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The Black Lives Matter Global Network is a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission is to build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

We are expansive. We are a collective of liberators who believe in an inclusive and spacious movement. We also believe that in order to win and bring as many people with us along the way, we must move beyond the narrow nationalism that is all too prevalent in Black communities. We must ensure we are building a movement that brings all of us to the front.

We affirm the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, undocumented folks, folks with records, women, and all Black lives along the gender spectrum. Our network centers those who have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.

We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.

We affirm our humanity, our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.

The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation.

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Black Lives Matter | About

One year ago, the nation watched as the city of Ferguson, Mo., erupted.

St. Louis police, dressed in riot gear, stood in a straight line, shields up and face masks down in a standoff with protestors. The media assembled on the sidelines, cameras poised to capture the latest. There was tear gas, burning buildings, chants and signs.

Protesters came armed with a message, a message that would echo through the Missouri night sky in the days and weeks after Michael Brown's death. It was a message heard across the nation in more protests for other black Americans who died by police hands. "Black lives matter," they chanted, wrote and tweeted. "Black lives matter," they chanted in throngs that blocked streets and demanded America's attention.

While demonstrators took to the streets of Ferguson and cities like New York and Los Angeles, a new generation of activists gathered both on the ground and online. The Black Lives Matter movement called for change with how police deal with minorities, and demanded a look at systemic racism and equity. And from it emerged a group of young people paving the way.

Brittany Packnett is one of them.

Packnett, 30, grew up in north St. Louis County in an African-American household lead by parents with advanced degrees. She is an activist, educator and a Member of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

She said the death of Michael Brown deepened her commitment to social justice.

"I think the most significant thing that has changed is that people can see this isn't just about Mike Brown, this isn't just about Tamir Rice, and it isn't just about Sandra Bland," she said. "It is about defending the humanity and the dignity of all people in this country and of people of color in particular."

The young movers and shakers who have been leading the Black Lives Matter movement are now one year out and reflecting back on how far the movement has come. And what else they think still needs to be done.

"I think what we have seen primarily change is that people recognize that here we are 365 days later and we are still talking about it," said Packnett.

Since Brown's Death

On Dec. 1, 2014, Packnett stood outside the Oval Office with seven other young activists. While she waited to meet with President Barack Obama she reflected on the fact that it was her enslaved ancestors who had built the White House.

"We were responsible in that moment to speak truths about our community to the leader of the free world, and that was a real opportunity, but it was also a real responsibility," Packnett recalled.

The president announced the formation of the task force that day, and in the weeks to follow Packnett would be named as a member. In May 2015, the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing released a comprehensive report identifying best policing practices and offering recommendations to strengthen trust among law enforcement officers and the communities they serve.

A recent survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed that one year after the death of Michael Brown, more than 3 out of 5 blacks say they or a family member have personal experience with being treated unfairly by the police -- and their race is the reason. The poll also revealed that nearly 3 out of 4 white people thought race had nothing to do with how police in their communities decide to use deadly force.

Activist and 25-year-old data scientist Samuel Sinyangwe, who lives in San Francisco, says the movement is making a difference anyway. He is a Stanford graduate who grew up in Orlando 15 minutes from where Trayvon Martin was killed. He helped found the website Mapping Police Violence after the death of Michael Brown.

"I had a lot of questions and I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn't get answers because the federal government was not collecting comprehensive information and data on police killings," he said. "What I wanted to know was how prevalent and how widespread are police killings. How are they potentially targeting black people and young black people in particular."

Sinyangwe collected data by using two large crowdsourcing databases on police killings. He says Mapping Police Violence has come to many conclusions, including "Ferguson is everywhere."

Sinyangwe's data has found that since 2015, at least 184 black people have been killed by police in the U.S. so far. In 2014, over 300 black people were killed. In the last year, Black Lives Matter has protested the deaths of black people including Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice, to name a few.

"Not only is it happening everywhere, it's happening in some places more than others. We are able to shine a spotlight on why some of these uprisings are happening in some places," Sinyangwe said. "This is rooted in policy and the system can be changed."

Sinyangwe uses Newark, N.J. as an example. With about the same population and crime rate as St. Louis, and around the same amount of black people, crime in Newark is going down, Sinyangwe says. On the other hand, crime in St. Louis is going up. He says no black people have been killed by police in Newark since 2013, while 12 have been killed in St. Louis.

