Emmanuel Cannady

“Daddy changed the world.” – Gianna Floyd

In those words, George Floyd’s six-year-old daughter succinctly captured the global significance of her father’s tragic murder. Together with the outrage of Breonna Taylor and Amaud Arbery’s murders, the killing of Floyd triggered protests around the world demanding greater police accountability and the eradication of structural racism and white supremacy for good. Protesters marched in the streets, lock-step and in unison, and again proclaimed “Black Lives Matter!”

Throughout the summer of 2020, the Black Lives Matter Movement captured public consciousness on a level not seen since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Currently, it is common to see people hanging “Black Lives Matter” signs in their home windows, churches changing their marquees to match the movement, and businesses crafting anti-racist statements. Though momentum favors the current movement, all movements are difficult to sustain. Therefore, in this essay, I will discuss the Black Lives Matter Movement’s sustainability strategies. Specifically, I will address how the movement sustains interracial unity, the utility of persistent media visibility, and how protest tactics help build political power.

Ann Mische

In recent months we have seen clashing imaginaries (the set of values, narratives, and symbols through which people make sense of the social spaces they occupy) at play in the wave of protests for Black lives after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as part of the ongoing struggle to challenge historic systems of oppression. Turning these clashes into productive action toward justice requires what social movement analysts call “insider-outsider” strategies. These uneasy coalitions combine the disruptive impact of movements outside of the state with attempts to reshape state and non-state institutions in ways that better address social inequalities and support community well-being.

Helina Haile

In May 2015, Chicago became the first municipality in the United States to pass reparations for racially-motivated police torture. The reparations ordinance provided redress for the survivors of police torture under Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge between 1972-1991. The grassroots organizing efforts seeking justice and reparations were spearheaded by torture survivors and their families, community members, academics, and artists. Organizers envisioned reparations as not only monetary but also as holistic means of trauma healing. The ordinance included a formal apology, changes to 8th and 10th grade curricula, a public memorial, counseling services, free tuition at Chicago City colleges, job placement support programs, priority access to re-entry programs, and a reparations fund for eligible survivors.

The Chicago Torture Justice Center (CTJC) was birthed from the ordinance to provide trauma counseling services for survivors of police torture and brutality. Located in the south-side Chicago neighborhood of Englewood, it is the first trauma healing center in the United States that works with domestic survivors of torture.