From a Hashtag to a Movement: Black Women Movement Actors’ Challenges to Leading a Radical Movement in a “Postracial America”

Black Women Lead

The recent uprisings of 2020 beginning in Minneapolis, MN, has been ongoing since May, in a world-wide response to the police killing of George Floyd, as activists fight to include the death of Breonna Taylor within the global consciousness of police killings. From abolition to civil rights, activists and organizers have struggled to center the most marginalized victims of police killings, violence and white supremacy—Black women and queer people. Literature on mid-twentieth and twenty-first century Black radical social movement theory, intersectionality, and class-consciousness outlines how mass incarceration and the evisceration of social safety nets have intensified the victimization of Black women, while also catapulting them to leadership positions in our most pertinent movement of the twenty-first century, Black Lives Matter (Brewer et al. 2004; Davis 2016; Rousseau 2009; C. Wilson 2011). However, few sociologists have focused on Black women’s leadership as essential for developing a global working-class movement stemming from the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)—although black women constitute the founders, organizers and leaders of this contemporary movement (M4BL; Carruthers 2018; Davis 2016). This study places black women within the larger body of literature on social movements and class-consciousness by examining participants in 14 local M4BL-associated political organizations in Maryland and the District of Colombia and observing their development of movement consciousness through social media activism, colorblind reform, and challenges to global coalition-building strategies. I am focusing on Black women to emphasize their labor so that history will not obfuscate their contributions, as has been apparent in past civil rights and feminists movements (A. Y. Davis 2011).

For over 30 years, scholars across social sciences have discussed intersectionality as a matrix of oppression. Intersectional lens is intended to outline power dynamics, but is often reduced to a focus on identity instead of praxis (K. Davis 2008; Nash 2008). Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw et al. (2015) continues to reassert the theory as one that focuses on the issues, causes, and experiences of black, queer, and disabled people, while centering black women and femmes’ theoretical contribution. In #Sayhername: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, Crenshaw et al. (2015) proffer that the Movement for Black Lives has been founded and orchestrated both nationally and locally by black women and queer people; this group’s public persona, however, is often misrepresented as violent and led by black males—thus mystifying the intellectual and physical contributions of the most marginalized (Khan-Cullors and Bandele 2018).

Charlene Carruthers (2018), the founding National Director of the Black Youth Project, emphasizes this point by stating,

The BQF [Black Queer Feminist] lens enables us to see how violence within our homes, communities, and broader society are connected to violence inflicted on us by the government and corporations. A more complete view of what happens in our lives will lead to real solutions instead of just bandages and work-arounds. (P. 35)

Moreover, intersectional scholars and organizers (Carruthers 2018; Crenshaw et al. 2015; Ransby 2018) demand that this movement sticks to its intersectional analysis so that it can be radically liberatory for the masses. Therefore, Intersectionality is utilized as a method of analysis to reach those ends.

This research addresses three essential questions:

What is the main mode of participation for Black Woman Movement Actors (BWMAs) in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)?

First, I demonstrate how social media activism or protest along with the historical treatment of black women by black radical organizations and predominantly white feminist organizations stifles their work toward building a global coalition (Davis 2011; hooks 1999; Ransby 2018). Second, I reveal how colorblindness ideology, a reform tradition in black religious organizations, that includes elements of classism, misogynoir, combined with the need for immediate solutions, cause young activists to choose reform over the radical goals (Carruthers 2018; Taylor 2016). Overall, I observe black Women Movement Actors goals by evaluating the literature on class-consciousness that outlines the stages of class-consciousness, beginning at social awareness and ending at class-consciousness. By studying those local women who are part of the broader M4BL network and comparing their political goals to the M4BL’s policy platform rooted in black radical social movement literature, I have found that these participants are in a stage of social awareness that leaves them reacting to police killings and not developing class-consciousness or global goals for the movement. This conundrum is a foundational challenge to creating a cohesive radical intersectional global working-class movement outlined by the contemporary social movement literature and the M4BL platform (Hunt 2016; Davis 2016; The Movement for Black Lives 2016; Marable 2015). In addition, I explore the concept of “radical” as transformative, global solutions existing outside the current political-economic system. I use the M4BL platform as the social movement’s intellectual production that should be more aligned with local organizational goals than with inaccessible academic theory (Freire and Macedo 2000). However, participants were more concerned with their local goals of combatting police brutality, police killings, class divisions, and so on that may signal M4BL’s inaccessibility to local organizers on the ground. As Sundiatta, a 34-year-old leader and founder of local organization in D.C stated, “Think global, act local, you want to effect change, you got to effect change right here in your community, like you got to reach out to these black folks in Wards 7 and 8 and you got to put in work.”

