Screenshotting Governor Cuomo’s Powerpoints, engaging in pre-meeting Zoom small talk, enjoying your daily stress walk around the block—what were you doing on May 25th, 2020? That Monday, Amy Cooper became the #1 trending topic on Twitter. A viral video showed a middle-aged white woman calling the police on Christian Cooper, a Black man, after he asked her to put her dog on a leash in Central Park's bird watching zone. That same day, George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was murdered by police outside a Cup Foods grocery store in Minneapolis over an alleged counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. The killing of Black Americans—attempted and actual—was not a new crisis for this country. But this day was different.
Floyd's murder detonated a wave of collective anger and demanded a racial reckoning across the United States and beyond. The Black Lives Matter movement, which started on the streets of Ferguson in 2014, was reignited with George Floyd’s murder—inspiring millions of largely peaceful, diverse protesters to take to the streets to call out racism, demand justice, and condemn police brutality. The BLM protests of 2020 were the largest in US history with an estimated 21 million people having attended across the country, and with tens of millions more taking to the streets around the world.
Since then, prominent CEOs have resigned, statutes have fallen, and formerly non-political companies have published statements acknowledging their complicity in systemic racism. The defunding, and even abolition, of police departments have been debated; law enforcement accountability bills have been introduced on the House floor. Major brands have shown up for Black-owned businesses by adopting Aurora James’ 15% Pledge—an initiative that challenges retailers to pledge 15% of their shelf space to products made by Black-owned companies. Racism is a long way from being solved, of course, but it’s been heartening to have that notion so widely understood. Here’s to progress.
For this chapter, we'll speak to activists leading the BLM movement, showcase images from the streets, and look systemic racism directly in the eye.
Cash App your favorite organizer and dive in.