He says he hopes that the data Mapping Police Violence provides helps the problem of police violence be better understood, and helps towards addressing it.

Many of the protests held over the last year occurred after officers were not charged with crimes, as was the case in the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. But just last week, a prosecutor was quick to charge a Univ. of Cincinnati police officer with the death of Samuel DuBose during a traffic stop in Ohio.

An Associated Press analysis released in late July revealed that 24 states have passed at least 40 new measures after Ferguson. The AP reports that the measures have included addressing such things as officer-worn cameras, training about racial bias, independent investigations when police use force and new limits on the flow of surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies.

While the effects of these policies are new and not yet known, Sinyangwe says it is still progress.

"You really haven't seen anything as impactful as we are seeing this one right now in terms of seeing immediate legislation being proposed and passed and signed at all levels of government," he said.

Criticism

The Black Lives Matter movement hasn't come without its share of criticism. Some have called it anti-police, others anti-white; the majority of criticism has come from those on social media. The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag sparked another controversial hashtag as well, #AllLivesMatter.

"I thought it represented a real misunderstanding, that, unfortunately, happens often when marginalized people finally begin to tell our own story," said Packnett about #AllLivesMatter.

Saying black lives matter is not the same as saying only black lives matter, Packnett said.

"What it is saying though is an acknowledgement of the fact that black lives, brown lives, that people of color in particular, are the ones suffering disproportionately from issues of police brutality, police violence and discrimination in the criminal justice system," she said.

A CBS News/New York Times poll released in July revealed that nearly 6 in 10 Americans say they think race relations in America are bad. And among those polled, blacks are more likely than whites to hold this view. Nearly 8 in 10 African-Americans believe the criminal justice system is biased against them, up from 61 percent in 2013.

Black Lives Matter was sparked by a woman who tweeted it after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin and it caught on, especially after the death of Michael Brown. It was also turned into an organization under the same name, Black Lives Matter. But the movement as a whole is also referred to as the Black Lives Matter movement.

As Packnett explained, the movement has faced criticism for not having a single leader, no one person the head of the movement.

A common misconception is that the movement is leaderless. But Packnett says it's actually "leader-full," and not being under the rule of one or two people allows many people to pursue change in the way they believe most beneficial and in a decentralized manner.

Sinyangwe said there is frustration from some people at the slowness of legislation, and he understands that. He said there is another common misconception about this movement, that nothing is happening. He says that's not true.

"Change is happening. And we will get free, but it is going to be a little while," he said. "What's happening really is unprecedented."

Social Media

Sinyangwe says Social Media has been the lifeblood of the movement.

"People would not have heard about Ferguson if it wasn't for social media. And when I say social media, I mean Twitter," he said.

Many of the activists have shared personal testimonies on Twitter, organized protests and spread their messages. It has also served as an educational tool for those outside of the movement.

"I think there is a misconception that the movement started with a hashtag," said Sinyangwe. "I think the movement started with everyday people."

But Sinyangwe says social media has still been powerful.

"It allows people to organize and build a community where it previously has not been," he said.

National conversation

Kayla Reed, 25, is field organizer for the Organization for Black Struggle. She is also a member of the Ferguson Action Council, a collaborative effort and coalition of organizations founded after the death of Michael Brown. She said the group comes together weekly to discuss action planning on the ground. The organization is responsible for the #UNITEDWEFIGHT weekend of events planned in Ferguson for the anniversary of Michael Brown's death.

Reed acknowledges that Black Lives Matter has now become a national conversation about race, and political candidates have had to answer questions about it. Most recently, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton have fielded questions about Black Lives Matter, as well as candidates during the first GOP debate.

"You are seeing both Republicans and Democrats having to address the issue of police accountability, injustice and the racial inequalities that exist in America in a way you haven't seen before," Reed said.

In late July, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was heckled on stage by demonstrators at the progressive Netroots Nation convention. The Democratic presidential candidate responded to the Black Lives Matter protesters by saying, "Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter."

He has since walked back those comments, and, as Sinyangwe points out, he has recently released a comprehensive plan to address some of the issues the Black Lives Matter movement has raised.

What's next?

Sinyangwe would like to see the passing of a comprehensive package of federal legislation related to policing and criminal justice reform in the next year. In addition, he would like to see policies in police departments passed and enforced such as banning chokeholds, banning nickel rides, emphasizing deescalation, the carrying of non-lethal weapons and prohibiting shooting at moving cars -- to name a few.

