Black Lives Matter: Usable Pasts and International Futures

#ICantBreathe. #BlackLivesMatter. The rallying calls of a new movement have reached across the globe. Black Lives Matter (BLM) responds to the oppression, violence and exclusion that shapes black lives. Though most known for its protests against police brutality, BLM's manifestos, rhetoric, and actions respond to all forms of racial oppression, including in the areas of education, poverty, environmental justice and mental health. It is a self-described response to a violation of human rights.

Started by three African American women in 2013, BLM is spreading internationally and has chapters in every region of the US, one in Canada, one in Africa, and one in the UK. It is arguably the largest grassroots social justice movement since the 1960s. There have been more than 1500 BLM protests worldwide in the last three years, including in at least 18 UK cities. We have witnessed a new generation protesting state-sanctioned violence across the US and Europe, and from Brazil to India. Yet arguably activists have been saying "Black Lives Matter" for centuries. When three black feminists harnessed what began as a hashtag, perhaps it resonated not just because of recent high-profile deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others, but also because it recalled a protest heritage - contained within it a deep protest memory.

This network and its outputs seek to understand the origin points, dynamics and possible futures of BLM as a global and intersectional human rights and social justice movement. How can BLM, as a global movement, deliver the aims of the International Decade? Is it best figured as an international human rights movement or a civil rights one? What is its protest heritage: does it draw from the tactics of antislavery, anti-lynching, decolonisation, Black Power, Anti-Apartheid, or other movements? Is there a usable past for BLM? How does it use coalitional politics? We provide an academic framework for the study of a movement that itself embraces research as key to social action - a movement steeped in a tradition of intellectual engagement as political praxis.

The network comes at a critical moment in the study of BLM. Our edited volume is only the third academic book on the topic and the first published in the UK. It is the first work of scholarship to consider BLM as a transatlantic movement and the most cross-disciplinary exploration of BLM so far. Alongside the book, we also offer six network projects that provide a model for activist-scholar partnerships and test our theories about BLM in the context of Nottingham city, home to Europe's first BLM chapter. Two projects examine the usable pasts of antislavery and civil rights. Two projects explore the theories and philosophies of BLM itself, focusing on the idea of a "leaderful" (not leaderless) movement and the importance of coalition building. Two final projects address the movement's sustainability and international potential. The interconnected projects build a replicable model for BLM that other cities can interpret for their own contexts.

The six network projects are the mapping of antislavery murals and memorials around the world, to offer BLM a new visual and memorial culture, and encourage the creation of new community murals and markers; an oral history project to narrate the history of Ukaidi, a civil rights and black community organisation based in Nottingham from the mid-1970s to the late-1990s, as a usable past for BLM Nottingham; a free five-week community-based BLM course about coalition building; a free five-week black leadership course, open to both undergraduates and community members; a BLM roadshow of workshops and resources that visits six other UK cities, to help coalesce and develop new BLM chapters, alongside the creation of a digital map of UK organisations that are part of the Movement for Black Lives; and network visits to BLM chapter headquarters in two American cities and Accra, to share and develop international BLM strategies.

Started by three African American women in 2013, Black Lives Matter (BLM) is spreading internationally. It has chapters in every region of the US, one in Canada, one in Africa, and one in the UK. It is arguably the largest grassroots social justice movement since the 1960s. We have witnessed a new generation protesting state-sanctioned violence across the US and Europe, and from Brazil to India. There have been more than 1500 BLM protests worldwide in the last three years, including in at least 18 UK cities. The first national US convening in July 2015 drew over 1000 participants. The second drew over 2000. The BLM organisation's "freedom rides" brought together 600 people from 18 cities. The UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent has praised BLM as a "growing human rights movement". But it is not clear how BLM can address the goals of the International Decade for People of African Descent, form an identity as a global human rights movement (rather than a civil rights or social justice movement), harness a deep history of human rights activism and social justice protest, and adapt in the international context beyond the US to be a global movement for the rights of the black diaspora. Our network will establish a vision for BLM as a global human rights and social justice movement. Aside from scholarly impact, we hope to observe and measure the following by the end of our project:

1. Early shifts in BLM activism (at the level of the central organisation) towards goals and policies that reach beyond the US to address the global aims of the International Decade.

2. The formation of new BLM chapters in UK cities, as activist-academic partnerships between city and university communities, in the wake of our network roadshow workshops, and active partnerships for BLM Nottingham with new chapters on specific new research or policy initiatives.

3. The shaping of Europe's first BLM chapter, in Nottingham, to generate new initiatives and policies that help to achieve the aims of the International Decade, and that draw upon a usable past (of antislavery and Ukaidi).

4. Widespread use of our maps, course materials, activist archive, oral history project and BLM network resources, as measured by multiple link-backs, page views and downloads.

5. A specific use of our network map, visualising the existing activist groups in the UK, by multiple individuals and organisations to build partnerships and request additional information.

6. A specific use of our mural and memorial map, visualising the existing public heritage of antislavery, by multiple stakeholders to advance plans for new murals, memorials and markers.

7. A specific use and adaptation of our two courses by other communities, so that BLM community courses on coalition-building and black leadership exist beyond Nottingham.

8. Engagement by Nottingham city council and Nottinghamshire police with BLM Nottingham on multiple racial equality and justice initiatives that the chapter develops in 2017 as part of its network partnership.

9. A shift in how HAS tackles its work, so that being a "historian against slavery" now includes work on racial inequality as a legacy of slavery, as well as work in the area of contemporary antislavery.

10. Active partnerships for BLM Nottingham with the Accra BLM chapter and at least two US-based BLM chapters on specific policy initiatives.

11. Early signs that participants in our two courses are benefiting from their training in leadership or coalition-building.

12. At least one new planned future initiative on the part of the city's new coalition of black-led institutions and groups, brought together for the first time by the network around BLM.