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Introduction
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people and to promote anti-racism. Its primary concerns are police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The movement began in response to the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Rekia Boyd, among others. BLM and its related organizations typically advocate for various policy changes related to black liberation and criminal justice reform. While there are specific organizations that label themselves "Black Lives Matter", such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the overall movement is a decentralized network with no formal hierarchy. , there are about 40 chapters in the United States and Canada. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" itself has not been trademarked by any group.
In 2013, activists and friends Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi originated the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter became nationally recognized for street demonstrations following the 2014 deaths of two more African Americans, Michael Brown—resulting in protests and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri—and Eric Garner in New York City. Since the Ferguson protests, participants in the movement have demonstrated against the deaths of numerous other African Americans by police actions or while in police custody. In the summer of 2015, Black Lives Matter activists became involved in the 2016 United States presidential election.
The movement gained international attention during global protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. An estimated 15 to 26 million people participated in Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, making it one of the largest protest movements in the country's history. Despite being characterized by opponents as violent, the overwhelming majority of BLM demonstrations have been peaceful.
The popularity of Black Lives Matter has shifted over time, largely due to changing perceptions among white Americans. In 2020, 67% of adults in the United States expressed support for the movement, declining to 51% of U.S. adults in 2023. Support among people of color has, however, held strong, with 81% of African Americans, 61% of Hispanics and 63% of Asian Americans expressing support for Black Lives Matter as of 2023. (Full article...)
Selected general articles
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Image 1Philip V. McHarris (born December 4, 1992) is an American academic at Yale University and writer.
McHarris has been a frequent contributor for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, and Essence regarding issues related to race, policing, housing, and social inequality. He has appeared on HBO, CNN, PBS, ABC News, and MSNBC. His commentary has also been featured in Time, the Los Angeles Times, and MTV. (Full article...) -
Image 2The killing of Charley Leundeu Keunang, a 43-year-old Cameroonian national, occurred in Los Angeles, California, on March 1, 2015. He was shot by three Los Angeles Police Department officers.
On December 1, 2016, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced that no criminal charges would be filed against the officers who shot Keunang, and that they considered it an act of self-defense. Later on May 10, 2018, the Superior Court of California ruled that an officer used an unreasonable amount of force against Keunang and the case was settled with paying his family $1.95 million by the city. (Full article...) -
Image 3On August 5, 2016, Jamarion Rashad Robinson, a 26-year-old African American man who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was shot 59 times and killed in a police raid in East Point, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. The shooting occurred when at least 14 officers of a Southeast Regional Fugitive Taskforce from at least seven different agencies, led by U.S. Marshals, forcibly entered the apartment of Robinson's girlfriend to serve a warrant for his arrest. The officers were heavily armed, including with submachine guns. The warrant was being served on behalf of the Gwinnett County police and the Atlanta Police Department, and authorities said they had sought his arrest for attempted arson and aggravated assault of a police officer. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) stated that Robinson had been repeatedly ordered to put down a weapon and that officers who had been involved in the shooting reported Robinson fired at them three times.
The case has been highlighted as an example of excessive force by law enforcement officers, systemic racism in law enforcement, a lack of knowledge in police who interact with people who have a mental illness, a lack of transparency and accountability surrounding the actions of police officers, and a lack of use of body cameras by police and U.S. Marshals when serving arrest warrants. (Full article...) -
Image 4Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging is a 2018 book by the journalist Afua Hirsch. The book is part-memoir and discusses black history, culture and politics in the context of Britain, Senegal and Ghana. It received mixed critical reception. (Full article...)
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Image 5The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGN or BLMGNF) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to promoting the Black Lives Matter movement. The organization is often mistaken for other organizations within the Black Lives Matter movement because it often solely employs the phrase "Black Lives Matter" as its name and it also owns the domain name "blacklivesmatter.com" as its official website. While BLMGN often simply calls itself "Black Lives Matter," it is not the sole organization within the broader Black Lives Matter social movement. It is, however, the largest and most well-funded, and it also claims to speak on behalf of the movement. Efforts which were started in late 2020 by its then Executive Director Patrisse Cullors began to centralize its operations.
The organization was founded in 2013 by three female activists. International but largely based in the United States, the organization advocates for the eradication of systematic racism and the prevention of police violence. Among its core beliefs is that the entire US legal system, mainstream media, and society is inherently white supremacist; and that "policing at-large is an irredeemable institution" and should be defunded. (Full article...) -
Image 6Dijon Kizzee (February 5, 1991 – August 31, 2020), an African-American man, was shot and killed in the Los Angeles County community of Westmont on August 31, 2020, by deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD). For days, protesters gathered outside the South Los Angeles sheriff's station. By September 6, those demonstrations had escalated to clashes, with deputies firing projectiles and tear gas at the crowds and arresting 35 people over four nights of unrest. (Full article...)
