This is arguably the most important series of protests since the civil rights movement some fifty years ago. As veteran activist Phil Hutchings argues, there has been a ‘changing of the guards’ in the Black Liberation movement. If these more organised events follow from the more spontaneous protests and riots in Ferguson this summer in reaction to the murder of Mike Brown, #BlackLivesMatter started in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, killer of black teenager Trayvon Martin. According to co-founder Alicia Garza, it was a call out to Black folks against racism, lack of justice and police violence. This call is now one against state violence, and the movement is considered a tactic to interrupt ‘business as usual’ and rebuild the Black Liberation movement. For organisers, state violence is manifested in gentrification, deportation, water privatisation, and the prison-industrial complex.
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