The program was not successful
The program was not successful. Hi, I’m Clint Smith and this is Crash Course Black American History. Today, we’re learning about the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement. On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black American teen, was walking home from a convenience store in Sanford, Florida when he was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. After police in Florida decided not to arrest Zimmerman, the case sparked international protests and debates about racial profiling, racial violence, and self-defense laws. Zimmerman was later charged with second-degree murder and the killing of Martin, but he was later acquitted of the charges.
In the subsequent weeks after the acquittal, there were nationwide protests honoring Martin’s life and legacy. In 2013, three Black organizers, Alicia Garza, Patrice Cullers, and Ayo Timetti, created a racial justice organization building on what had become the popular social media hashtag, Black Lives Matter, in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman. Their work, alongside the work of Black activists across the country, some of whom were formally affiliated with the organization and some of whom had been doing racial justice work in their communities for years, helped spur a social movement that spread across the world and has shaped the fight for racial justice, economic equality, and gender equity over the past decade.
Today, we’re going to dive into how the Black Lives Matter movement spread worldwide and inspired a generational swell of activism that continues to this day. Let’s start the show.
About two years after the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, another episode of anti-Black violence gained national and international attention. On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. The details of Brown’s death and the aftermath were hotly disputed, with some claiming that Wilson had used unnecessary force on Brown and others defending Wilson as just doing his job. There were also allegations that Brown had potentially participated in a robbery shortly before the shooting occurred.
What isn’t under dispute, though, is that Michael Brown’s body was left in the street after he was killed for more than four hours—something many in the community and across the world saw as further compounding the injustice of the tragedy in Ferguson. Protests following Brown’s death began peacefully and then became progressively more intense, and included a militarized response from law enforcement. Journalists, residents, protesters, and bystanders were often swept up in the response.
Demonstrations resumed with fresh intensity in November 2014 when a grand jury decided not to indict Officer Wilson in the shooting, and then again in 2015 when the United States Department of Justice announced they would not charge Wilson for violating federal civil rights law. These protests weren’t just limited to Ferguson—they spread across the country and across the world.
In the wake of Wilson’s hearing, activists organized a national action which became known as the Black Lives Matter Ride to support local protesters and also to build coalitions that would continue racial justice work in their home towns once they returned. This effort was part of a tradition of Black activism that built on the famous Freedom Rides of the 1960s, when young activists from across the country rode buses into the South to protest segregation. Over 600 people participated in the Black Lives Matter Ride following the death of Michael Brown.
Black Lives Matter continued to grow and spread across social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The hashtag was used as an organizing tool meant to both defend the Black community against state-sanctioned violence and also to affirm the dignity, beauty, and humanity of Black people in a world that so often seemed to do the opposite.
Another case that gained a lot of attention came in July 2014 when several bystanders used their cell phones to capture footage of Officer Daniel.