ABSTRACT
This chapter lays out the ideologies behind the Black Lives Matter movement, specifically explaining how Black Lives Matter attempts to break from the tactics of the US Civil Rights movement and how the former deploys media in ways different from those previous struggles. It then explains the movement's Black feminist politics, its rhetorical strategies, and its media use in relation to its frameworks. The chapter discusses the impacts of its decentralized approaches, and describes how it has led to the misuse of Black Lives Matter for capitalist gain and confusion about who the movement is for. Black Lives Matter also pushes against centralized leadership structures and the kinds of leaders/leadership that drove previous Black liberation movements. Alicia Garza, one of the three Black queer women who coined the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on social media, emphasizes this important distinction between it and previous movements against anti-Black injustice.
