Mediaboss Marketing

When Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012 and, in 2013, when George Zimmerman was acquitted, my body and spirit was moved into action, Cullors wrote in an op-ed for Teen Vogue about the movements sixth anniversary earlier this year. Alicia, Opal, and I created #BlackLivesMatter as an online community to help combat anti-Black racism across the globe.

The need for their effort has been tragically validated countless times since then. On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was a college-bound 18-year-old with no criminal record when he was shot and killed by a white police officer named Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. Several protests began taking place in Ferguson, and the issue of police brutality against black bodies was in the national spotlight. In response to what was happening in Ferguson, organizers in various cities nationwide created Black Lives Matter chapters in their communities.

Black Lives Matter created a space for activists of all ages to take a stand against anti-Black racism. After the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, teen activists held a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest that shut down Chicago streets, and in response to the murder of Eric Garner, then 18-year-old Nupol Kiazolu (now president of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York) led protests in Garners home state of New York.

Today, Black Lives Matter is a global network of more than 40 chapters, with members organizing and building local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

The #NoDAPL movement was launched by a group of young Native Americans who claimed the title of water protectors in response to the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil pipeline considered a threat to the Indigenous community at the Standing Rock reservation. It began when Anna Lee Rain Yellowhammer, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, started a Change.org petition titled, Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. From there, young activists began using the hashtags #StandWithStandingRock and #NoDAPL to spread the word, garnering the support of hundreds of thousands of people.

Visit link:
Youth Activist Movements of the 2010s: A Timeline and Brief History of a Decade of Change - Teen Vogue