“Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.” In July of 2013, Alicia Garza wrote these words in reaction to a jury’s acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. That post turned into a hashtag which became the rallying cry for one of the most recognizable social movements of this generation. While it can feel like the nation’s current racial discourse is trending downward, the last four or five years has seen an ostensible rapid expansion of social justice consciousness with public opinion polling showing racial attitudes moving in the right direction. Black Lives Matter was an enormous part of catalyzing these public opinion changes and reform movements. Alicia Garza is at the center of it all and joins us to shed light on the origins of #BlackLivesMatter and how it’s evolved in the years since.

RELATED LINKS:

Black Census Results

https://blackcensus.org/

A Colony in a Nation

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780393254228

Dear Candidates: Here Is What Black People Want

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/opinion/black-census-alicia-garza.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

The Trump Scheme to Rig the Census with Dale Ho

Ending Mass Incarceration with Larry Krasner

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