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Image 7Stranger Fruit is a 2017 American documentary film about the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer. The film showed previously unpublished surveillance video that director Jason Pollock alleges was concealed from jury members and the public in order to tarnish Brown's image.
Filmmaker Jason Pollock, spent two years filming to document civil unrest in Ferguson following the failed indictment of former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson over charges in Brown's killing. (Full article...) -
Image 8The George Floyd Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act of 2020 (LETIA) is a subtitle of the Justice in Policing Act of 2020 which aims to reduce the prevalence of police brutality by fostering connections between police departments and communities. The bill also calls for national policing standards and accreditations. The bill died in committee.
The bill was co-sponsored by Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Jason Crow (D-CO), and Karen Bass (D-CA). It was introduced to the House Judiciary Committee by chairman Nadler and Minnesota representative Omar following the murder of George Floyd and subsequent protests. Subsequently, the bill was adjoined to the Omnibus Justice in Policing Act of 2020 at the bills announcement on June 8. (Full article...) -
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On November 15, 2015, two police officers fatally shot Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old African-American man, in Minneapolis. The two shooters were Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze. They were a part of the Minneapolis Police Department which subsequently placed the men on paid administrative leave. The night after Ringgenberg and Schwarze shot him, Clark died at the Hennepin County Medical Center after being taken off life support. His death resulted from one of the gunshot wounds the shooters inflicted on November 15.
In response to the shooting, Black Lives Matter organized protests outside the Fourth Precinct police station that lasted for 18 days, as well as other protests and demonstrations in and around Minneapolis. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced that cases concerning officer-involved shootings would no longer be put before grand juries, but instead his office would make the decision to file criminal charges. On March 30, 2016, Freeman announced that no charges would be filed against Ringgenberg and Schwarze. Freeman concluded that the officers acted in accordance with Minnesota Statutes authorizing deadly force and that the state would be unable to provide evidence that the officer's use of force was unlawful. (Full article...) -
Image 10"This Is America" is a song by American rapper Childish Gambino. Written and produced by Gambino and Ludwig Göransson, with additional writing credits going to American rapper Young Thug, it was released on May 6, 2018 at the same time that Gambino was hosting an episode of Saturday Night Live. The song features background vocals from Young Thug alongside fellow American rappers Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd, BlocBoy JB, Quavo of Migos, and Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage. The lyrics and accompanying music video, reflecting the core of the Black Lives Matter movement, confront issues of ongoing systemic racism, including prejudice, racial violence, the ghetto, and law enforcement in the United States, as well as the wider issues of mass shootings and gun violence in the United States. Originally, Gambino intended it to be a diss record towards fellow rapper Drake.
The song's accompanying music video was directed by filmmaker Hiro Murai, a frequent Gambino collaborator. "This Is America" became the 31st song to debut at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming both Gambino's first number one and top ten single in the country. It has also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The song won in all four of its nominated categories at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best Music Video. This made Gambino the first hip-hop artist to win Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and "This Is America" the first rap song to win these awards. (Full article...) -
Image 11The shooting of Anthony Hill, a U.S. Air Force veteran, occurred on March 9, 2015, in Chamblee, Georgia, near Atlanta. Hill, fatally shot by police officer Robert Olsen, suffered from mental illness and was naked and unarmed at the time of the incident. The incident was covered in local and national press and sparked the involvement of Black Lives Matter and other advocacy groups who demonstrated their anger at the shooting. In January 2016, a grand jury indicted officer Olsen on two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. Nearing the fourth anniversary of the homicide, it was decided that Olsen's trial would be rescheduled for September 23, 2019, with delays including three successive judges having recused themselves in the case. (Full article...)
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Linda Sarsour (born 1980) is an American political activist. She was co-chair of the 2017 Women's March, the 2017 Day Without a Woman, and the 2019 Women's March. She is also a former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. She and her Women's March co-chairs were profiled in Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People" in 2017.
A Muslim of Palestinian descent, Sarsour first gained attention for protesting police surveillance of American Muslims, later becoming involved in other civil rights issues such as police brutality, feminism, immigration policy, and mass incarceration. She has also organized Black Lives Matter demonstrations and was the lead plaintiff in a suit challenging the legality of the Trump travel ban. (Full article...) -
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Deona Marie Knajdek (also reported as Deona Marie Erickson), a 31-year old American woman, was killed on June 13, 2021, when a man drove a car into a crowd of demonstrators who had gathered as a part of the Uptown Minneapolis unrest. That evening, demonstrators protesting the law enforcement killing of Winston Boogie Smith had blocked the intersection of West Lake Street and Girard Avenue. At approximately 11:39 p.m. CDT, a man in a late-model Jeep Cherokee drove into the crowd at a high speed, striking a parked vehicle that had been used to block off the intersection to traffic, which then collided with protesters, killing Knajdek and injuring three others.