In this study, Sundiatta represents a swath of black women movement participants, who are more inclined to have local effects on the community than to build an intersectional global working-class movement as promoted by the M4BL organizers. This focus represents a fundamental disconnect between the young activists presented in this study and the grassroots organizers who authored the M4BL demands. This demonstrates the internal struggle between on the ground activists and broad, global theoretical demands.

The study’s participants identify as social media activists, protestors, organizers, educators, and administrators within the contemporary anti-racist political movements for Black liberation and against state violence in the United States. This study focuses on Black women activists from 2013 to 2016 who were tied to the global coalition of Black Lives Matter (BLM), a black liberation global network that developed in 2013 and encompassed more anti-racist organizations in 2016 under the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL).

The Movement for Black Lives on Social Media

Scholars (Brown et al. 2017; Ray et al. 2017) discuss the evolution of social media as a space that nurtures collective participation, specifically with BLM. Black Lives Matter began with a single tweet on social media, along with a long history of organizing to develop a network of local organizations across the globe in less than five years. During this development, the Movement for Black Lives (over 50 anti-racist organizations) released a policy platform calling for radical redistribution of resources through criminal justice abolition and community control of education, health, and economic opportunities for all black people (The Movement for Black Lives 2016).

However, social media activism literature has illustrated the duality of this mode of political activism (Brown et al. 2017; Fleming and Morris 2015; Hunt 2016). The research suggests state actors infiltration to thwart social movements using social media (Davis 2016; Fleming and Morris 2015; Khan-Cullors and Bandele 2018; Taylor 2016). According to Fleming and Morris (2015) “Government officials can block specific websites or entire social networks, as was the case when Libya and Egypt [during the Arab uprising] shut down large portions of the Internet (including Facebook) in 2011” (p. 120). Such a phenomenon is not new to Black liberation struggles (Clayton 2018; Fleming and Morris 2015; Peery 2002). Also, Garza (Hunt 2016) explains that another challenge of social media is “what it takes to get people from liking, sharing, and retweeting to organizing is a hard and long process” and depicts the movement’s challenge is expanding from social media platforms to sustained organized action. This state and corporate media control of the public discourse has effects on the male victims we center and the sexism and homophobia in organizing and movement development.

This research expands the scope of the literature by discussing the challenges and opportunities of social media activism, particularly dealing with contemporary Black women movement actors in local organizing efforts. More specifically, it explores how this medium can raise social awareness through political education for marginalized populations, but also can also heighten sexism and homophobia through the male victims and leaders that are centered. Scholars (A. Davis 2016; Carruthers 2018; Taylor 2016) have identified how patriarchal messaging via social media can control the message of the movement and stifle an intersectional global framework. Both are meant to derail global coalition through state repression and controlling the messaging. This study demonstrates a disconnect between M4BL long-term organizers’ intersectional demands and the local protestors on the ground, a prevalent observation among these participants as well.

Challenges to Radical Imaginations: Classism, Colorblindness, and Misogynoir

The Movement for Black lives faces challenges with controlling the message, like the Southern Christian Leadership Council, Congress on Racial Equality, and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee faced during Civil Rights Movement. These patriarchal organizations faced internal and political pressure to and on radical goals based on anti-communist sentiments and the movements’ desperate need for social change. Instead of focusing on such radical global initiatives as the Vietnam War, reparations, and the poor, leaders were driven to reform the system for a section of the middle class through the struggle for political representation, voting rights, and integration in public areas (Clayton 2018; Morris 1986; Ransby 2003; Spence 2015). This same trend of choosing reform is seen with M4BL factions’ support of police cameras, which have not reduced the amount of people killed by police or the myriad of ways Black women and queer people are sexual violated, harassed and intimidated by the state (Carruthers 2018; Ritchie 2017). For instance, in 2015, Attorney General Loretta Lynch committed 75 million dollars to police departments for cameras (D. Jackson 2015). However, by 2016, Black women leaders like Charlene Carruthers outlined how this effort did not mitigate police killings, by stating,

For me and for the folks that I work with every single day, body cameras don’t help us sleep at night. What it tells us, that while police officers can have a camera on their body, they can still take it upon themselves to take our lives. And so, we’re calling for what we’ve been calling for: divestment from policing and investment in our communities, so that we can create actual safe communities and not communities that rely on police or prisons to keep us safe. (as quoted by J. M. Jackson 2016)

At one point, because of the need to end police violence and the state’s repression of radical initiatives, factions of the movement focused on police cameras and training influenced by the black elite; however, these tools did not end police killings but helped to invest more funds into police departments (Carruthers 2018).

