Campus News
February 3, 2022
PAGE 2
Black Lives Matter beyond February Black history will be celebrated throughout the calendar’s shortest month. It is vitally important to continue to acknowledge and appreciate #BLM year-round.
___ By Collin Atwood ___ @collinatwood17
After George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges for fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012, an uproar sparked throughout the country. The death of Martin, who was unarmed, sparked a viral Twitter hashtag and a widely known organization now recognized as Black Lives Matter (BLM). The movement was started by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi in 2013. The movement and hashtag made headway in 2015, ranking at No. 8 on Twitter’s Top-10 News Hashtags list. Springfield College senior Jennifer Charlera was supportive of the organization’s message when she first heard about BLM in 2014. “I was all for it,” she
A Black Lives Matter rock painted by Springfield College students. (Photo by Collin Atwood/ The Student)
said, “I felt empowered and I just like the message it was trying to portray.” BLM’s mission of fighting for the rights of people of color lives through Charlera
at Springfield as she currently serves as the Secretary for the Black Student Union (BSU) and the Vice President of the Student Society for Bridging Diversity (SSBD).
By August of 2017, #BlackLivesMatter was used over 41 million times. The support for this movement kept rising and spiked following the acts of injustice that occurred in 2020. The
deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery - among others - increased the gap between support and opposition of Black Lives Matter. According to a study done by Civiqs in June of 2019, 41% of registered voters supported BLM and 34% did not. A year later, weeks after the killing of Floyd, that gap was at its peak with 52% of voters supporting and 29% opposing. The use of the hashtag also peaked in the weeks after Floyd was forcefully choked to the point where he could no longer breathe. According to Pew Research Center, #BlackLivesMatter was used around 3.7 million times per day from May 26 to June 7. The hashtag