Packnett said she too would like to see policies on paper become reality.

"What I am really looking to see is the foundation that we have laid to really turn into tangible outcomes and changes in peoples everyday lives," she said. "It didn't take just a year to get into this position. So it's going to take more than a year to get out of it."

She said she also hopes to see people continue to be creative, thoughtful and sustained in bringing forth what she calls a 21st Century human rights movement.

"I want to see us continue to live authentically as our generation does. I want to see some real wins that will help us figure out what the next win will be," Packnett said. "We will get there. We will keep going."

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Black Lives Matter: How the events in Ferguson sparked a ...

By Itzy Canales for UCSB Multicultural Center | November 7, 2018 | 2:33 p.m.

The UCSB Multicultural Center (MCC) will present Black Lives Matter co-founder and activist Patrisse Cullors in a keynote lecture for the Engaging Communities in Resilient Love Series, 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, at Corwin Pavilion. The event is free to attend.

If #BlackLivesMatter means anything, its in large part due to the empathy and action in times of injustice demonstrated by Cullors and co-founders Alicia Garza, who presented for the MCC in 2017, and Opal Tometi who continues her work for social justice both off and online.

Backed by massive social media and activist support in the wake of George Zimmermons acquittal after he murdered Trayvon Martin, the three women inspired an international organization for activists seeking a society in which the lives of Black Folk are not treated any less than another.

There are plenty who disagree, however, accusing Cullors, Garza, Tometi and the collective community inspired by their work of being unpatriotic, exclusionary, hateful, dangerous, racist and even terrorists.

Cullors, a self-proclaimed artist, organizer, and freedom fighter is not new to the discriminatory violence in which much of #BlackLivesMatter works to combat.

Her New York Times Bestseller book, When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir, not only addresses the brutality men in her family have experienced firsthand and how that has influenced her passion, but acts as a deconstruction of the societal expectations that told her how she should experience womanhood, sexuality, spirituality, and herself.

In her talk at UCSB, Cullors will look back on the history Black Lives Matter has made, on her shared experiences with those who have faced hatred with resilient love, and what she owes to her past in the making of her present and future.

This lecture is part of the Living Lives of Resilient Love in a Time of Hate Series, started by Margaret Klawunn, vice chancellor of Student Affairs, in fall 2016 to ask how people might respond ethically and honorably to hate and violence.

The series features visiting artists and academies to promote conversations and creative work that forge a love-driven response to hate, hurt and fear.

In the past, the series has hosted Alicia Garza, Tricia Rose, Favianna Rodriguez, David Kim and Sunni Patterson.

Itzy Canales for UCSB Multicultural Center.

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Black Lives Matter Co-founder to Address UCSB Multicultural ...

Art

In the aftermath of the recent killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, 148 artists showed work at the alternative art space Smack Mellon in a show entitled Respond. The show included a diverse group of artists who contributed a range of work that served to survey the national reaction to the black deaths that have incited the growing Black Lives Matter Movement.

Respond, in raising questions about the ongoing failure of the nation to protect its black citizens, also posed a question: Should black artists specifically respond to the historic, recent, and continued killing of innocent black men and women in this country?

We asked nine contemporary black artists to continue the dialogue that Respond started and to answer the following question: Do you think black artists should respond to the events surrounding the Black Lives Matter Movement?

Brandon Coley Cox, Untitled, 2014

Brandon Coley Cox

I found it very difficult to create anything at all after the nearly simultaneous indecisions happened around the murders of Eric Garner and Michael Brown I want[ed] to act, and not to react, but to proact, but I wasnt sure how.

So I decided to speak to Garner and Brown. The first paintings I made were dedicatory and, in that, free of any concern of critical gazing. This act of dedication caused me to understand how I wanted to communicate to audiences at large through my creations. I began to understand that it was important to me to create a densely black aesthetic for myself, however I might conceive of it. Following a path of black self-reflexivity was more important than not. I took out all of the white. And other colors. They had been causing too many problems.

I reconsidered everything in my work with one key element in mind: that blackness matters. I now use that as a groundwork to begin creating my work instead of focusing on the distractions. I am more interesting than the distractions. I am more necessary than the distractions. My response to the Black Lives Matters movement was personal celebration and investigation all black everything!