In Taylor’s (2016) From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, she furthers this dynamic by exploring how the NAACP and civil rights leaders clashed with young Ferguson protestors after the killing of Mike Brown because those leaders tried to “quell” frustration and redirect it to voting registration or single-issue demands (p. 159). Middle-class Black patriarchs, from older generation can use reform and coded language as a way to redirect radical movements in an effort to mitigate tension resulting from the state’s repression. However, reform can be more beneficial to the economic elite and the state than to the people (Carruthers 2018; Harvey 2007). Taylor (2016) identified as an issue of colorblindness purported by the black elite. Bonilla-Silva says that colorblindness is “ideological armor” (2017:3) for a covert and institutionalized system, defended by coded language in the post-civil rights era. However, this ideology is complicated by not only the heightened attention to police killings but also the influence of a historically rich, black patriarchal, religious tradition of activism influenced by political repression (Morris 1986; Ransby 2018; Taylor 2016). Much of the literature on colorblindness focuses on the political use of coded language to pass laws that would disproportionately affect black people’s lives while allowing the predominantly white elite to evade labels of racism. However, little research has explored how this ideology thwarts radical movements of the twenty-first century (Alexander 2012; Bonilla-Silva 2017; Morris 1986). According to Taylor (2016), “Colorblindness is a critical weapon in the arsenal of the politically powerful and economic elite to divide those who have an interest in uniting to make demands on the state and capital to provide the means for a decent quality of life” (p. 72). This issue of patriarchy, classism, colorblindness is why the movement could be persuaded to fight for reform.

Misogynoir and the Need for Political Education

While social movement literature on colorblindness contextualizes the Movement for Black Lives, Moya Bailey (2010) definition misogynoir as “anti-black racist misogyny that black women experience”—adds an important dimension for Black women. Misogynoir was experienced by Black women in second-wave feminist movements. Carruthers (2018) explains how misogynoir also appeared in previous Black radical movements: “[i]t is counterrevolutionary to tell stories about the Black radical tradition that fails to offer critiques, lessons, and insights about how white supremacy breeds systems of gender and sexual oppression” (p. 46). Carruthers (2018) offers this explanation as a reason for needing political education or a “[g]riot…[to] expand the stories of the Black radical tradition” (p. 45). This call to action demonstrates how a movement’s struggles can be reduced without an in-depth understanding of social movements that excluded Black women and queer knowledge (Destine 2019).

Kelley (2016b), a radical social movement scholar, defines social movements as the source of “new knowledge, new theories, new questions. The most radical ideas often grow out of a concrete intellectual engagement with the problems of aggrieved populations confronting systems of oppression” (p. 8). Local organizations can situate their political education in terms of black radical history that facilitates developing class-consciousness in social movements from a state of social awareness (understanding the depths of racialized treatment) to one of class-consciousness (the roots of racialized capitalism) toward a global transformative movement (Carruthers 2018; Kelley 2016b; Khan-Cullors and Bandele 2018; C. J. Robinson 2005). This connection to black radical literature is illustrated when the Movement for Black Lives’ platform (2016) makes the following demands, solidifying the movement: (1) radical change, (2) wealth redistribution, (3) housing equity, and (4) education equity in black communities across the world. Marable (2015) defines such demands as “nonreformist reforms” that can be won in this current system through legislation and people power (230). However, local organizations considered in this study seem less aligned with these radical demands. Therefore, this research offers suggestions for these contentions between local and global initiatives, as discussed by black women in this research—that can be tied to the history of exclusion among social movements since the end of the nineteenth century.

Furthermore, this research builds on the social movement literature and the Movement for Black Lives by highlighting how social media activism, classism, colorblindness, misogynoir, and political pressure of “old guard” black organizations affect contemporary movements’ goals for structural change. The “old guards,” or staple organizations, may adapt to colorblind reform in an effort to survive their conditions and police violence. Like the classism and misogynoir plaguing movements since the 1960s, this history helps to explain why global coalitions and radical possibilities are rarely offered as solutions in this study. The limitations that existed in all the waves of feminist movements, abolition and black radical movements of the 1960s, obfuscated black women and queer people for the to focus on single issues of white women or black men(hooks 1999; A. Y. Davis 2011). Finally, this research identifies the positionality of BWMA do not automatically categorize the participants as anti-capitalist or abolitionists, but do present unique challenges to global coalitions based in the history of being sidelined from movements.