The driver, Nicholas Kraus of Saint Paul, Minnesota, was charged with second-degree intentional murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon in relation to the crash, after allegedly telling investigators that he had accelerated towards the crowd in an attempt to clear cars acting as barricades. Investigators believed that Kraus might have been intoxicated during the incident. After being charged criminally, Kraus was found mentally competent to stand trial. To avoid trial in late 2022, Kraus pleaded guilty to second degree unintentional murder (the second degree intentional murder charged was dropped) and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon. He admitted to the court that the night he killed Knajdek he was under the influence of illegal narcotics and that he intentionally drove his car into barricades that blocked the street. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. (Full article...) -
Image 14On April 12, 2015, Baltimore Police Department officers arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American resident of Baltimore, Maryland. Gray's neck and spine were injured while he was in a police vehicle and he went into a coma. On April 18, there were protests in front of the Western district police station. Gray died on April 19.
Further protests were organized after Gray's death became public knowledge, amid the police department's continuing inability to adequately or consistently explain the events following the arrest and the injuries. Spontaneous protests started after the funeral service, although several included violent elements. Civil unrest continued with at least twenty police officers injured, at least 250 people arrested, 285 to 350 businesses damaged, 150 vehicle fires, 60 structure fires, 27 drugstores looted, thousands of police and Maryland National Guard troops deployed, and with a state of emergency declared in the city limits of Baltimore. The state of emergency was lifted on May 6. The series of protests took place against a historical backdrop of racial and poverty issues in Baltimore. (Full article...) -
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Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old African-American man, was fatally shot on September 20, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina, by Brentley Vinson, an African-American city police officer. It sparked both peaceful and violent protests led by Black Lives Matter in Charlotte.
The shooting prompted investigations by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Department of Justice. As is customary for the department, Vinson was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. In November 2016, county prosecutors decided not to charge Vinson, concluding that the shooting was justified. (Full article...) -
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Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement were created in Portland, Oregon, United States, during local protests over the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans. Oregon Arts Watch contextualized the artistic works, stating that a "whitewashed pre-COVID lens" on American life, which obscured systemic racism, had been "cracked", and describing artists' response to racial violence being brought into the public eye was a "marathon, not a sprint". (Full article...) -
Image 17
Marissa Johnson (born 1990/1991) is an activist who attained notoriety when she interrupted U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at an August 2015 rally in Seattle. Her activism has been associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. She is a founder of a Seattle-based justice group called Outside Agitators 206, which was disbanded when she became a cofounder of the Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter around September 2015. (Full article...) -
Image 18Akai Gurley, a 28-year-old black man, was fatally shot on November 20, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, by a New York City Police Department officer. Two police officers, patrolling stairwells in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)'s Louis H. Pink Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, entered a pitch-dark, unlit stairwell. Officer Peter Liang, 27, had his firearm drawn. Gurley and his girlfriend entered the seventh-floor stairwell, fourteen steps below them. Liang fired his weapon; the shot ricocheted off a wall and fatally struck Gurley in the chest. A jury convicted Liang of manslaughter, which a court later reduced to criminally negligent homicide.
On February 10, 2015, Liang was indicted by a grand jury (seven men and five women) for manslaughter, assault, and other criminal charges (five counts total) after members were shown footage of the unlit house and the 9mm Glock used in the shooting. In evaluating the possibility of equipment failure, they concluded that the 11.5-pound (51-newton) trigger could not have been fired unintentionally. Liang turned himself in to authorities the next day and was arraigned. He was convicted of manslaughter and official misconduct on February 11, 2016, facing up to 15 years of prison time. (Full article...) -
Image 19On November 22, 2018, Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr., an African-American man, was shot three times from behind and killed by Hoover police officer David Alexander on the night of Thanksgiving, at the Riverchase Galleria shopping mall in Hoover, Alabama. Police responded to a shooting at the mall where two people were shot. Another African-American man suspected in the first shooting was arrested in Georgia a week later and charged in the shooting of one of those injured. Bradford was holding a legally owned weapon when shot and was not involved in the prior shooting incident, although near the crime scene. The shooting of Bradford was immediately controversial, and was condemned by the Alabama National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as an example of racially biased policing. (Full article...)
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Image 20On September 14, 2013, Jonathan Ferrell (born October 11, 1988), a 24-year-old former college football player for the Florida A&M University Rattlers was involved in a car crash. When police arrived, he ran towards them and was shot by police officer Randall "Wes" Kerrick in Charlotte, North Carolina. Kerrick was charged with voluntary manslaughter, but the jury deadlocked and he was not retried. Police dashcam footage of the incident was released to the public. (Full article...)
