Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign, 2016#Black Lives Matter Movement

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Black Lives Matter is a social movement that developed in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in July 2013. Conceived by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, the phrase "black lives matter" emerged as a popular hashtag that online activists used to protest racial inequality and police brutality.^[2][3]

Black Lives Matter activists protest in New York City in November 2014.

The death of Michael Brown, a black teenager shot and killed following a confrontation with a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, expanded the Black Lives Matter message from tweets to demonstrations in major cities in 2014.^[6] Although there was no central organization directing local activism, Black Lives Matter became a national network with 26 chapters.^[7] Speaking about the movement's leadership, Cullors said, "What we do is we support the chapters. We support their local demands and goals. They tell us what they need us to build support around."^[8]

Beginning in July 2015, activists from the Black Lives Matter movement began to engage with both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates by demonstrating at campaign events. Cullors told Politico in August 2015 that these disruptions were not done solely to engender policy change; activists also wanted to bring their message to communities unfamiliar with the movement's grievances. "This is a public display of the agony and anguish black people feel on a daily basis, and many of you don’t have to see it or deal with it or go home to it, so we’re going to bring it to you,” Cullors said.^[9]

See below what Hillary Clinton and the 2016 Democratic Platform said about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Clinton on the Black Lives Matter movement[edit]

• Leading Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson endorsed Hillary Clinton in an editorial for The Washington Post on October 26, 2016. He wrote, "Clinton’s platform on racial justice is strong: It is informed by the policy failings of the past and is a vision for where we need to go. It acknowledges the need to establish new restrictions on police use of force and militarization, invest in treatment and rehabilitation as alternatives to police and prisons, and protect and expand the right to vote." In contrast, McKesson asserted, "Trump wants to take us back to a time when people like him could abuse others with little to no consequence, when people like him could exploit the labor of others to build vast amounts of wealth, when people like him could create public policy that specifically benefited them, while suppressing the rights and social mobility of others."^[10]

• On September 21, 2016, Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook discussed Clinton's plan to implement a set of best practices to prevent police-involved shootings. According to Mook, her approach would be two-pronged. Mook told CNN's Alisyn Camerota, "The first is to have a set of national standards around how to manage the situations that doesn't exist right now and that could help through training to prevent situations like this." Mook continued, "The second piece is to restore bonds between communities and law enforcement, so investing in community policing and making sure that local police have the resources to build the resources in the community to prevent something like this from happening."^[11]

• On September 20, 2016, Clinton said that there were "good, honorable, cool-headed police officers" working across the country but that "we can do better." She added, "We have got to tackle systemic racism." Discussing the police shooting death of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, she said, "This is just unbearable. And it needs to be intolerable."^[11]

• In response to the police shooting death of Philando Castile, which was recorded and published in a Facebook Live video stream, Clinton tweeted on July 7, 2016, “America woke up to yet another tragedy of a life cut down too soon. Black Lives Matter.”^[12]

• On October 30, 2015, Black Lives Matter protesters interrupted Hillary Clinton’s speech in Atlanta at a historically black college. After they were removed from the room, Clinton said, “I appreciate their passion, but I'm sorry they didn't listen because some of what they're demanding, I am offering."^[13]

• Clinton met with Black Lives Matter activists on October 9, 2015, to discuss criminal justice reform and alternatives to law enforcement-centered policing of communities. An aide to Clinton said that she “reaffirmed her policy on private prisons and immigrant detention centers—she wants to end those.”^[14]

• On August 11, 2015, Clinton met with representatives from the Black Lives Matter movement after she hosted and spoke at a forum on substance abuse in New Hampshire.^[15] The activists, including Daunasia Yancey, the founder of Black Lives Matter's Boston chapter, were denied access to the event because the room was at capacity.^[16][17] Clinton spoke with the activists for 15 minutes. Yancey said of the discussion, "I asked specifically about her and her family's involvement in the War on Drugs at home and abroad, and the implications that has had on communities of color and especially black people in terms of white supremacist violence. And I wanted to know how she felt about her involvement in those processes.”
  • Although the Black Lives Matter members requested that the media not record the conversation, they filmed their own video of the exchange and released it on August 17, 2015.^[18] Clinton expressed her disagreement with the movement's approach. "Look, I don't believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate. You're not going to change every heart. You're not. But at the end of the day, we could do a whole lot to change some hearts and change some systems and create more opportunities for people who deserve to have them, to live up to their own God-given potential," Clinton said.^[17][16]
• Read what other presidential candidates have said about the Black Lives Matter movement.

Recent news[edit]

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See also[edit]

• Hillary Clinton
• Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016

Footnotes[edit]

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