The literature has provided significant insight into the limitations of research on BWMA contentions in the M4BL and has helped to construct this research’s content. This study contributes to the literature by examining social media activism, colorblind reform, and challenges to class-consciousness through the narratives of black women movement actors (BWMAs), associated with the Movement for Black Lives. Furthermore, it evaluates the role of black women activists working against state violence situated within this period of capitalism and adds to the discourse on their challenges with and opportunities for a broader, transformative, and intersectional movement (Crenshaw et al. 2015; A. Davis 2016).

Black Women Movement Actors

Using a semi-structured interview schedule across five, two-hour focus groups, I interviewed 30 participants between September and December 2016 at universities and in political organizations in Maryland and Washington, D.C. (Daniel 2012; Sobo 2016). These locations were chosen because of the presence of active M4BL organizations that had recently responded to state violence. Eighteen of the 30 Respondents were between 18 and 25 years old, college-educated, and religiously affiliated; they identified as new activists, protestors, and organizers in over 14 political organizations affiliated with the M4BL. Protestors, social media activists were often younger, new to social movement work, while administrators and organizers were older with a longer commitment to social movement development. These socio-demographic characteristics could have affected the findings, specifically the participants’ predominant use of social media as a form of activism, disconnection with the national M4BL platform, and skepticism toward radical initiatives. Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

Focus groups were used to provide time for probing questions, detailed responses, and organic deviations. Respondents were recruited for this study through university listservs, activist networks, and activist events. Additionally, the focus groups were conducted at local colleges and community organizations at the best time for most participants to attend. However, the constraints of time and location limited who participated in the study.

The analysis identified patterns in the data using thematic codes in NVIVO 11 (Gibbs 2008). After reading the focus group transcripts multiple times before coding for underlying themes of local initiatives, political education, misogynoir, and global coalitions, I surprisingly uncovered colorblind policies in intra-racial movements. The research questions helped to explore three themes: (1) social media activism, (2) challenges to radical imaginations: classism and colorblindness, and (3) challenges to coalition building, (4) Misogynoir and the need for political education. These themes were selected to explore the racial capital and development of consciousness of black women in the local social movement organizations aligning with the M4BL. The participants were interactive and open to discussions with the researcher, also a black woman. Limitations include the lack of operational definitions for social classes. To avoid leading the participants, the researcher did not use these definitions; instead, the social classes was outlined in a socio-demographic sheet that each participant completed anonymously.

Social Media Activism

The participants’ modes of consciousness-raising and the connections of the participants to M4BL were identified by asking them about the importance of all forms of activism. Many found significant value in using social media as a platform for raising awareness (Fleming and Morris 2015; Ray et al. 2017). Some participants said educating themselves about racialized police killings as well as organizing and building a virtual community was helpful. However, a few were critical about the ways in which state and corporate interest could thwart political efforts on social media, thus signaling a need for political education. For instance, Tiffany, a 19-year-old social media activist in Maryland, stated:

I definitely feel that all forms of activism pushed the Black Lives Matter Platform, definitely social media, I feel it is the number 1. Everyone’s on social media, everyone’s always retweeting something. So, I feel like getting this information out there and doing this through social media is the most beneficial.

Tiffany represents this group of predominantly younger activists engaged in direct action and social media activism. She shares this common sentiment with Octavia, a 19-year-old, social media activist in Maryland, that social media activism is an important aspect of this social movement. For example, Octavia stated,

I would be following Twitter accounts, joining Facebook groups, and reading through discourse and joining discussions. And that made a big part of how I feel today about police brutality and just noticing what people were saying and taking account of their views and seeing how their views are valid and being, [thinking]“Oh my goodness, that’s also happened to me.”

Several participants used social media to find meeting places for protests and to educate themselves on various forms of police violence (Brown et al. 2017; Freire and Macedo 2000; Ray et al. 2017). Also, they indicated that they use social media, rather than mainstream outlets, for their news. Khadijah, a 30-year-old organizer in D.C., explained,

I watch a lot of indie, TWIB (This Week in Blackness); they have several shows umm, including some political ones. I listen to a bunch of podcasts; pretty much I just try to get my sources from Black folks. Twitter is also dope for that too. I follow a lot of social movement folks as well as folks on the ground, activists in Philly, in D.C., and in Baltimore.

