The Truth About Black Lives Matter. O n September 2. 0, a police officer in Charlotte, North Carolina, shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott, a 4. Members of Scotts family immediately contradicted this description of events on social media, claiming he had no gun and had been holding only a book. In the flash of a muzzle, Charlotte became the stage for the next act in a wrenching national drama about race and law enforcement. Charlotte is a vibrant, growing, integrated metropolis, the very image of the new South. The officer involved was black, as was the police chief. The chief had in fact come to his post expressing skepticism about police treatment of blacks and had instituted innovative community relations programs and training to address the problem of implicit bias. Nonetheless, within hours of the shooting, protestors bearing handmade signs saying It was a book filled the streets. Before long, the protests had devolved into riots. GPm9k/640x360-2h3.jpg' alt='32 Lives Crack Trial' title='32 Lives Crack Trial' />Michael A. Hrynenko, Jr., a key figure in the Second Avenue gas explosion investigation, died on Aug. He was 31, according to an obituary posted Aug. Police cars, city buses, and private vehicles were smashed, as were office buildings and the citys convention center. Trucks were looted and burned. Ten young African American men set upon a white man, robbing, beating, and stomping himand landing him in the hospital. A 2. 6 year old black man was shot dead by someone else in the crowd. Although 1. 6 police officers received injuries, only one rioter was arrested. Charlottes demonstrators had taken to the streets spontaneously. But the national protest movement that has emerged on this issue over the past two years does have a group, or coalition of groups, at its core, and it is called Black Lives Matter. The Black Lives Matter website and the Twitter hash tag Black. Lives. Matter had been launched in 2. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tomekiall in their thirties and all veteran activists. Cullors, a performance artist based in Los Angeles, founded Dignity and Power Now, which she says has achieved . The word abolitionist here refers to a vision of doing away entirely with the law enforcement and criminal justice systems. Garza is an officer of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, having previously run a San Francisco group called People Organized to Win Employment Rights POWER. She, too, speaks of abolishing the criminal justice system, albeit more tentatively than she speaks of abolishing the present economic system. Opal Tomeki, who describes herself as a believer and practitioner of liberation theology, is the New Yorkbased executive director of Black Alliance for Just Immigration. They were inspired to create Black Lives Matter out of anguish over the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, ethnically white and Hispanic, who had shot to death the black 1. Trayvon Martin in February 2. During its first year, the group drew little attention. Then came Ferguson. When He Was Wicked Ebook'>When He Was Wicked Ebook. In that Missouri city, on August 1. Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer. The 1. 8 year old and 3. Brown, described as a gentle giant, carried no weapon at the time of his death. And according to individuals who said they had witnessed the shooting, he had either been gunned down while running from the officer or facing him with his hands raised, pleading, Hands up, dont shoot. The next day, Ferguson was convulsed in rioting, and protests broke out in other cities. Black Lives Matter sponsored a series of Freedom Rides to Ferguson, and its Internet messages went viral. Suddenly it found itself at the center of what the New York Times called the most formidable American protest movement of the 2. On the ground in Ferguson, new leaders emerged, notably De. The Texarkana Gazette is the premier source for local news and sports in Texarkana and the surrounding Arklatex areas. BREAKING, 222 PM updated at 420 PM with Jones family statement The parents of 27 yearold Sarah Jones just won an 11. M judgment in the civil suit against CSX. Trial by Twitter Deep in the digital diaries of three lovely girls, a fatal disconnect occurred. What their followers had not seen between the lines was the vanishing. H85MTfyl4/UVNnPXgcV5I/AAAAAAAABzw/czXeGU8Jqf8/s1600/A2014inst4.png' alt='32 Lives Crack Trial' title='32 Lives Crack Trial' />Ray Mckesson, a former school administrator who became a peripatetic protestor in cities across the Midwest, the South, and his home town of Baltimore, and Johnetta Elzie, a 2. Ferguson native. President Obama embraced the group, inviting Mckesson, Elzie, and other Ferguson protestors to the White House on more than one occasion and appointing one, Brittany Packnett, to a task force on policing. He spoke in defense of the now ubiquitous slogan when others asked, Dont all lives matter And he went out of his way to defend the group at a memorial service two years later for five Dallas policemen murdered by a black sniper at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Is it true, as Black Lives Matters asserts and as its very name suggests, that American society as a whole deems black lives to be devoid of value Those competing to succeed Obama followed his cue. Hillary Clinton met with a delegation of Black Lives Matter activists who, according to Time, inspired her to denounce mass incarceration and propose a new New Deal for ethnic minorities. Her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders, also met with activists who came away saying that the senator was very open to being pushed toward their point of view. The campaign of Republican aspirant Jeb Bush claimed that he, too, had met with the group, but this was later disputed by activists. The entertainment and news media lavished attention on the new movement. Beyonc, Rihanna, Pharrell Williams, and dozens of others made a video of support while actor Jesse Williams won the Black Entertainment Networks Humanitarian Award for a separate video that he had made about Black Lives Matter. Patch For Wolfenstein Return To Castle on this page. He stole the show at BETs annual award ceremony with a speech decrying this invention called whiteness that uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight, an observation aired live to an audience of 7. BET, MTV, Comedy Central, and nine other U. S. networks and streamed online before being rebroadcast in the UK, France, and Africa. The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story on Black Lives Matter while the Washington Post undertook a mammoth investigatory project to compile a complete data base on fatal police shootings, ferreting out twice as many as shown in FBI reports. In 2. 01. 5, Time named Black Lives Matter a runner up for its annual Person of the Year. Where the journalists and entertainers go, philanthropists are likely to follow, and so it was in this case even as a variety of groups and advocates jostled for the Black Lives Matter banner. Google announced a half million dollar grant to Cullors to monitor and combat police brutality. George Soross Open Society Institute gave 6. Black. Lives. Matter movement. And the Ford Foundation announced it was spearheading a consortium of donors pledging to raise 1. Movement for Black Lives, a self described united front of the original Black Lives Matter together with some two dozen other kindred organizations. In announcing its grant, Ford enthused The Movement for Black Lives has forged a new national conversation about the intractable legacy of racism, state violence, and state neglect of black communities in the United States. But is that an accurate or complete description of the legacy of race relations with which we live Is it true, as Black Lives Matter asserts and its very name suggests, that American society as a whole deems black lives to be devoid of valueIs it true, as it further asserts, that the deaths of blacks at the hands of police reflect racism and worse And if these things are not true, then what is Black Lives Matter really after To explore this we must first look more closely at the story of Ferguson.