Hank Willis Thomas, Two Little Prisoners, 2014, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Hank Willis Thomas

I dont believe anyone should do anything they dont want to do, unless they feel they must. I dont believe that having a specific hue of skin should obligate or validate what they make. I believe that the more voices that feel compelled to speak out against injustice, the better. The fact of the matter is that broad injustice takes place everyday and all the time. The question for me is, How do we find new and innovative ways to respond and call out when we are oversaturated with image, music, text designed to distract and nullify us? Im still in search of answers.

Titus Kaphar, 1968/2014, 2014, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

Titus Kaphar

I think that the problems of this world will be a natural outgrowth of some artists practice and the celestial and ineffable will be the focus of others. Attempting to create mandates for the production of art in and of itself can be the death nail to creativity.

Jordan Casteel, Galen, 2014

Jordan Casteel

Whether black artists should or should not respond to the events surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement feels irrelevant. Black artists ARE responding. Each of us, through our various forms of expression, are contributing to an expanded notion of what it means it be black in America today. The basis of the movement is to draw attention to the value we place on life more specifically, black life. We can scrutinize societys value system by making a body human that has historically been seen as less than. It is the diversity of the Black artists voice that helps to emphasize our worth.

For me, as an artist who has experienced the world as a heterosexual cis black woman, it has felt important to share the story of my relationship(s) to black men/masculinity as a daughter, sister, lover, friend, and family member. I hope that through my personal lens, I can draw a viewer into an intimate experience they might not otherwise encounter.My portraits engage a viewer through observation of color, texture, environment, and gesture.

To some, my work may be speaking directly to the Black Lives Matter movement through its emphasis on humanizing black bodies, however, I think the way black artists continue to give to the Black Lives Matter movement is by sharing their individual voices in order to bring power and understanding to a united goal no one person is the same or should be judged as such.

A still from the film #Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014

Shikeith

I recently was shared rare audio from a 1975 speech from Toni Morrison. During the speech, she states Accurate artistry proves racism is a public mark of ignorance, but a fraud The core of the Black Lives Matter movement is an expedition to extract the weeds of ignorance planted into the underpinning of America.

I realize, like many others, the humanity ascribed to Blackness has historically been determined through unenlightened, Manichean precepts that viewed Blackness as cursed. Addressing this neglect saw the Black populous of artists create written and visual art that speaks to and asserts a reality that blackness and humanity are not antithetical a Black being realized on their own terms. My socially engaged, art film #Blackmendream, uses new forms of virtual communication to illustrate this historic response.

It is critical that I as an artist continue to respond to the historic tropes that follow me, just as they followed Trayvon Martin to his untimely death. As a collective, I encourage artists of all backgrounds to continue picking at the weeds of ignorance, and planting the flowers of truth.

Rashaad Newsome

I think all humans should respond to the events surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement. Given the fact that the dehumanization of black people permeates our society, I cant see how anyone could idly stand by. I think there are several ways that people can participate. Im not [preaching] on how you should do it but find a way that works for you and like Nike Just do it. Personally as an artist, a human and a black man, I felt an immense responsibility to say something.

Cameron Welch, Patchwork, 2014; Cameron Welch, Gaze, 2014

Cameron Welch

My initial instinct is to respond with a resounding, of course! But where does that sit in terms of how these objects are seen / where they end up? In my own practice, Ive responded to these events in terms of how the work is constructed. Aspects of the paintings that were once highly considered and manicured are now distressed and aggressive. Marks are made with footprints and detritus materials and shapes are violently sewn binding them against their will. Im angry about whats happened, I always will be. I feel that attacking parts of my practice allows for that to show in manners that cant be expressed vocally.

Clifford Owens, Performance Score: Rico Gatson, Five Minutes, performed on January 31, 2015 at Smack Mellon, photograph by Matthew McNulty

Clifford Owens

It seems to me that the question should black American artists respond to black lives matter is a matter of ones own sense of social responsibility. Black Lives Matter was not a movement, it was a moment that has already passed. American black artists are vested in the black lives matters movement as an image, and its a powerful image, a strong representation of blackness.

Im deeply suspicious of and somewhat cynical about the function of art in the black lives movement. Im suspicious about what motivates some black American artists to appropriate representations of the black lives movement. Im cynical that the image of the black lives movement is a merely a signifier that has lost its signified.