Like many of the participants, Khadijah said that getting her news from people in her community was essential because it was a form of critical pedagogy focusing on people on the frontlines educating others about events in cities affected by police killings and brutality (Carruthers 2018; Freire 2014; Freire and Macedo 2000). Social media was described as a platform for consciousness-raising because movement actors generate and control the content.

Although many young adults get their information from social media, the reliability has been questioned based on possible government intervention and manipulation of algorithms influencing social media feeds (Fleming and Morris 2015). Many of the women felt their social media sources were reliable, but a few of them were skeptical about how social media influences the movement in adverse ways (Fleming and Morris 2015). Tara, a 22-year-old protestor in D.C., was one of the few participants who questioned social media participation:

Because we are in the age of social media and a lot of us are still trying to understand how to incorporate that into our lives, cause it’s a new, it’s a new thing. You know what I mean? Whether or not we grew up [in it], we were born into it, We’re still all trying to understand how to use it to our advantage, and a lot of times it gets misconstrued and just adds fuel to the fire.

Tara was one of a few participants who pointed to social media as beneficial for activists, but believed the unknown about social media has to be critically analyzed and used to benefit the movement, not thwart it or miscommunicate messages (Fleming and Morris 2015). Like Tara, Summer also identified how social media activism challenges were further complicated, by noting an incident after the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD. Summer, a 23-year-old organizer in D.C., stated,

[Ferguson Activist] wasn’t with the black people, they were in the white part of Baltimore tweeting about how good these people were to have a protest too; but in this white part of Baltimore, all they were doing was offering them rides home, but in the black part is where we could of used y’all putting this on social media, because they’re messing people up, slamming people heads down, chasing people with machine guns and shit, that needed to be aired out more than the fact that it’s some white people willing to break curfew too, when they know, that’s why it doesn’t seem genuine.

Summer discussed her experience at the Baltimore uprising when a well-known black woman activist was not where black people were violently policed, but instead in a more palatable situation in the white Baltimore neighborhoods. Because of this activist’s huge social media following, Summer said that even depictions on social media were biased and skewed the reality of what black people in Baltimore suffered. The algorithms of one’s newsfeed and who one follows can also contribute to skewed information gathering (Fleming and Morris 2015). This theme has been depicted in past revolutionary moments when the movement’s state-sponsored infiltrators manipulated the narrative (Davis 2011; Ransby 2003). Because this black woman activist was well known, this reality also outlines how positionality does not automatically equate to a radical ethic.

Although most of the participants viewed social media as a completely democratic space to organize and build community (thus aiding in their self-education), a few were critical of the information they were receiving and how it might add to the disagreement with or limitations to their political objectives (Davis 2016). Without a broader understanding of state violence, police officers’ killing black people can have insurmountable effects on local movements’ goals. This political and patriarchal control of social media can incite discord and/or intersectional goals for the betterment of M4BL’s broader agenda (Hill 2017; Rousseau 2009; Spence 2015; Taylor 2016; The Movement for Black Lives 2016).

Challenges to Radical Imaginations: Classism and Colorblindness

Participants were also asked about their visions for ending police violence and killings. Although many of the women stated goals for colorblind reform as a way to survive the onslaught of police killings, most said that reform (e.g., training, education, and extra evaluations) could also help in eliminating bias within policing. Reform could have been chosen due to these participants’ religiosity or classism and the history of black Christian reform.

Aubrey, a 34-year-old protestor in D.C., noted,

How do we really get rid of police? Like okay, that’s not gonna happen; so what do really do? Yeah we could fight for that to happen, I agree. If a law came out, I would sign it and vote for that thing to happen; but in the meantime, I do believe in this training and education piece and this diversity piece.

Like Aubrey, Tanya, 37-year-old administrator in Baltimore discussed building institutions to work within the system:

My vision for 5 to 10 years, is that there are more strong black institutions, whatever that looks like, whether it’s a business, it’s non-profit, it’s restaurants, it’s you know, research organizations, it’s media, like I just want black owned and operated institutions that we fund and we invest in….

Representing one of a small group of leaders and administrators, Tanya conveyed a common sentiment of black ownership and/or representation in politics. This sentiment, along with the fact that this group is highly religious, could be synthesized into the literature on black Christian organizations exploring civil rights organizations’ move toward reform and political representation in the 1960s (Collins 2002; Morris 1986).

