In recent years, policing has been among the nations most visible issues as people outraged by use of force and racial disparities in punishment took to the streets under the Black Lives Matter banner. But news related to controversial police encounters with black Americans has been met with relatively subdued responses in recent weeks. A viral video showing police in a Michigan town pointing a gun at unarmed black boys. An officer in a Dallas suburb fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager. A plea deal for a onetime North Charleston, S.C., officer who shot a fleeing suspect in the back.
No massive protests. No nonstop news coverage.
If theyre not here tonight, I think theyll be here tomorrow, said Rafael Bobb, 41, who was hanging out in the parking lot of the Triple S Food Mart on Wednesday, hopeful that it was just the weather deterring activists. At the end of the day, somebodys got to be held accountable.
But activists say the movements efforts have entered a new phase one more focused on policy than protest prompted by the election of President Trump.
What people are seeing is that there are less demonstrations, said Alicia Garza, one of three women credited with coining the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag after a jury acquitted a neighborhood watchman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012. A lot of that is that people are channeling their energy into organizing locally, recognizing that in Trumps America, our communities are under direct attack.
...
In interviews, more than half a dozen leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement said that last years election prompted renewed focus on supporting other minority groups as well as amassing electoral power to fight an administration that has pledged to roll back Obama-era efforts to reshape policing practices with a Justice Department that is the leading advocate for law enforcement in America, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions has put it. Those leaders who hail from various factions of the decentralized movement of individuals and organizations that have, at times, clashed said the reality of Trumps presidency has forced a reconsideration of strategy.
There was a lot of regrouping that had to happen within our movement and on the broader left to really think strategically, said Asha Rosa, the national organizing co-chair for the Black Youth Project 100.
....
The first major convening of young black activists during the Trump presidency came in April, when they met in Memphis for speeches, marches and workshops marking the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.s Beyond Vietnam speech. They were joined by representatives of organized labor, the Fight for $15 minimum wage effort, and a smattering of immigrant-advocacy and Muslim-rights groups.
The Black Lives Matter network is now one of more than 50 groups that have christened themselves The Majority,a coalition of progressives working on social justice issues, including LGBT rights and Islamaphobia.
