10 Years of #BlackLivesMatter: Progress and Backlash

Ten years ago this July, Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse Cullors tweeted #BlackLivesMatter in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death. The hashtag helped galvanize a movement calling out the racism that has deeply affected the lives and deaths of Black people in America since its founding. The Black Lives Matter movement calls for the reimagination of institutions like policing, housing, education, and health care, with the hope of redressing the harms done to historically marginalized communities and building a more just country for all. As we look back on the last 10years since the movement began, and three years since its resurgence following the murder of George Floyd, we want to better understand the history of Black Lives Matter and how it continues to shape American life.  We are joined by Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, who is widely regarded as the nation’s leading reporter on the Black Lives Matter movement. Wesley has been covering BLM since the year it began and has written two books on race in America. His latest, American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress, is a timely account of white Americans’ backlash against evolving discourses on race, identity, and equity. We are excited to speak with him about Black Lives Matter’s evolving legacy, the fervent backlash against it, and where the movement stands today.