While several participants agreed, a few called for community policing and a disbanding of policing as we know it. When participants were asked to identify the solution to ending police killings, this dialogue unfolded:

Princess, a 29-year-old educator in D.C.: End the police! Dismantle the police system.

Sundiatta, a 34-year-old leader and founder of local organization in D.C.: Community policing, if that’s what we’re going to be doing, if we’re going to be having this little system here.

Summer: But not with the people who are currently the police [with Sundiatta interjecting, “Right, right, exactly”]; and I say this because unfortunately I was working with the organization that represented at least 5,000 police districts in the country and we went to all their national things, and I heard them talk about community policing because they had to. I also heard them say that police brutality wasn’t a real issue based on stats. I heard them say it several times right in their own little bubble; but even when they did feel like they needed to talk about community policing, their idea of community policing is not the same as ours. So, community policing with us is not with the current police, that’s just not; they don’t have the same mind set when it comes to community policing.

The vision for the future of policing varied between better training and community policing. Participants were clear that policing’s present implementation could not be maintained/continued because of the resulting disenfranchised people of color. However, participants did not totally agree about their visions for the future of policing. Sundiatta, for instance, outlined a vision for community policing, while Summer explained how it could be co-opted by police. This difference signals a need to explore how abolition rhetoric can be repurposed in a way that does not mitigate police killings. Most participants discussed various approaches to reform, with healthy skepticism toward radical possibilities, as described in Aubrey’s quote. This move toward reform also indicates that reform may be a necessary survival option for black women living in precarity (Kelley 2016a; Taylor 2016). Aubrey’s agreeing with abolishing police but feeling it may be impossible also denotes that black women movement’s actors do not automatically categorize the participants as anti-capitalist or abolitionists (Davis 2016).

Sundiatta, further complicated this challenge of reform and radical solutions by exploring classism in current organizations, when saying: “You got to deal with the classism within the movement because if you’re not willing to reach down to the people in the quote unquote ‘gutter’ then you’re lost any damn way, and that’s where I’m finding a lot as well with these organizations.” Sundiatta defines classism as a struggle among contemporary activists that can often omit the focus on poorer people. Sundiatta contextualizes Aubrey’s and Tanya’s quote on reform and the impossibility of radical measures by situating it in post-civil rights repression of radical goals that will fundamentally help the poor in Black social movements (Alexander 2012; Bonilla-Silva 2017; J. R. Feagin 2014; Katz-Fishman, Scott, and Destine 2016). Instead of discussing structural initiatives—for example, community policing by grassroots organizations, health program funding, food security, recreation centers, and a divestment from prisons to invest in community health as promoted by the international network of M4BL—most participants focused on more tangible solutions, purported by political elites, not targeting the root of precarity or, more specifically, police killings (Hill 2017). This research also highlights the nuance of racial capital provided by the black radical tradition juxtaposed with the intra-racial politics of contemporary black social movements—which in this study choose reform as part of a long history of political pressure, influential leaders, and minimum political education.

This analysis highlights a need for furthering colorblind ideology within critical race, intersectionality, and movement literature on black people to better understand the nuance of intra-racial colorblind ideology that by definition has a class component (Davis 2016; Hill 2017; Kelley 2016b; Nilsen and Cox 2013; W. I. Robinson 2014; Rousseau 2009; Spence 2015). Furthermore, this analysis identifies how community policing can be radical, or reformist, if not approached carefully because such policing can lead to more police funding rather than abolishing militarized policing. Also, depicting reform as a more attractive option for folks engaged in action on the ground, even the most marginalized, black women.

What Does Freedom Look like? Challenges to Coalition Building

The previous themes of reform outline challenges to class-consciousness that were even further highlighted when participants explored their long-term vision for this movement. Several talked in terms of membership growth, expanding their vision to benefit their local community, and black ownership. However, two women discussed the possibilities of people of color growing international alliances to benefit the diasporas of people of color. While the Movement of Black Lives (2016) platform’s overall vision, released early in 2016, was not clearly reflected much in these focus groups, more seasoned organizers made a few references to the platform. For example, Rose, a 35-year-old educator in Maryland, commented, “If you look at the BLM platform, it is all-encompassing. It’s huge, right? And I feel like they’re doing everything they can to get the infrastructure to really live this out.” Like Rose, Khadijah noted,

I think this is part of a larger movement that has explicitly connected with other movements, so not just other Black organizations; but you see folks standing in solidarity with folks from Palestine, you see folks working on decolonization efforts with folks all over the world. I think this has so much potential to do so much great work—not just anti-state sanction violence, but liberation of people of color everywhere.

