Black Lives Matter Analysis

Black Lives Matter is an international activist movement that started within the African-American communities. This movement is organized by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Ever since the black people have stepped on American soil, they have continued to be victims of racism and violence. From slavery to lynching to segregation, the black people have suffered alot in this country. In the past few years, there are so many of them that have been targeted by the law enforcement authorities across the country. This movement’s goal is to raise awareness of racism and violence against African-Americans. They wants African-American to live with dignity and respect like other Americans do.

The civil rights movement broadened the definition of leadership to include women, and left an impression of women as powerful and determined activists. Jo An Robinson and Ella Baker are just two of the many women who were able to take charge and make an impact on the movement. Robinson led the Women’s Political Council, which plotted strategy for a one-day bus boycott in Montgomery following Rosa Parks’ arrest. The Council was able to recruit clergy to lend their churches for mass meetings and was able to tap into a new minister in town, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association, which would coordinate the larger Montgomery Bus Boycotts . It was the women that organized this key moment in the civil rights movement – which was, in fact, spurred by a woman, Rosa Parks, refusing to take her seat in the back of the bus. Ella Baker was similarly key in the Civil Rights movement. She was instrumental in organizing a conference of student sit-in activists in 1960, forming the beginning of what would become the SNCC. By educating and fostering leadership, Baker helped members to see themselves as potential leaders – regardless of race or gender. That does not mean that leadership in the

After his death, a group of protesters chanting “black lives matter” shut down a local shopping mall which lead to further deaths of unarmed black men. The phrase started appearing on t-shirts and posters banners everywhere. Black Lives Matter surfaced and the movement created itself. There are now more than 37 movement chapters in the U.S and one in Canada. “The movement doesn’t win if there’s only a small set of people who understand the solutions. It wins when there’s a broad understanding that we need a system that doesn’t kill people, when a critical mass of citizens can envision what that looks like, and what concrete steps are taken to make it happen.” Says Deray Mckesson, a 29-year-old man who drove 600 miles to witness the Ferguson scene himself. McKesson met a woman here who he began sharing information about events and tweeting updates, who then quickly became the most recognizable figures associated with the movement in

Across cultures and throughout history, women have experienced ongoing systemic oppression; and they have responded with progressive movements of protest and creative alternatives. Harriet Tubman in the fight against slavery: Fannie Lou Hamer for voting rights: Ella Baker and Mary White Ovington in the civil rights movement: Rosa Luxemburg in the German socialist movement: Winnie Mandela in the anti-apartheid movement: Puerto Rican independence leader and poet Lolita Lebron: and American Indian movement activists Anna Mae Aquash, Ingrid Washinawatok, and Winona LaDuke (Mink and Navarro). Women have pioneered in movements for labor rights, prison reform, reproductive rights and health, education, affordable housing, affirmative action and equal rights, human rights, and environmental safety. These women’s leadership styles span a range from soft to harsh, from wielding individual, hierarchical power to possessing a commitment to collectivism, and from identifying as “woman as caretaker of life” to woman as requiring and utilizing equal power to man. There is no one characteristic that applies to all women as social change leaders (Hurtado).

The gender bias found in relation to leadership in the civil rights movement often excludes African-American women’s contributions as being of less importance and prominence; however, in hindsight informal leaders were on equal level with formal leaders and bridge leaders served an important function resulting from exclusion.

This paper will examine the leadership styles and activism of African-American women in the civil rights movement in comparison to the more widely-known and prominent male leaders. It challenges the notion that aside from a few well-known leaders, African-American women’s roles in the movement consisted solely of behind-the-scenes and unimportant clerical work that is incomparable to male leadership. By examining what constitutes leadership, this paper concludes that while some African-American women activists may exhibit typical leadership styles parallel to male leaders, many others carried out leadership in atypical forms. The assorted types of leadership and activism African-American women contributed to the movement are determined to be on the same level of influence as the male leaders’ contributions.

