Michael Brown’s death a decade ago set off a new chapter of social change
NEW YORK (AP) — There have been moments before, times of heartbreak and grief that led to anger and calls for justice. Sometimes, they never make it past a few sparks. Sometimes they smolder for a little bit before dying out. And sometimes, in certain conditions, they light a fire.
Ten years ago, in August 2014, that was the case when a white police officer shot and killed Black 18-year-old Michael Brown on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri.
Coming just weeks after the July 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York City police, in a country where the nascent push of Black Lives Matter was still reeling after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the protests over Brown's death and the heavily armed law enforcement response to them erupted in the nation's consciousness.
It set off a new chapter in the United States' fraught civil rights history, bringing a spotlight to longstanding issues of race and police use of force. And in doing so, it created space for ripple effects to fan out in the years after – not just in conversations about race and policing, but about race and well, everything; about protest and what it should or shouldn't look like and who is allowed to engage in it, about equality and fairness in all kinds of directions.
'Very different visions of America that are being fought over'
Social movements and the pushback that comes are "intimately connected in terms of being very different visions of America that are being fought over," he said.
That the last decade has seen pushes for equality in LGBTQ+ issues as well as in the treatment of women, most famously in the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct is not a surprise, said Tarana Burke, the longtime activist who has worked on issues including voting rights and gender equity, and is most well-known in the public as the overall founder of #MeToo.
"It's all really under one big umbrella. We are ultimately fighting for a type of liberation that is across the board," she said.
"When you start seeing this domino effect, that's not unintentional," she said. "That is because one thing emboldens another."
