Arizona State University

Black Lives Matter Global Network

American identity,civic engagement and mobilization

Kendra Golak

Identity, Service, and American Democracy PAF112

Dr. Jonathan Koppell

December 9th 2020

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Black Lives matter is an ideological and political movement in a world where the lives of

Black people have been targets of intentional and systematic oppression, that's goal is to liberate

Black people in the face of disenfranchisement. Black Lives Matter came to be in 2013 when

Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi joined forces to create a political, Black-centered

movement as a response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s Murderer, George Zimmerman that

they called #BlackLivesMatter. Since then, the organization has grown to have more than forty

chapters nationwide. This organization is a good example of how identity plays an integral role

in the mobilization of people for a cause, and how that affects social and civic engagement

between those who have shared identities and those who might not fall into those identities.

(“About”, blacklivesmatter.com)

At face value, the identity that is most relevant to the cause of the Black Lives Matter

organization (BLM) would be the identity of being African American. Individuals who share the

identity of being Black in America are able to relate to each other in a specific way based on the

experiences that have shaped their perspectives that can unify them for the cause of racial

equality in America and around the world. While Black people are the main focus of the

movement, BLM extends it’s reach beyond to those who are queer, transgender, disabled,

women, people with criminal records, undocumented immigrants and many more.

By broadening their reach beyond just racial identity, BLM is able to bridge the identity divide

and create more social capital within the movement.This is a social advocacy movement for not

only Black people and people of color, but for all minorities and marginalized groups. This then

creates relationships between members that may not be the same race or have the same skin
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color. Members all have their minority identities in common, which creates an increased sense of

belonging and community throughout the movement (“About”, blacklivesmatter.com). Those

who do not fall into any of these categories have seen the injustices committed against Black

people, especially in the case of police brutality and racial profiling, and they feel called to stand

up and use their voices to demand change.

Social engagement in the BLM Movement mainly takes place through social media, sharing

information and support for the cause. Instagram and Facebook have become two of the major

platforms for members of the movement to communicate, share resources and organize events in

support of the cause. Since BLM started out as a hashtag on twitter following the murder of a

young, unarmed black boy, the movement has since relied on the social capital of online

platforms to gain support. 2020 has been a year of growth within the movement in the face of

social unrest. On May 23rd, an average of a million people used #BlackLivesMatter per day on

Twitter. Two days later on May 25th, George Floyd was killed in the custody of Minneapolis

police and video footage was released online for the nation to see. Following George Floyd’s

death, the use of the hashtag skyrocketed. On May 28th 8.8 million uses of the hashtag were

recorded as national and global protests spread, an average of 3.7 million times per day (Cohen

2020).

The main way the Black Lives Matter Movement mobilizes its members is through organized

marches, protests, and demonstrations. A recent poll conducted by Civic Analytics between the

12th and the 22nd of June 2020 suggests that about 15 to 26 million people in the United States

participated in demonstrations and marches in protest of the death of George Floyd and Breonna
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Taylor (Buchanan, Bui, Patel 2020). These figures would make BLM the largest movement in

the history of the country, according to scholars and crowd counting experts. More than 40

percent of the counties in the United States have had a protest (Buchanan, Bui, Patel 2020). The

millions of people who participated in these protests and demonstrations came together to be a

voice for marginalised and oppressed individuals. They volunteered their time and resources to

organize and share resources with others. Oftentimes, those who showed up for the cause were

also putting their safety at risk in the interest of making a change for the future and getting

justice for those who have been made victims.

In the history of public service, people have found ways of mobilizing others around identity. As

Alexis de Toqueville noted in 1831, Americans form associations when they identify a problem

or want to achieve some sort of change and that these associations are often centered around a

shared identity such as gender, occupation, or in the case of Black Lives Matter, race. Identity is

a powerful tool for promoting mobilization. This can be seen throughout the BLM movement

when seeing how a movement which started as an outcry against police brutality has grown into

a national and global outcry for not only racial justice, but justice for all oppressed and

marginalised individuals.

After taking this course and learning about the unique role of service in American democracy,

how civic and social engagement help to shape our society, and how identity is at the heart of

mobilization, The Black Lives Matter movement seemed to be the most prominent example of

how all of these moving parts come together in a time of political and social unrest that we’ve

seen in recent years.

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Works Cited

Buchanan, Larry, et al. “Black Lives Matter May Be the Largest Movement in U.S.

History.” ​The New York Times​, 8 July 2020,

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.ht

ml

Cohen, Jason. “#BlackLivesMatter Hashtag Averages 3.7 Million Tweets Per Day

During Unrest.” ​PCMAG,​ 20 July 2020,

www.pcmag.com/news/blacklivesmatter-hashtag-averages-37-million-tweets-per-

day-during-unrest.

“‘About.’” ​Black Lives Matter,​ blacklivesmatter.com/about. Accessed 4 Dec. 2020.

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