As this campaign kept getting bigger and spreading to different cities the first two years, the organizers used this as a easy way to find new ways to spread this campaign all around the world. This also helped give African Americans faith that there is other people out there that go through the same sort of things on a daily basis. Also that there is people trying to make a difference, trying to stop the discrimination. Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Mya Hall, Walter Scott, Sandra Bland these names are just some of the women

Drawing upon struggles of the past like the civil rights movement, a new leadership has arose that campaigns for black people with multi-faceted issues (transexual, immigrants, queer people, incarcerated people, millennials, people with disabilities) As the movement moves from strength to strength, it has opened up a new chapter of the black struggle in a time of volatile race relations. Moving from online into the physical world, the Black Lives

As echoed in Bell Hooks’s We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, the culprit to the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement is masculine patriarchy which, in turn, reinforces racism and oppression. The general public fails to recognize that BLM stemmed from oppression to black males, not the black community as a whole. Furthermore, even though this movement is intended to fight anti-Black racism, it is focusing on the empowerment of black women.

She responds to saying that mobilization, organizing, and leadership are nothing new in the roles of black women. Ella Baker is the perfect example of this. However, unlike Ella Baker these new generation of women in BLM are no longer working behind the scenes, they are now being vocal and visible. As the interview goes on, Cohen than states that due to this new presence of female leadership in BLM, the names and lives of black women will be recognized. Especially, when the framework of each story is at their hands. With the help of Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media, these leaders no longer must depend on the media to get their story out there. They themselves can hold up the names of the women who were treated unfairly and get the public’s attention. Jackson acknowledges the fact that in the past black women haven’t been vocal but as the movement progresses changes are being

In an effort to meet the needs of black women who felt they were being racially oppressed in the Women's Movement and sexually oppressed in the Black Liberation Movement, the Black Feminist Movement was formed. Although the movement was formed, very few women in the 60’s and 70’s were willing to identify themselves as feminist. Many were opposed to the idea feminist to begin with because they believed it was degrading the men in their community. For example, men and even some females said the only problem women faced was slavery and black feminism was nothing but man-hating

When we think of social resistance movements and the leaders who operate the movements we often think of men. Many of us think that a man is needed to be to construct, lead and run a social movement so that it can be affective enough to make a significant change. Stereotypical gender roles are the reason that many of us do not often think of women when we think about social resistance movements. However, women, focusing especially on African American women played a vital role in several social movements. The civil rights movement would not have been successful as it was if it was not for the women who ran and operated behind the scenes.

Originating in 2012, the political movement known under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has exploded in size and renown. This movement, which was initially inspired after a police officer was acquitted of all charges after fatally shooting an African American individual, seeks to diminish police brutality against African American individuals and systemic racism particularly in the United States. Sweeping the nation, Black Lives Matter has become an international movement and its influence has only increased with time. On the movement’s official website, the following was written regarding the history of the hashtag-inspired entourage, “#BlackLivesMatter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime, and dead 17-year old Trayvon was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder. Rooted in the experiences of Black people in this country who actively resist our dehumanization, #BlackLivesMatter is a call to action and a response to the virulent anti-Black racism that permeates our society. Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes.” (http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/). The #BlackLivesMatter movement asserts that racism is still prevalent in modern society and exists not only in passive forms. Instead, racism apparently can be both overt and implicit.

Is the Black Lives Matter movement good reason? To anwser, this stand torwards race discrimination is justified. This is because the things they go through compared to people who are not ethnic, are much more diffucult. From Brent Staples non-fiction essay, he explains the diffuculties of being a person of color. Even with “a discreet, uniflamatory distance” between him and the citizen, the stranger still fled in fear. That shows the unnessesary emotions directed at black people. During Clint Smiths TED Talk, he addresses as a little boy he couldnt even play outside with his friends without his father fearing the worst. This movement will prove that are precieving this race wrong. It doesnt make logical sense to let societies, citites, America’s,

Society continues to nurture these depriving situations and demonstrate lack of concern towards black women by not celebrating them for the roles they played in the movements. Taylor (1998) asserted that, “despite the fact that the most celebrated leaders of the modern civil rights movements were men, African American women participated at every stage in the struggle for justice and equality” (239). Although black women were not in public eyes during these movements, it was their vision and organizing roles they played that helped in the progression of many liberation movements.