved in the growing organization. In 2020, an unprecedented wave of donations to the movement following protests against the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police meant that BLM needed more infrastructure.
The foundation is celebrating the 10th anniversary of BLM with the launch of the “Defund the Police Week of Action” campaign. On Monday, it launched a digital ad renewing the 2020 chants to cut funding for police departments. The organization is also encouraging supporters to ask local and national authorities to introduce a bill establishing July 13 as Black Lives Matter Day.
Source: AP