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Image 21On March 21, 2024, Dexter Reed was shot and killed by officers of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) in Humboldt Park, Chicago, United States. Reed fired his gun and injured a police officer during a traffic stop, then police returned fire, discharging over 90 rounds at Reed. (Full article...)
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Image 22Black Visions Collective (BLVC) is an American nonprofit organization for Black liberation based in Minnesota, founded in December 2017. The group intersects with transgender and LGBTQ communities. Active in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, BLVC has been involved in Black Lives Matter protests. It has lobbied for part of the Minneapolis Police Department budget to be diverted to programs that support people experiencing youth homelessness, opioid dependency, and mental health issues.
In 2019, BLVC received a grant from the Minneapolis Climate Action and Racial Equity Fund to develop an environmental justice leadership panel of people of color and indigenous people. The fund was created through a partnership between the city of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation. (Full article...) -
Image 23
Benjamin Lloyd Crump (born October 10, 1969) is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits. His practice has focused on cases such as those of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Keenan Anderson, Randy Cox, and Tyre Nichols, people affected by the Flint water crisis, the estate of Henrietta Lacks, and the plaintiffs behind the 2019 Johnson & Johnson baby powder lawsuit alleging the company's talcum powder product led to ovarian cancer diagnoses. Crump is also founder of the firm Ben Crump Law of Tallahassee, Florida.
In 2020, Crump became the attorney for the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Jacob Blake. In 2021, he became the attorney for a passenger in the car with Winston Boogie Smith and for the family of Daunte Wright. Ongoing cases surrounding their killings or injuries led to protests against police brutality in America as well as internationally. (Full article...) -
Image 24
Brittany Ann Byuarm Newsome Bass (born May 13, 1985) is an American filmmaker, activist and speaker from Charlotte, North Carolina. She is best known for her act of civil disobedience on June 27, 2015, when she was arrested for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house grounds in the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting. The resulting publicity put pressure on state officials to remove the flag, and it was taken down permanently on July 10, 2015. (Full article...) -
Image 25
Beginning on the afternoon of September 15, 2017, a series of protests took place in St. Louis, Missouri, following the acquittal of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley in the shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man. Over 160 people were arrested during the first three days of demonstrations, with largely peaceful protests. There has been significant criticism around the police and governmental response to protests, resulting in lawsuits from the ACLU. (Full article...)
Did you know...
- ... that Arkansas legislator Denise Jones Ennett took part in a Black Lives Matter protest in front of the Arkansas State Capitol?
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Selected images
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Image 1Vehicle with a BLM sticker, September 18, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 3Black Lives Matter protest in Aotea Square, Auckland, June 14, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 4Ferguson, Missouri, August 17, 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 5A Black Lives Matter protest of police brutality in the rotunda of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, in December 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 7George Floyd protests at Lafayette Square, Washington D.C., May 30, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 9One-year commemoration of the killing of Michael Brown and the Ferguson unrest at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, August 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 10Protest march in response to the Jamar Clark killing, Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 11Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C., as seen from space on June 8, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 12Black Lives Matter protest on September 20, 2015, against police brutality in St. Paul, Minnesota (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 14A Black Lives Matter die-in over rail tracks, protesting alleged police brutality in Saint Paul, Minnesota (September 20, 2015) (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 15Protests in May 2020 after George Floyd's death (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 16The empty pedestal of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol. Subject to increasing controversy since the 1990s, when his prior reputation as a philanthropist came under scrutiny due to a growing awareness of his slave trading, in June 2020 the statue was toppled, defaced and pushed into Bristol Harbour. (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 17Black Lives Matter protest at Herald Square, Manhattan, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 19Protest in response to the Alton Sterling killing, San Francisco, California, July 8, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 22Map depicting rates of police killings by state in the United States in 2018 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 23"Black Lives Matter" on the facade of the Washington National Cathedral, June 10, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 24Black Lives Matter protest against St. Paul police brutality at Metro Green Line, September 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 25Demonstration at Christiansborg Slotsplads, Copenhagen, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 26Black Lives Matter demonstration in Oakland, California, December 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 27Black Lives Matter protester at Macy's Herald Square, November 2014 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 28An activist holds a "Black Lives Matter" sign outside the Minneapolis Police Fourth Precinct building following the officer-involved killing of Jamar Clark on November 15, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 29A demonstrator raising awareness of the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, April 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 30Al Sharpton led the Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 31Protest march in response to the killing of Philando Castile, St. Paul, Minnesota, July 7, 2016 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 32"What happened to 'All Lives Matter'?" sign at a protest against Donald Trump, January 29, 2017 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 33Bernie Sanders and Black Lives Matter activists in Westlake Park, Seattle, August 8, 2015 (from Black Lives Matter)
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Image 34Protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London, June 7, 2020 (from Black Lives Matter)
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