The history behind the movement By ASH ESPINOZA
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veryone and everything has a story, whether we really know the tale or not – though some know it better than others. A story that has always caught my eye has been the Black Lives Matter movement, including how and why it began and what it truly stands for, not as the media tries to portray it. Let’s set the stage: It’s the year 2012, and 17-year-old Black boy was shot dead on the 26th of February. He was walking home from a 7/11 store in Sanford, Florida, when his killer, George Zimmerman, took notice, and the rest, as we say, is history. Trayvon Martin’s death sparked national outrage and people screamed for justice. For weeks, peaceful protest would be seen on TV, in newspapers and on social media platforms, as streets were flooded and demands of justice in prosecuting Zimmerman were made. It took 45 days before Zimmerman was arrested, and you might think it would have been an open-and-shut case. To me, the evidence was right there and the facts don’t lie, but on July 13, 2013, he was found not guilty by a jury. At this point, Alicia Garza, a domestic worker rights organizer in Oakland, California, had seen
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enough. Her social media page said what it needed when it took on two paths: those who knew and were tired, and those who made excuses. So with that, she began writing a series of letters on her social media page titled “A love letter to black people.” When ending her final letter she stated “..... our lives matter.” Her close friend, Patrisse Cullors, an anti-police violence organizer in Los Angeles, responded with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, to which their friend Opal Tometi, an immigration rights worker in Phoenix, gave her support – and thus a movement was born. This is not the first story but just one of many, many tales of death, hatred, and violence against a race of people, but maybe after true reform the tale can change with time, until we no longer need hashtags and we won’t see another life taken too soon on our TV screen. The BLM movement didn’t happen because of the brutality we were facing from the police, but because of the fact that innocent black lives were being taken without cause and without justice from people who took the law into their own hands. Then came 2014, when 18-year-old Michael Brown was murdered by a white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. His body lay on the ground for four hours before it was eventually taken to the city’s morgue. Thank God for cell phones, right? It was because of bystanders documenting with their cell
