BLM’S Nobel Prize nod a testament to its mission
Early 2020 witnessed the killings of Ahmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and spread in the United States.
One phrase defined that period while cultivating a push for racial justice for a new era: “Black Lives Matter.”
On Jan. 29, the organization which bears this mantra was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. If they win the coveted medal, they will do what only 16 other Black people have achieved. Only 1.75% of Nobel laureates are Black and only four Nobel winners are Black women. It is important to note Stacey Abrams was also nominated this year.
If selected for the prize, BLM would be the 29th organization to win the award, following the World Health Programme‘s 2020 win.
Pushback to BLM nomination
While the Norwegian Nobel Committee does not reveal nominees, nominators sometimes disclose their picks.
The Norwegian politician Petter Eide nominated Black Lives Matter for the award.
However, Eide has since received death threats claiming BLM is too polarizing and divisive.
“(Recently), I have received so many negative responses from individual Americans telling me that Black Lives Matter is a violent and aggressive organization, that they are deliberately using violence as a political communication tool and that nominating them for the Nobel Peace Prize is quite insane,” Eide said in an ABC news interview.
Is BLM a peaceful organization?
The endless conversation last year, spilling into 2021, has been about the rioting and looting that took place during some of the 2020 protests, which is a fair concern.
When we look at the facts, however, it’s clear that BLM has overwhelmingly chosen the path of peace over violence.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project reported last September that 93% of the protests, starting with the George Floyd protests in May 26 to the Jacob Blake protests in August 22, were peaceful.
The report analyzed nearly 8,000 demonstrations protests last year, which include the removal of statues of slave owners and Confederate figures. More than 2,400 locations across the country reported peaceful protests, while fewer than 220 reported “violent demonstrations.”
The movement began after the 2012 killing of Black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. Martin was walking to his father’s fiancee’s home in a neighborhood where Zimmerman also lived and served as a neighborhood watcher.
After calling the police and being told to stay back, Zimmerman approached Martin and eventually fatally shot him after a struggle.
After Zimmerman was acquitted, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi got together with the goal to gain attention to injustices like Martin’s and began posting on Twitter #Blacklivesmatter. By the second half of 2013, the hashtag was tweeted an average 30 times a day, hardly what they needed to get the word out.
In 2014, the movement gained the momentum it needed, sadly, when 18year old Michael Brown was shot and killed in the street by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
Unfortunately, since the movement’s inception, it has been considered, in some circles, a terrorist organization and its work and mission is associated with rioting and looting.
Black Lives Matter, in my belief, is still thriving on the same principles Garza, Cullors and Tometi started the group on — which is creating a platform for racial injustice to be addressed and reconciled for the countless victims and their families.
But there are times throughout the years those same principles have come into question, such as, the Dallas shooting in 2016, where five police officers were shot and killed by 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson, who was accused of deliberately hunting cops in retaliation for police killings of Black people. Johnson was killed after the shootings.
While there were struggles, what I find so revolutionary about BLM is how it was a rare occasion where a movement was led without a “face.” Throughout American history there are leaders who are synonymous with certain movements. Martin Luther King Jr. is, of course, associated with the Civil Rights movement and Gloria Steinem fought for feminism in the late 60s and beyond.
With Black Lives Matter, there’s is not a leader favored amongst its followers. The face that leads the group are the faces of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor and all the other Black people who were lost due to violence
I remember having conversations with many people in 2016, after the Dallas shooting, and a few were worried that the group would end if there wasn’t a selected leader.
If anything, may we celebrate an American-based organization, which was made possible by the Constitution, which allows Americans to petition their government and speak freely.
May we commend a grassroots organization on adapting to a worldwide pandemic, organizing in-person protests with little COVID-19 contraction.
Black Lives Matter is an organization that truly stands for one absolute truth: Black lives matter.
And that truth will stand while also acknowledging every other life that comes through America also matters.
Lebron Hill is an opinion columnist for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. Feel free to contact him at Lhill@gannett.com or 615-829-2384.