Black Lives Matter activists plan to remain busy for the next four years, continuing to organize against a Republican administration and its policies which will almost certainly do harm to black people living in the United States. Originally conceived as a response to police brutality and mass incarceration, the movement is expanding its focus to include other important issues in the Trump era.
Trump's immigration order barring refugees and immigrants in particular "changed the rules of engagement," says Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Oakland-based Center for Media Justice, part of the United Front. The new president's agenda, she says, represents "an escalation of the war on black bodies and lives." Approximately a quarter of Muslims in America are black, she notes; Trump's order blocked immigrants from the African countries of Sudan, Libya, and Somalia, among others. "The issue is the culture that gets created that is anti-Muslim, anti-black, anti-brown, anti-woman," she says.
Over the last several years, Black Lives Matter has been the target of numerous critiques from those outside of the movement who see it as disorganized, leaderless, and inaccessible to White America. These critiques often harken back to the civil rights era and compare this movement to its predecessor. But these are new times and new threats, which require new methods of organizing. In short, this is not their grandparent’s movement.
While it is true that its organizers have intentionally chosen to create a movement that has multiple local leaders rather than one central leader to allow for diverse perspectives and autonomy, it is not true that the movement is unorganized. And its leaders have made an intentional choice not to try to make their message palatable to the mainstream in order to be authentic and not pacify resisters. Suggestions that they are disorganized also ignore the important coordination work that the movement is currently doing to mobilize various stakeholders around matters related to immigration, LGBTQ issues, reproductive rights, climate change, and education.
"The crises are so large that we have to have the capacity to address more than one thing at a time," said Sam Sinyangwe, a co-founder of the group. "In this moment when they're trying to take away health care from 30 million people, we simply cannot ignore that in the interest of focusing on one issue."
Though the media has not widely covered its actions much beyond protests, Black Lives Matter groups have been quite busy with a number of actions since January with the D.C. chapter alone hosting Know Your Rights trainings, teach-ins on the policies of the new administration, and canvassing to mobilize and share information with residents in neighborhoods impacted by crime.
Moreover, the group realizes the importance of solidarity with partners in the struggle for equality and justice and is actively continuing its work building coalitions.
Building that people power will benefit from more collaboration and resource sharing with non-BLM groups. Even before Trump's election, some BLM groups had begun to build such coalitions. Last fall, some sent members to North Dakota to support Native American activists fighting against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, while others raised money and provided supplies for native activists on the front lines there. The Black Lives Matter Global Network has raised nearly $14,000 in support of the protest efforts at Standing Rock.
While the Black Lives Matter movement has been largely misunderstood and has received its share of debate and controversy in the past, now is the time for progressives to build on the momentum of resistance to Trump. While each of our struggles are unique, we are all impacted by the madness of this presidency and its in our best interest to see our fates as interconnected. We can (and should) support this movement as well as act in solidarity with others. With our lack of power in local and federal government, grassroots activism and unity will be all we have for the foreseeable future.