Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century

August 2018

In the wake of the murder of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the exoneration of his killer, three black women activists launched a hashtag and social media platform, Black Lives Matter, which would become the rubric for a larger movement. To many, especially those in the media, Black Lives Matter appeared to burst onto the national political landscape out of thin air.

However, as Making All Black Lives Matter shows, the movement has roots in prison abolition, anti-police violence, black youth movements, and radical mobilizations across the country dating back for at least a decade. Barbara Ransby interviewed more than a dozen of the principal organizers and activists in the movement and provides a detailed review of its extensive coverage in mainstream and social media. Making All Black Lives Matter offers one of the first overviews of Black Lives Matter and explores the challenges and possible future for this growing and influential movement.

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