Considered to be the largest social justice movement since the civil rights era of the 1960s, Black Lives Matter is more than the scores of street protests organized by the social justice group that attracted hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across the world.

From its early days in 2014 after Officer Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown, Jr. to the protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Black Lives Matter has opened the door for social change by expanding the way we think about the complicated issues that involve race.

As sociologists who study how protests lay the groundwork for social change, we understand their necessity as a tactic to draw attention toward a movement’s broader agenda.

In our study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we found that the Black Lives Matter was able to shift attention away from its protests and toward its agenda of building an anti-racist society.

Our report further revealed that Black Lives Matter has changed how people learn about specific issues that involve race, such as police violence, mass incarceration and other systemic problems in Black communities that would be intolerable in other communities.

Spikes in anti-racist searches

Social change, such as the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century, is not represented only by new legislation or Supreme Court decisions. It is also found in the public’s ideas and conversations: what you and I think and talk about.

When people engage with a movement, such as joining a protest, they are more likely to learn about the movement’s aspirations and plans to achieve their goals. In this way, protest opens the door for social change.

In our digital age, researchers can measure what people are thinking about by analyzing activity on public internet platforms like Google, Wikipedia and Twitter. Social researchers can quantitatively measure social media activity and see how it changes over time and in response to particular events, such as Black Lives Matter protests.

Read full story at The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-protests-are-shaping-how-people-understand-racial-inequality-178254

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