A Quote by Jesmyn Ward

I am grateful to the activists and women who created the Black Lives Matter movement because I feel like they let me know I wasn't crazy. — © Jesmyn Ward
I am grateful to the activists and women who created the Black Lives Matter movement because I feel like they let me know I wasn't crazy.
I was in the Black Power movement. I feel as energized about Black Lives Matter. I don't feel in any way separated from Black Lives Matter. I do believe we are hand and glove. I am the legislative tool.
The Black Lives Matter movement has brought to the national conversation many of the inequalities I've worked to confront here in Braddock. I'm so grateful it has because we need to realize that as far as the way America treats African-Americans, black lives don't matter in this country.
With support from techies, designers, artists and thousands of activists across the country, Black Lives Matter is now an online-to-offline political movement, affirming the humanity and resilience of black communities.
Black Lives Matter, as a network, will not, does not, has not, ain't going to endorse any candidates. Now if there are activists within the movement that want to do that independently, they should feel free, and if that's what makes sense for their local conditions, that's fantastic.
Whether or not you call it Black Lives Matter, whether or not you put a hashtag in front of it, whether or not you call it the Movement for Black Lives, all of that is irrelevant. Because there was resistance before Black Lives Matter, and there will be resistance after Black Lives Matter.
With the Black Lives Matter movement, a lot of the focus is on the protest and dissent. I'm hoping to dismantle the public notion - for folks outside of the community - of what Black Lives Matter means. It's really about saying that black lives matter: that humanity is the same when you go inside people's homes.
The biggest misconception about Black Lives Matter is that BLM is just one entity; Black Lives Matter is an organization and a network. We are a part of the movement, but we are not the movement.
The Black Lives Matter movement can be read as an attempt to keep mourning an open dynamic in our culture because black lives exist in a state of precariousness. Mourning then bears both the vulnerability inherent in black lives and the instability regarding a future for those lives.
If black lives matter, then why is it that black women are more than five times as likely as a white woman to have an abortion? I think the womb that brings forth the black life should matter... Because black lives absolutely matter, what about the babies in that womb? What about that mama?
The first thing we should be concerned about the BLM movement should be the issues that the Black Lives Matter movement is bringing forward. There's no fundamental platform being brought by activists in Oakland, Baltimore, or New Jersey. The main issues that you see, the commonality between activists all around the country, are trying to deal with the challenges in the criminal justice system, something that is very much central to my work. So my hope is that people stay focused on the urgency to create justice here at home.
When I'm talking to people, I find myself quoting the three organizing rules of Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter was initiated by three young women, and too few people know that. But, anyway, the first one is lead with love. The second is low ego, high impact. The third is move with the speed of trust. I must say those make me feel very hopeful for the future.
Black Lives Matter was created as a response to state violence and anti-black racism and a call to action for those who want to fight it and build a world where black lives do, in fact, matter.
We now have the Black Lives Matter movement. I find that curious because this country is not quite the melting pot it's purported to be. Black lives are unknown in some pla'ces.
For me, it's clear Beyonce sees herself as a part of the movement for black lives and believes that black lives matter - and ultimately, that's what matters.
The black experience for me has been very interesting. Some days, I wake up, and I feel really black. Some days, I'm like, 'This is me. I'm black. Black Lives Matter. Black pride. Look at my cocoa skin.' I just feel it's my being.
Usually, 'All Lives Matter' comes as a response to 'Black Lives Matter'; it doesn't exist in a vacuum. So when people say 'Black Lives Matter,' a lot of times the response 'All Lives Matter' can seem very condescending, dismissive to 'Black Lives Matter.'
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