Although there were a few references to the platform and a collaborative global vision, participants’ visions often varied by organizational affiliation or individual efforts. Most visions were to strengthen the political practices in which they were already engaged. For instance, Joy, a 31-year-old in Baltimore, shared her vision: “My vision is to see the re-entry [from prison to the community] community organize, at least similar to the way folks organized on same-sex marriage in Maryland.” Discussing how organized and massive the mobilization was for Maryland’s same-sex marriage bill, Joy wanted the same for her organization. Like many participants, she wished to improve the work her organization was already doing locally. Such responses are reflected in the literature of past black organizations working on a broader vision of freedom on different fronts in various locales—though those organizations have been divided on how to achieve it (Clayton 2018; Morris 1986; Ransby 2003; C. J. Robinson 2005). The participants’ variation of goals for the movement also signals the first stage of consciousness with participants, whereby participants are mobilizing in response to the political oppression in their daily lives—that is, killing, incarceration, joblessness, and poor housing (Hill 2017; Katz-Fishman and Scott 2012; Lenin 2018). This theme of figuring out the terms of freedom is further explored when some participants ambiguously answered the question about long-term vision. For example Tara observed,

I think that’s the issue—we don’t know; and I think that’s because we have so many issues that we’re trying to fight at once, which is not our fault cause look at what we’ve been given,. But I would hope the end goal is just to let us be us, right? And a lot of people are like, “Oh, what does that mean?” Let me be a Black woman without your ideas.

Participants explained that, due to the state of inequality in the United States, there had not been enough time to process the movement’s strategies and long-term goals. They indicated that the killings and constant attacks could prevent a national vision from being established. Tara expressed her desire to just be herself without anyone’s perceptions of how a black woman should be. This sentiment emphasizes the importance of an intersectional movement, like M4BL, that values all experiences. Rose, the 35-year-old educator in Maryland, said,

I fundamentally don’t know if anyone has taken the time to know, if anyone has taken time to think what freedom looks like or where we are going. We just know that we don’t want to be here; and so some people could say that’s lack of vision or whatever. I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s lack of vision; or it could just be like “I can’t, I can’t continue to do this; I got to do something else.” I think maybe when we get from this, and some of us don’t even know what this is, that we might be able to formulate an opinion about what real freedom looks like.

The participants indicated that the constant struggle with and trauma from police killings leave the movement in a reactionary mode. Instead of creating a vision, people are responding to the current killings or struggle. They discuss being “free” in the abstract or without any specific strategy to attain this freedom, thus aligning with the continuous struggle for black liberation: positing liberation philosophies in the absence of equity. This issue is discussed in the black social movement literature, which illustrates the myriad approaches to liberation in past movements, the struggle toward a cohesive vision, and the challenges to actually attaining full equity (Clayton 2018; Morris 1986; Ransby 2003). Although Rose’s statement is less indicative of lack of knowledge, the literature suggests contemporary social movements include political education that can aid in developing class-consciousness and creating a cohesive platform (Hill 2017; Katz-Fishman et al. 2016; Lewis-McCoy 2018; Nilsen and Cox 2013; C. J. Robinson 2005).

However, a few participants identified the M4BL platform as a vision or had local initiatives they were developing. Some were members of grassroots organizations that had local initiatives predating BLM; but others were not aligned with any organization, leaving them feeling disconnected from long-term goals. Moreover, most participants thought BLM lacked a nationally or globally unified vision and strategy and questioned the appropriateness of labeling it a movement. When asked about M4BL’s strategy, Summer—a 29-year-old social media activist in D.C.—said, “I know people want to call it a movement, and I guess there is no other word to call it.” When asked what she calls it, she replied, “I say ‘conversation’.” Some people deeply rooted in local community organizations felt more involved with their local initiatives than the national BLM; however, Summer—along with a few others—said that this movement lacked certain elements to be considered a full-fledged social movement. This variability can be attributed to social media activism’s being belittled as an illegitimate form of activism, most participants’ being unacquainted with the newly released M4BL policy platform in 2016 possibly due to its inaccessibility, and/or exclusion of a traditional vertical organization structure without any central leader (Clayton 2018; Nilsen and Cox 2013; Ray et al. 2017). All of these factors could either empower or further weaken agents feeling disassociated from the social movement. Theoretically, these participants are part of a social movement developing new ways of participating in social movements and epistemology and in changing the discourse about state violence; however, there is variability, and freedom is a constant struggle (Carruthers 2018; Davis 2016; Kelley 2016a; Khan-Cullors and Bandele 2018).