Sanford Biggers, Everyday a Sunset Dies (LKG), 2014

Sanford Biggers

No, not necessarily, but there are artists that have something to say about these events and they should. And therein lies the conundrum. To move beyond strictly race-focused conversations and allow for black artists to engage in more expansive dialogues around their work and practice is key.

In 2015, for us to still need to address the issues and importance of black lives in the first place, and to have to assert our very existence within American culture, is extremely problematic and actually quite shameful.

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The Aesthete - Black Lives Matter

The Black Lives Matter Movement is alive and well. If it has for the momentunder political attack and facing the winters sub-freezing temperatureswithdrawn from the streets, it has done so to plan a new stage in the fight for justice for African American victims of police racism and violence. As many as 400 people, mostly young people of color, attended the eight-hour long Black Lives Matter Gathering at the famous Riverside Church in Manhattan on January 30 where in workshops, trainings, and plenary sessions it seemed that a new direction was being set for the movement.

Looking around the room and at the stage during the plenary, it was apparent that this event signaled a turn in Americas social movements today. While there were people there of all ages, it was clear that this is a movement of the young, and while there were people of all races, it was also clear that this is a movement led by people of color and by African Americans in particular.

Millions March, New York City, December 13, 2014.

Black women took the lead in organizing the event, in the workshops, and in the plenary, where the dominant themes were the need for organization, program, and strategy. If they admire the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the activists of todays Black Lives Matter Movement believe they start at a higher political level, committed to full equality for women and the LGBT community. If some of those involved in Black Lives Matter got their first experience with a mass movement in Occupy Wall Street, they seem have now to have drawn the lesson that a movement needs a democratic organization, a list of demands, and a strategy that can organize the power to achieve them. If they still want no traditional leaders, they are interested in creating an inclusive, democratic, and collective leadership.

Most of the activists at the Gathering came from community- or campus-based organizations in the New York City area. And while every anarchist, socialist, or communist group seemed to be in attendanceand there are plenty of themthe most striking thing was the sense that the movement was greater than all of the groups, that it had its own independent life. These activists from the Black Lives Matter Movement in New York, made up of tens of thousands who had participated in protests throughout the city over the last several months, had come together at the Gathering to help the movement to find itself, to know itself, and to figure out where it was going. One had the sense of being present at an historic event, one that marks the beginning of new and significant developments.

The Black Lives Matter Movement emerged across the country in the fall of 2014 as thousands of people in scores of cities, organized by local groups or national networks, protested the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City. The December 13 Millions March in New York, a march of 50,000 organized by two young African American women, 19-year-old Synead (Cid) Nicholsand 23-year-old Umaara Elliot, was a high point in the movement.

But when on December 20 Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, a man with a long history of mental illness, first shot and seriously wounded his girlfriend in a Baltimore suburb and then killed twoNew York City Police Department officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, the situation suddenly changed. The New York police union, a number of politicians, and the media argued that the Black Lives Matter Movement was responsible for the killing and that the protests should stop. When Mayor de Blasio called upon the protestors to pause until after the police officers families had held their funerals, the protestors refused. We will not let recent tragic moments derail this movement, one protester shouted. This is the revolution and we will not be repressed.

Still, the change in the political climate caused by the killings of the police officers and the conservative pro-police and anti-movement rhetoric, combined with the arrival of winter and below-freezing temperatures, drove the movement from the streets. Organizers of the Black Lives Matter Gathering felt that this pause provided a moment for reflection, reorganization, and recommitment to the movements goals.

The Riverside Church, the site of many important social justice meetings and where Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous August 4, 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War, provided space for the Gatherings 2:00 to 10:00 p.m. program of workshops, trainings, networking sessions, and plenary. The program began with six workshops: Independent Media for the Movement; Organizing Youth to Dismantle Oppression; From Ferguson and NYC to Palestine: Occupation, Racism & Militarized Policing; Running in Heels: Safety Strategies for LGBTSTGNC People of Color; Strategy, Tactics, and Movement Building; and From a History of Repression to a Future Liberation: Where do the Police Come from and How can they be Replaced?

The Strategy, Tactics, and Movement Building Workshop began with about 40 people in the room but ended up with closer to 100. Akua Gyamerah began the discussion by telling those present, We will need years of patient organizing. We need action, but also need to pause to analyze the situation. We need to ask how we can build, grow, but also how to sustain the movement. She suggested that the movement needed to be democratically structured and prepared to engaged in debates about different strategies in order to draw the lessons of its experiences. When she also argued that the movement needed to be independent of the Democratic Party, the room erupted in applause.

