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Organizers of the Black Lives Matter at School Day held Friday for the Rochester City School District say the event was created to reflect on the past, present and future of the civil rights movement and black lives in our country, and to encourage conversation about social justice and sustainable progress.

Rakia Hardaway is a social studies teacher at Edison Career and Technology High School, she said its important to have these events in schools to show that youth participation is essential.

"The civil rights movement, everyone tends to think of as just being adults, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. But the movement didnt get much notice until you had kids who stepped in and started protesting and getting arrested, writing the signs. So I think its exciting to see now we have a younger movement, younger kids are getting involved."

Tyiasha Jackson is a junior at Edison Tech, she said she was proud to see her school celebrate the Black Lives Matter movement and include student opinions.

"Children or even teens like us know that something isnt right. So I think that the district chose today to address us and hear us out and let us know theyre listening."

She said the day shows that students can share their opinions in a proactive way.

"I think it shows that we can address our opinion but in a positive way and talk about it with our teachers, because a lot of teachers are very supportive of today, celebrating us, addressing us, asking our opinion."

Events at Edison Career and Technology High School included jazz performances by students, documentary screenings and discussions and a mock Black Lives Matter protest during lunch.

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RCSD celebrates Black Lives Matter At School Day | WXXI News - WXXI News

Chicagos notorious violence sprees have made its way back to headlines for the heartbreaking deaths of three children over the course of only two days in 2017.

But while the city is suffering yet another unfortunate turn in its death toll, Philly-native Meek Mill has suggested that one particular organization step in on behalf of Chi-town.

On Instagram, the MMG rapper posted a photo of 11-year-old Takiya Holmes, one of the Chicago children who was recently struck by a stray bullet and fatally succumbed to her injuries on Tuesday (Feb. 14).

Though the photos of Holmes and two other children who have died from gun violence has swept local headlines in the city, Meek believes that Black Lives Matter, an organization and movement dedicated to ending violence and racism against Black citizens on a national and global level, should have more to say about the fatalities.

I think its about time for Black Lives Matter [to] focus on Chicago, he said in the caption. Its a lot of kids dying out there, and were putting all our focus on cops. RIP, Baby Girl. One of three little kids killed this week! CNN is not covering this news!

Some of Black Lives Matters objectives include bringing justice to Black, unarmed citizens killed by police and the treatment of Black citizens as a result of institutionalizedoppression. However, it has largely been criticized for what others believe is a mainstream, one-sided approach to the livelihood of Blacks and other minorities while ignoring Black-on-Black crime.

Though much of their efforts to combat violence in inner-city regions have largely gone ignored by major media outlets, Black Lives Matter also has home bases in cities like Chicago that work to dismantle systemic racism that influence issues such as gun and gang violence as well.

See Meek Mills message about Chi-towns city violence below.

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Meek Mill Believes Black Lives Matter Should Take on a New Focus - BET

Black Lives Matter movement leader Shaun King (right) spoke last Saturday with Oakland leaders (L to R) City Councilmember Desley Brooks, Cat Brooks and Carroll Fife. Photo by Ken Epstein.

Shaun King, a journalist and national leader in the Black Lives Matter movement, received a warm reception in Oakland last Saturday night when about 2,000 people came out to meet him at two hastily organized speaking events at the Oakland Technical High School auditorium.

Local activists organized the event in less than 24 hours after learning that King was visiting Oakland to speak Sunday morning at McClymonds High School for True Vine Ministries.

Also speaking Saturday night were local leaders Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, and Carroll Fife of the Black Power Network.

King is a writer on social media and senior justice writer for the New York Daily News. He is also a political commentator for The Young Turks and was previously a contributing writer for Daily Kos.

Over the last several years, he has directed his energies toward exposing the epidemic of police violence in the United States, including the cases of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.

During election season, King backed Bernie Sanders and later supported Hillary Clinton in an attempt to keep Donald Trump from winning the presidency.

Police violence is not a current affairs issue, King said at the Saturday night event. The victims are peoples babies, their husbands, their brothers, their uncles, their sisters.

We have to get to a point where its personal, he said. Were dealing with a human rights crisis. We have to get to the point where (we understand) the human cost of brutality in this country.

When activists talk about taking on white privilege, he said, they have to understand that Its not simple, its deep. Its centuries in the making. This is not new. Its old.

