[Music]
founded by activists alicia gaza
opal tometti and patrice coulos the
black lives matter movement came to life
seven years ago in 2013
following the acquittal of george
zimmerman in the death of trayvon martin
the phrase black lives matter was first
coined by gaza
in a facebook post recognising the power
of her words
co-founder patrice coulos shared her
words with the hashtag and the campaign
kickstarted from there
as the blm cause gained momentum people
began taking to the streets to protest
against institutional racism and
violence towards black people
in 2016 the nfl player colin kaepernick
took the knee during the national anthem
for the first time a rebellion which
would become synonymous with the
movement
on a global scale if the shooting of
trayvon martin kick-started the black
lives matter campaign
then the death of george floyd in may of
this year made it an internationally
known movement
some of the biggest corporations in the
world have now embraced the movement or
is it just the slogan and last night at
the final presidential debate
there can be no doubt that this movement
has made sure
racism is one of the central issues in
the election
i am the least racist person i can't
even see the audience because it's so
dark
but i don't care who's in the audience
i'm the least racist person in this room
he pours fuel on every single
racist fire every single one he started
off his campaign coming down the
escalator saying he's going to get rid
of those
mexican rapists he's banned muslims
because they're muslims
he has moved around and made everything
worse
across the board joe biden speaking last
night there
i'm joined by alicia gaza from
california who has written
a book about her experiences the purpose
of power how to build movements
for the 21st century elizabeth are you
proud of what this movement has grown
into over the past few years
i am i mean i think this movement has
captured hearts and minds around the
world and it is now
a kitchen table conversation in every
country in the world
and rightfully so black communities
across the globe
are struggling under the weight of our
lives not mattering
and it's more than time for us to close
the gap
between black lives and other lives
and frankly i will say that in my book i
talk about the fact that
movements and their purpose are to put
more power into the hands of more people
and i think this movement is well on the
way to getting that done
but what is it actually achieved well
in 2015 we saw an unprecedented number
of laws passed around criminal justice
reform
it was more than 40 laws in 26 states
across this nation
and that would not have been possible
without black lives matter
this year the movement for black lives
and black lives matter
introduced the breathe act which is the
21st century version the
the my generations version of the 1965
civil rights act
which ensured dignity and justice for
all people regardless of race class
gender or any other category and there's
many more victories that we have left to
win
i can say that in cities and states
across this nation
black lives matter activists are making
sure that
our organizing is changing rules but
also changing culture
making sure that black people aren't
criminalized unnecessarily
making sure that systemic racism
is uh people are aware of it and making
sure that people know
that it infects every system that
organizes our lives
i would say that those are huge
accomplishments and we're just getting
started
okay so i mean what do you think about
the idea or the notion the reality that
it's
been adopted by some of the world's
biggest corporations nike
wall street banks and kind of used as a
slogan
do you take that seriously well it
depends i mean
it's important that movements are able
to break through the mainstream
it is corporations and other entities
that
really shape the ideas and the values of
so many people
and so you know movements should not be
obscure
but at the same token there is work that
needs to be done by corporations to
not just adopt black lives matter in
symbol but also to adopt it in substance
and i often say to corporations who ask
that there's work that they can do right
there inside of their own company
they can start by looking at how many
black people work in their companies and
more than that how many black people are
in the c-suite
of their company i've also said many
many times that
it's important to make sure that if you
do have black folks in your company that
our only job is not to teach you about
diversity and inclusion
and i talk about this a lot in my book
the purpose of power
that symbol is often used in
relationship to black communities but
that we rarely get to the substance
it doesn't just happen on the corporate
level it also happens in elections and
with political parties so as the
violence at the edges of this movement
tarnished it i'm sorry can you ask has
the violence at the edges of this
movement
tarnished it well let me say this just
today a story came out about the george
floyd protests in minneapolis
and it turns out that there were
right-wing agitators inside of those
protests who were firing shots at the
police station
they were also chanting alongside black
lives matter protesters
so i think what actually happens here is
that too often
um the media that covers our movement
doesn't actually know the difference
between people
it's not all right-wing agitators there
has been some
excuse me and sometimes doesn't do the
work necessary
to better understand who's a part of
these protests and what's happening
these agitators were charged today being
a member of the boogaloo boys which is a
well-known white supremacist
organization here and so again this
isn't an isolated story we also saw
a 17 year old boy show up at a protest
in kenosha
uh wisconsin and with an ak-47 and shoot
two protesters
this notion that excuse me this notion
that black lives matter protests are
violent
is actually not founded okay
your movement has called for things like
defunding the police now
obviously you're no fan of donald trump
but for that reason joe biden has sort
of
moved away from you um is he going to
make any difference
to your it's not actually true that
might be your opinion but what i heard
joe biden saying yesterday
was the same thing that we all feel
which is that donald trump
stirs the pot and he dumps fire he dumps
oil on the flames
that he himself is stoking it is really
important in this moment for not only
the safety of activists who are fighting
for justice
and security and equality to not
continue to spread these kinds of rumors
for
people's own personal gain we must we
must leave it there
elizabeth thank you so much for joining
us we really do appreciate it