Research Guides: NYU Reads: Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter

"In poor urban neighborhoods across the United States, black and brown boys routinely have multiple encounters with the police. Even though many of these children have done nothing wrong, they are targeted by police, presumed guilty, and suspected by law enforcement of being dangerous or engaged in criminal activity." Just Mercy, Chapter 8

Just Mercy asks readers to consider how racism leads to discriminatory practices in the legal system. One of the most well known movements today that is fighting for racial justice is the Black Lives Matter movement. Black Lives Matter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's killer George Zimmerman. Since then, Black Lives Matter has grown to be an expansive, decentralized movement to defend and protect the lives of Black people, with support groups all over the world. The movement gained much of its support through social media, where the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag is popularly used. Learn more about the movement at blacklivesmatter.com.

These resources provide history and background around the Black Lives Matter movement, which is as strong as ever in 2020. Topic include the history of racism and anti-blackness in the United States, the history and progress of Black Lives Matter, and current issues of discriminate treatment of Black people in the criminal justice system.

Essays & Articles

The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Beyond the hashtags: #Ferguson, #Blacklivesmatter, and the online struggle for offline justice
by Deen Freelon, Charlton D. McIlwain, and Meredith D. Clark
A Conversation With My Black Son
by Geeta Gandbhir and Blair Foster

Print Books & eBooks

Print Books

“We will have to go to great lengths. We cannot go on as usual. We cannot pivot the center. We cannot be moderate. We will have to be willing to stand up and say no with our combined spirits, our collective intellects, and our many bodies.” - Angela Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Frank Barat (Editor); Cornel West (Preface by); Angela Y. Davis
Publication Date: 2016
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.
When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
Publication Date: 2018
From one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Cullors' story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, a threat to America. But in truth, they are loving women whose life experiences have led them to seek justice for those victimized by the powerful. In this meaningful, empowering account of survival, strength, and resilience, Patrisse Cullors and asha bandele seek to change the culture that declares innocent black life expendable.
Until We Are Free by Syrus Marcus Ware (Editor); Rodney Diverlus (Editor); Sandra Hudson (Editor)
Publication Date: 2020
The killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 by a white assailant inspired the Black Lives Matter movement, which quickly spread outside the borders of the United States. The movement's message found fertile ground in Canada, where Black activists speak of generations of injustice and continue the work of the Black liberators who have come before them. Until We Are Free contains some of the very best writing on the hottest issues facing the Black community in Canada. It describes the latest developments in Canadian Black activism, organizing efforts through the use of social media, Black-Indigenous alliances, and more. "Until We Are Free busts myths of Canadian politeness and niceness, myths that prevent Canadians from properly fulfilling its dream of multiculturalism and from challenging systemic racism, including the everyday assaults on black and brown bodies.

eBooks

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Publication Date: 2016
In this analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.
Stay woke : a people's guide to making all Black lives matter by Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Candis Watts Smith
Publication Date: 2019
The essential guide to understanding how racism works and how racial inequality shapes black lives, ultimately offering a road-map for resistance for racial justice advocates and antiracists When #BlackLivesMatter went viral in 2013, it shed a light on the urgent, daily struggles of black Americans to combat racial injustice. The message resonated with millions across the country. Yet many of our political, social, and economic institutions are still embedded with racist policies and practices that devalue black lives. Stay Woke directly addresses these stark injustices and builds on the lessons of racial inequality and intersectionality the Black Lives Matter movement has challenged its fellow citizens to learn.
Making All Black Lives Matter by Barbara Ransby
Publication Date: 2018
The breadth and impact of Black Lives Matter in the United States has been extraordinary. Between 2012 and 2016, thousands of people marched, rallied, held vigils, and engaged in direct actions to protest and draw attention to state and vigilante violence against Black people. What began as outrage over the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and the exoneration of his killer, and accelerated during the Ferguson uprising of 2014, has evolved into a resurgent Black Freedom Movement, which includes a network of more than fifty organizations working together under the rubric of the Movement for Black Lives coalition. Employing a range of creative tactics and embracing group-centered leadership models, these visionary young organizers, many of them women, and many of them queer, are not only calling for an end to police violence, but demanding racial justice, gender justice, and systemic change. From the perspective of a participant-observer, Ransby maps the movement, profiles many of its lesser-known leaders, measures its impact, outlines its challenges, and looks toward its future.
Making all Black lives matter: reimagining freedom in the twenty-first century by Christopher J. Lebron
Publication Date: 2017
Started in the wake of George Zimmerman's 2013 acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has become a powerful and uncompromising campaign demanding redress for the brutal and unjustified treatment of black bodies by law enforcement in the United States. The movement is only a few years old, but as Christopher J. Lebron argues in this book, the sentiment behind it is not; the plea and demand that "Black Lives Matter" comes out of a much older and richer tradition arguing for the equal dignity -- and not just equal rights -- of black people.
Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Publication Date: 2017
In December 1981, Mumia Abu Jamal was shot and beaten into unconsciousness by Philadelphia police. He awoke to find himself shackled to a hospital bed, accused of killing a cop. He was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that Amnesty International has denounced as failing to meet the minimum standards of judicial fairness. In Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?, Mumia gives voice to the many people of color who have fallen to police bullets or racist abuse, and offers the post-Ferguson generation advice on how to address police abuse in the United States. This collection of his radio commentaries on the topic features an in-depth essay written especially for this book to examine the history of policing in America, with its origins in the white slave patrols of the antebellum South and an explicit mission to terrorize the country’s black population.

Videos

Patrisse Khan-Cullors on Black Lives Matter
This series of interviews with Patrisse Khan-Cullors, the Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter, cover topics from social media to the origins of and misconceptions about the Black Lives Matter Movement. These videos do not include captioning or transcript.
An Interview with the Founders of Black Lives Matter
In this TED Talk interview (TedTalk on YouTube, 16 minutes 5 seconds), the founders of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi discuss the lessons they have learned from organizing with BLM and what gives them hope for the future of fight for Black lives.

Podcasts

1619 Project
The 1619 Project is a New York Times audio series on how slavery has transformed America.
Black Lives Matter: The Story of a Slogan - The Documentary Podcast
This edition of the BBC Documentary Podcast series includes interviews from Black Lives Matter activists, civil rights elders, and families effected by police brutality.
A Decade Of Watching Black People Die - Code Switch
This episode of NPR's podcast Code Switch interrogates police brutality and contextualizes the tole of Black death at the hands of police since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

NYU Reads