In order to bring about change, four elements are necessary: people who support the cause, people who are energized to bring about change, and people who are willing to put in the hard, unglamorous day-to-day work to make change happen.

At present, the first three elements exist, but what the movement is lacking is the fourth element: a strategy for moving forward.

There are pockets of very strategic people among us, but the masses of people are not clear on what the strategy is, said King.

Cat Brooks, APTP leader, said Oakland is pushing out Black people at a rate that is unfathomable.

We are at under 25 percent.

Instead of paying for policing, the city needs to put its money into educating children, building gardens and creating jobs and housing, she said.

We have to have a conversation about where our city is putting its resources, said Brooks.

Fife talked about the current struggle in Oakland to allow African Americans to own some of the new businesses are taking off in the billion-dollar cannabis industry.

We will never be free if we dont own the fruits of our own labor. What we want to do is push for (cannabis) equity, she said.

It is estimated that the racial wealth gap means that it would take 228 years for the average Black family to achieve the wealth of what the average white family has today, she said. Thats not going to change unless we do something radically different.

The discussion of cannabis equity is scheduled to go to City Council on March 7.

King told organizers he supports Oaklands fight for cannabis equity. Ownership means jobs and entrepreneurship. Equity is key, he said.

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Black Lives Matter Movement Leader Shaun King Speaks in Oakland - Post News Group (blog)

A coalition of LGBTQ stalwarts and veterans has launched apetition to counter Black Lives Matter Vancouvers efforts to havepolice forces removed from the Pride parade.

Arguing that the police is an instrument of state violence and oppression the Vancouver chapter of Black Lives Matter launched a campaign earlier this summer asking for the withdrawalof any and all presence of uniformed police officers from the annual celebration of LGBTQ communities.

But for the activists behind Our Pride Includes Our Police, this misrepresentsthe history of the relationship between local LGBTQ communities and police.

Vancouvers LGBTQ community has a long history of positive engagement with the Vancouver Police Department, readsthe petition.

One of its co-signatories, trans activist Sandy-Leo Laframboise, a 46-year veteran of LGBTQ organizing, told the National Post: Banning the police from the pride parade will undermine our commitment to diversity and inclusion and all the work weve done.

They want to remove an entity that weve been working with for over 40 years.

Gordon Hardy, co-founder of Vancouvers Gay Liberation Front and another of the petitions organizers said he had no problem with Black Lives Matter members marching in the parade and expressing their opinions.

What we object to is that they come along and start telling the rest of us in the community who can and cannot be in the parade he said.

Earlier this month, BLM Vancouverlauncheda petition to request, for the second time, that the Vancouver Pride Society have the police department withdraw all of its uniformed, armed officers from the parade.

Theyhad already issued an open letter tothe Vancouver Pride Society in July asking the police to voluntarily withdraw from the parade and participate instead in a public service float that would include firefighters, paramedics and others. The matter appeared to have been settled after the the Vancouver Police Department agreed to remove an armoured vehicle from the parade.

Although it concedes that the police can of course be present to do their jobs and show support, the chapter says that having the institution participate on a float in the parade is not appropriate, and insulting to those who made Pride celebrations possible and even died for the cause.

If some members of the queer community do not feel comfortable at Pride events we must be the priority, the petition continues.

While organizers of Our Pride Includes Our Police acknowledge the historic and ongoing injustices against the black communities in major American and Eastern Canadian cities, they argue that they do not reflect relationships between Vancouvers LGBTQ communities with local law enforcement.

Vancouver Police are one of the most progressive police forces in the country, Velvet Steele, a trans and sex worker activist who has worked on police relations, told the Georgia Straightearlier this week.

This summer, members of the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter successfully hijacked theToronto Pride parade, grinding it to a halt, and forcedorganizersto agree to a list of demands including removing oppressive police floats from future parades before ending the blockade.

As of Friday, the pro-police petitionhad collected2,501 signatures compared to 792 collected for Black Lives Matter Vancouvers petition.

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LGBTQ Activists Rally Against Black Lives Matter's Bid to Shun Cops From Vancouver Pride Parade - Heat Street

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Des Moines School Board Giving New Meaning to Black Lives Matter whotv.com The Des Moines Public Schools District's board is standing behind three words that often sparks debate. Black Lives Matter. At their next meeting on Tuesday, Langford says several, if not all board members will be wearing black shirts with those very ...

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Des Moines School Board Giving New Meaning to Black Lives Matter - whotv.com