Misogynoir and the Need for Political Education

Because of the misogynoir of past black liberation movements, Pearl, a 22-year-old educator in D.C., identified misogynoir as the reason for her skepticism of global coalition:

So my issue is us always having to be the spear header and always having to be the inspiration and all these things; literally communities are taking our models and doing more with them because they’re not black. So take the woman’s movement, for example. They literally utilized labor of black women, black femmes especially, for the most part, got that, galvanized power, kind of got that the trust of the black community for the most part. And when it came to voting rights, they stopped after white women had the right to vote; they didn’t care that black women didn’t get the right to vote. So I think it’s like, it’s cool that we can be such an inspiration; but I’m also not here for the constant use of black labor without black people not benefiting from it at all. So, I think, and not to say there hasn’t been great allyship in other communities and things like that, but yeah unless you’re handling the anti-blackness in your communities too, then don’t be all up in my face, taking our models into your communities. You need to go talk to your cousins and your family cause we got, we got us.

Pearl had difficulty with considering a broader movement for a global struggle;

Pearl was averse to a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural global movement because of the oppression and silencing of Black women and femmes evidenced in past movements (Collins 2002, 2005; hooks 1999; Morris 1986). Participants wanted their idea of freedom, but some varied regarding what their collective vision should be. A few of the women did not agree with collaborating with organizations because of the history of misogynoir and classism within movements.

Tanya represents one of 14 organizations offering the community political education to ameliorate these sorts of tensions. Tanya discussed this education:

So, we have various different youth leadership programs from debate summer camps to civic engagement, social justice training of elementary, middle school, high school students. Political advocacy, right now we’re working on police reform at the local level; and at the state level, we’re working on bail reform; and our autonomous intellectual engagement are our culture work, our art.

Tanya’s organization is unique because it is a brick-and-mortar, local grassroots organization that existed before BLM and has the institutional power to implement political education, advocacy, and reform. However, the organizational focus on reform and political representation as ways to end policing without much consideration of abolition, wealth redistribution, and so on highlights some of the contentions with broader class objectives and coalition (Movement for Black Lives 2016). Even with those objections, the political education Tanya’s organization provides the community is not represented among all of these participants’ organizational affiliations.

Implications

As the Movement for Black Lives continues developing under a more overtly fascist regime, research should focus on local organizations’ variability in relationship to the platform, the social media activism effects on this movement, and the development of class-consciousness aligned with M4BL (Hill 2017; Katz-Fishman et al. 2016; The Movement for Black Lives 2016). The current uprising of 2020 from Minneapolis to across the world during a pandemic shows the multi racial, multi gender and multi-national radical imaginations that has grown from this movement since 2013. Overall, the literature on working-class coalitions must do more to situate the rise of black social movements within this capitalist crisis and its propensity for more sustainable working-class coalitions (Brown et al. 2017; Hill 2017; W. I. Robinson 2014). Moreover, the leaders represented in this study demonstrate a more nuanced understanding of what is at stake for the M4BL. In order to build a vision of a just world to extend to a global working-class movement, political education should continue being implemented both on and off social media to create a unified vision and aid in strategizing for global organizations (Battle 2016; Crenshaw et al. 2015; Davis 2016; Destine and Katz-Fishman 2018; Katz-Fishman et al. 2016; Khan-Cullors and Bandele 2018; Marable 2015; Nilsen and Cox 2013; Taylor 2016; C. Wilson 2011). The Black Youth Project’s political education tools; the M4BL platform; and black women’s work, pain, and theory must be centered in academic and political spaces to organize globally—as with the Palestinian connections to Ferguson activists prior to 2020 (Brown et al. 2017; Crenshaw et al. 2015). Scholars, political organizations, and theorists must center the most oppressed in an ever-diverse, global working class and continue to share organizing best practices more widely to develop a cohesive strategy for creating a more just world. Also, westernized notions of precarity and class-consciousness must also consider the precarious nature of black women’s lives and the real-life consequences of radical goals for their lived experiences (Hill 2017; W. I. Robinson 2014).

Limitations are found in terms of both the age of the respondents who identify as predominantly social media activists and protestors (with over 14 organizations represented) and the limited operational definitions of social class. These limitations could have affected the comfort level of participants, their connection to the M4BL, and their stage of movement development and consciousness presented here. The M4BL’s policy demands were newly released in 2016, the same year as this study, thus potentially affecting variability in participants’ activism.