The Civil Rights Movement: The Black Lives Matter Movement

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Like the Freedman’s Bureau and NAACP, Black Lives Matter is a movement for the advancement of black people in all aspects of live. It fulfills this purpose by hosting worldwide events to raise awareness of the oppression of minorities that is present in today's society. Since slaves were freed in the 1860s, African Americans have fought relentlessly to acquire their position in society as equal to whites. They have started several organizations to help conquer this battle. The Freedmen’s Bureau was a government funded bureau founded after the Civil War to help assimilate blacks into society. The NAACP was founded to give blacks more opportunities in societies. (Kennedy 518) More recently, the Black Lives Matter movement has started to gain …show more content…
Many did not acknowledge the movement as an actual movement, because of where it was initiated. Those that did believe the authenticity of the movement, thought that it was created to only bring awareness to police brutality against African Americans. Although this is partially the reason, this movement was organized to “(re)build the liberation movement.” Founded by a group of sisters, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, the organization does not simply encourage black nationalism such as buying black, and embracing black culture, but they work to better the lives of all black people: women, men, undocumented, gay, queer, undocumented and many others (Black Lives Matter). Black Lives Matter is merely picking up and dusting off the baton that was dropped in the 1960s because they thought they had won the race. Carrying on their goal to get equal rights, the movement holds protests across the …show more content…
As African Americans support and encourage themselves, whites often feel like targets of reverse racism. Reverse racism is when minority groups antagonize majority groups. They interpret Black Lives Matter as blacks are the most important race in society and only their lives hold importance. However, Black Lives Matter is in no way supporting reverse racism. According to blacklivesmatter.com, there is an implied “too” in the phrase Black Lives Matter, meaning that black lives matter in addition to everyone else’s. The movement is not trying to commence black supremacy, nor does it believe that blacks are better than whites. The movement is to involve blacks, not to omit whites. African Americans are targeted and discriminated against in today’s society, from the workplace to just walking down the street. To give an example, in the workplace many black women are seen as unprofessional with their natural hair. Many times, their hair is the reason that they do not get the job after an interview. This discrimination leads to blacks straightening their hair or buying weaves to match the description of professional hair. This need to “strike a pose,” also known as impression management, (Giddens 91) is unnecessary because blacks should be able to not have to worry about changing their hair. This discrimination towards blacks is what Black Lives Matter is aiming to eliminate
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