The 2020 uprisings have brought #BlackLivesMatter back to the center of national conversation. Organized by queer Black women Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, the hashtag first appeared on Twitter in 2013 as a rallying cry to “recognize the humanity of all Black life.”

It has since anchored activism against anti-Black racism in the criminal justice system and beyond. New York activists have been integral to what is known as the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a sustained and organized force for change across the country.

The issues raised by M4BL were not new in 2013: Black New Yorkers have protested violent and discriminatory police treatment from Brooklyn in 1925 to “stop-and-frisk” policies introduced in the 1990s. Movement activists have built on this legacy by highlighting problems they see as interconnected: systemic racism, gender discrimination, health hazards, anti-immigrant sentiment, and economic inequality.

In 2020, continued police and vigilante killings of Black people, including George Floyd in Minneapolis, and the COVID-19 pandemic—with its disproportionate impact on marginalized communities in New York and elsewhere—ignited an unprecedented wave of Black-led activism propelled by calls to “defund the police” and reimagine a more just, caring, and equitable society.