Black Lives Matter: A Social Movement Against Racism and Police Brutality

This essay discusses the Black Lives Matter movement, a social movement against racism and police brutality. It covers the history, goals, and achievements of the movement, as well as the impact of social media on modern social movements.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
ESSAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Black lives matter is a decentralised political and social movement that started to protect
against the incidents regarding the brutality of the policy and violence against a particular race,
that are the black people. These movements was started with the aim of bringing together the
major groups of people that are left out from the civil rights movements from the past period of
time. The movement began in the month of July 2013 and increased on the presence of the social
media when an African- American teenager was shot dead due to his race. This movement was
started from the police brutality and the violence that was caused against the black people.
Police brutality is very common while there are many cases on shooting the black men by
cops in United states. Black lives matter movement comprises of the broad array of individuals
and is related with the organisations that stand against the police violence towards the black
people. There are many policy changes that are considered in relation with the black liberation.
The movement was started with a hashtag of black lives matter on various platforms of social
media (Cooper, (2021)). This movement was nationally recognised and lead a lot of people to
come on street and demonstrate following the deaths of African American individuals. It resulted
in protests and causing unrest within the country. The movement was a decentralised network
that does not have any formal hierarchy. This movement has again come in the headlines from
recent years and has grown popularity. Moreover, the history will reflect on the condition of
black lives to be as a fraction of human life during the era of slavery. The movement aimed to try
to change the mentality of individuals believing in not giving equal rights to the black people of
the country.
MAIN BODY
Social movements is about the loosely organised effort done by a large group of
individuals wanting to attain a particular goal that is either social or is related in political context.
Social movements are started with the main focus on bringing in a new social change and can
include both individuals as well as organisations. Social movements are the organisational
structures as well as strategies that helps in empowering the weaker population and help them
overcome the challenges while resisting from the powerful people and elites (Mundt, Ross, &
Burnett, (2018)). Social movements is an approach to have a social change from the bottom

inside the nation itself. The function of social movement have an agenda that will influence the
politics. There are different types of social movements depending on its scope, method of
working and the time frame for the movement (Mayer, & Roberta, (2017)). Modern social
movements such as black lives matter makes the use of technology to mobilize the individuals
present all over the globe and adapt to the new communication trends to make it a successful
movement. Social movements consist of a purpose and are made with the organised groups with
the goal of pushing towards the direction of change and providing political voice to the
individuals who cannot raise one. They gather for a common purpose. Social movements deals
with interacting with the environmental changes along with technological innovations that helps
in creating social change. It is important for the society as it helps in attaining change in laws and
allows the population to come together and speak their mind. It makes individuals aware of the
issue that is close to their heart.
Black lives matter is a phrase that is used to highlight the racism, discrimination and the
cases of inequality still existing within several countries towards the black people. It began in
United states after the case of high profile killing of African- American individuals by the police.
It has even taken place within several countries. This slogan was started during the year 2012
where a man from Florida was shot dead. He was a 17- year- old individual killed by the
neighbourhood watch policeman. The support for these individuals increased with the other
similar cases taking place. Another individual named, Eric Garner was chocked dead and the
policeman said that this act was an act of self- defence. The Black lives matter is a type of
centralised political and social movements that includes protesting against the incidents that
resulted in policy brutality towards the racially motivated violence against the black people of
the country. It resulted in multiple mass protests at different places.
The leaders of black lives matter focused on providing importance to the local
organisations over the national leadership (Bert, & Mayer, (2017)). The movement was publicly
declared by activists De Ray McKesson who devoted the time and energy accordingly. Black
lives matter existed to provide the activists with the shared set of principles and goals. A lot of
people contributed the movement as a whole and is used to describe the wide range of protests
and conversations focusing on the racial inequality. The public opinion on black lives matter is
increasing and making the citizens support for this movement. This shows that this movement
was very much effective in reaching out to different people.

This movement was a fight against racism and anti- black individuals supporting and
exhibiting such violence conditions of police brutality. The name of this movement is indicates
the unjust during the time when black people were killed by the police. Black people are more
likely to get killed in such incidents. This movement demands for the lives as well as humanity
for black people along with having an equal value as with the white people. Activists played a
major role in influencing such protests within the cities as well as on the international level. This
movement begin with the non- profit civil rights organisation currently active within United
states. The first came coming to the headlines and the one that led to starting this movement, a
teenager, unarmed black man who was shot of police officer. This was an act of miscarriage of
justice when the police officer remained free. It gained the national attention that demanded to
prosecute him across different places (Flores, (2020)). This movement expanded when there
were other similar cases taken place in yea 2014 and 2020. The deaths of these individuals along
with the refusal of not charging against these officers led to large protests with the name of black
lives matter and therefore, resulted in capturing national as well as international attention. This
movement plays an important role within the demonstrations against the brutal behaviour of
police and the rise of racism. The activist involves in these protested about the deaths by the
police while being police custody. With the help of social media platforms, the videos of such
injustice incidents were circulated among the people, triggering the demonstrations of the
protests throughout the globe. Such events persuaded the opinions of public in favour of the
black lives matter movements. It was successful in drawing the attention towards the problem of
racism within the American society.
The mission of black lives matter movement was a combination of many goals. This
movement was aimed to draw the attention towards the unfair ways in which black people are
usually treated within the society. Moreover, the policies and other laws contribute towards this
unfairness. The movement helped in fighting the racism using many different ways such as by
taking political action, working on campaigns and even non- violent protests. Black lives matter
was a movement that was a fight between the police brutality, over- policing minority
neighbours and the abuse that is done to have non- profit jails (Wilkins, Livingstone, & Levine,
(2019)). These efforts made led to have better training for the police while contributing towards
the greater form of accountability involved in the police misconduct. This movement has
succeeded in achieving many milestones so far. It includes having a police reform that is cutting

the funding of police departments, generating new law enforcements and policies. There were
racists relics and providing the knowledge of being fair and education everyone for the same.
CONCLUSION
Black lives matter is an important movement in the history to raise a voice against the racial
injustice done on black people. There are several cases of police brutality that have come in
headlines towards the black people of the country. The support for black lives matter movement
was broken after the political association and racial lines. Initially few republicans expressed
their support in favor of the movement. Black lives matter claims that systematic racism does not
exists within many places in country. The achievements of this movements include the tackle
against the police violence and the changes in the law that is being applied on racial injustice.
The problems faced by black people even in this modern world were highlighted. This shift due
to the growing awareness. This movement is the new civil rights movement that is made to fight
against different forms of racism. The most important outcome from this movement was to
educate the population about the high level of racism still existing while changing their opinions
and gaining support.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bert, U., & Mayer, N. Z. (2017). From pressure group to social movement: Efforts to promote
use of nuclear power. In Social movements in an organizational society (pp. 273-288).
Routledge.
Cooper, C. (2021). Fat activism: A radical social movement. Intellect Books.
Flores, S. (2020). " You Write in Cursive, I Write in Graffiti": How# BlackLivesMatter
Reorients Social Movement Legal Theory. UCLA L. Rev., 67, 1022.
Mayer, N. Z., & Roberta, A. G. (2017). Social movement organizations: Growth, decay, and
change. In Social Movements in an organizational society (pp. 121-142). Routledge.
Mundt, M., Ross, K., & Burnett, C. M. (2018). Scaling social movements through social media:
The case of Black Lives Matter. Social Media+ Society, 4(4), 2056305118807911.
Wilkins, D. J., Livingstone, A. G., & Levine, M. (2019). Whose tweets? The rhetorical functions
of social media use in developing the Black Lives Matter movement. British Journal of
Social Psychology, 58(4), 786-805.