During the discussion speakersall men and women of coloroffered a variety of takes on the state of the movement. One woman talked about the how the Black Lives Matter movement had had a progressive role vis--vis the LBGT movement. Another woman was concerned that the various groups in the movement werent cooperating. Right now we are very much fragmented, she said. One man said, We need to protest everyday as well as organizing boycotts. One young woman from a town up the Hudson, said she liked the Ferguson idea of being decentralized but coordinated. One person argued for organizing around a few simple demands, while others thought the movement should be guided by the needs of societys most exploited and oppressed. And there were many other comments and observations. One had to be impressed by the respect speakers showed for each others views, though it was also clear that this was only the beginning of what would be a long conversation, and as Gyamerah suggested, there would have to be some serious debate over strategies, goals, and vision.

The sense that African American people have played and continue to play an important role and often the leading role in American history was a pervasive notion. Many speakers both in the workshops and in the plenary argued that when black people move, others usually move with them and that that is generally good for the country, that it leads to greater democracy and more power for working people.

The plenary session speakers were five black women: the chair, Prof. Johanna Fernndez of Baruch College; Danette Chavis, a founder of National Action against Police Brutality; Ansha Rose a 20 year old activist in the Black Youth Project; Thenjiwe McHarrison of Ferguson Action; and Colia Clark, a veteran civil rights activist and Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and 2012. The four movement leadersall of them powerful speakerswere asked by Fernandez to respond to the questions at the center of the Gathering: What is this movement? What do we learn from the past? Where do we go from here? What do we need to grow and win?

Chavis argued that the police had to be held accountable for their actions. This is not the 1960s all over again. Then there was a demand for laws, today we have the laws and they are being broken. She told the nearly 400 people at the plenary session, Something totally different is taking place in law enforcement today. Ever since the Twin Towers dropped, things have changed. Rights have been diminished. Muslims have been persecuted. Since September 11, 2001, she argued, in the eyes of government and the police, the American people have become the potential terrorists. Chavis told the young activists, In this fight all hands are needed. Protest. Boycott. We need to do it all. Hit em high, hit em low.

The plenary session at the gathering. Image from event Facebook page.

Ansha Rose told the group, We have to dispel the myth that police keep people safe. They keep some people with property safe and protect some people in government. But policing is discriminatory and used to control people. She also urged people to consider not only police violence but also structural violence in every aspect of the social system. To oppose such violence, she said, We need direct action; that is, confronting power outside of the prescribed channels. Rose told the group that it was important to be in an organization. Organizations last longer than movements, longer than campaigns, they sustain us through our lives, said Rose. She also argued for the importance of making demands. We need specific demandsand a step-by-step strategy to take power and to win our demands.

When Rose dismissed the notion that we live in a post-racial society, and criticized those who carried All Lives Matter signs in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, there was applause from the crowd. We have to fight to say Black Lives Matter even in this movement, she said. I believe in solidarity and in allies, but the word ally should be a verb. We need to have a discussion about what it means to be an ally, and to be able to listen to each other.

Thenjiwe Harris, who has been active in Ferguson, told the group, I didnt need a police union official to tell me they were going to make war on us. When they militarized the police, that told me that there was a war against our people. Today militarized weapons are in our communities and in our schools. In Ferguson they came out with everything they have. They will do it everywhere when the time is right. So we have to bring them everything weve got. The time for sitting on the sidelines is over, the question is: which side are you on?

Colia Clark, a veteran of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), began by saying that when she saw this new movement and couldnt identify any leaders, she thought to herself, thats like SNCC. Clark talked about American history, arguing that, The United States is not and has never been a democracy. For just that reason, she argued, we need to call for a Constitutional Convention to re-found the country. But before that, she told the Gathering, We need to call a convention of the 800 cities that joined the Black Lives Matter protests.

Johanna Fernandez ended the plenary session by stating, The moral assignment of this time is to bring revolution to this nation.

The Black Lives Matter Gathering was a signal event. No doubt it is only one of many such events large and small taking place across the country. The Gathering made clear that we not only have a new movement here, but that there is a new leadership. We are at the beginning of something big and important.

Dan La Botz is an editor of New Politics, where this article originally appeared, and a member of Solidarity in New York City.

Excerpt from:
Black Lives Matter Gathering Points to a New Direction for ...