After the death of George Floyd, the BLM movement reignited and inspired a new generation of activists. They are young, fearless, and ready to rebuild the system. Today we discussed the 5 Black Lives Matters activists.
Erynn Chambers
In June, Erynn Chambers watched a TikTok video from drag queen Online kyne, talking about how statistics are manipulated to make it appear that Black Americans are more violent. So, the elementary school music teacher from North Carolina opened up TikTok and added her own commentary, in song form.
“Black neighborhoods are overpoliced, so of course they have higher rates of crime. And white perpetrators are undercharged, so of course they have lower rates of crime,” she sang. “And all those stupid stats that you keep using are operating off a small sample size. So shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.”
Rachel Cargle
In 2017 at the Women’s March in Washington, Rachel Cargle posed holding protest signs with a friend and activist Dana Suchow in front of the US Capitol. Cargle’s read: “If You Don’t Fight for All Women You Fight for No Women.” The photo went viral and so did Cargle.
An anti-racism activist and author of the upcoming book on feminism through the lens of race, “I Don’t Want Your Love and Light with The Dial”. “The Start,” for example, is a three-hour workshop on how to be an anti-racist.
John Legend
Following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of law enforcement, singer-songwriter and longtime social activist John Legend raise his voice to the anti-racist struggle, offering a Twitter primer on the “defund the police” movement and campaigning for Florida voting rights with Camila Cabello.
Ijeoma Oluo
Ijeoma Oluo, who for years has been writing and speaking on race, saw interest in her work soar after Floyd’s death. Her 2018 book, “So You Want to Talk about Race,” catapulted her onto must-read lists. “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America” is about white male supremacy, which Oluo calls “one of the evilest and insidious social constructs in Western history,” from the violent takeover of indigenous lands and the genocide of native people to generations of trauma and loss from anti-Black racism.
Bree Newsome Bass
In June 2015, long before today’s protests toppled monuments to Confederates, Bree Newsome Bass scaled a 30-foot pole on the grounds of the South Carolina State House and removed the Confederate flag. This nonviolent act of protest followed the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, North Carolina. Eight Black parishioners and their pastor were killed by a white supremacist who posed with the Confederate flag.
