By Demetrius Dillard
Dating back to the days of the Middle Passage, Transatlantic Slave Trade, Underground Railroad and the Abolition Movement, the quest for Black liberation has been an ongoing struggle for centuries.
Despite the countless milestones and achievements that Black Americans have reached, the struggle will likely continue for many generations to come.
As it relates to modern-day Black liberation, the COVID-19 pandemic was a pivotal moment in this nation’s grim history. The pandemic itself had a disproportionate effect on millions of Black Americans, which prompted various social justice campaigns particularly in the health care sector.
Also during the pandemic, the world saw a number of police brutality incidents against Black victims which led to many protests, uprisings and what seemed like incessant social unrest for an extended period of time.
As a New York Times article frames it, Black Americans suffered “a pandemic within a pandemic.” From a heightened emphasis on mental health in the Black community to fatal police encounters that roiled Black America — the three-year period that encompassed COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to what some may acknowledge as a historical shift in the crusades toward Black liberation.
Have Black liberation movements undergone a complete death and rebirth? Not necessarily. In fact, the events that took place during the pandemic – in 2020 especially — was simply history repeating itself. The uprisings, demonstrations and protests that transpired in major cities reflected a similar course of action(s) that many young Black Americans took during Red Summer of 1919 and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
While marches, picketing, demonstrations and other forms of traditional in-person protests remained prevalent in the 21st century, the advent of the digital age contributed largely to the changing landscape of Black activism.
Black Lives Matter, arguably the most influential anti-racism movement in the 21st century, began as a hashtag in summer 2013, indicating the powerful ability social media has to impact and transcend the globe socially, politically and culturally.
This movement, concurrent with the continual crises that plagued Black people in recent years, seemed to spark subsequent social media campaigns and online efforts advocating for Black liberation and progression.
Over the past decade — especially during the height of the pandemic and national reckoning with race — prominent figures, including athletes, entertainers, corporate leaders, politicians and public intellectuals used wide-reaching social media platforms to shed light on long-existing racial injustices and policies affecting Black Americans.
While Black liberation movements throughout the world during the pandemic might have undergone an utter death and rebirth, one could argue that these new-age movements reflect more of an evolution, or resurgence, of traditional Black liberation activism.
“In early 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement in the US saw a resurgence after an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, died whilst in police custody,” wrote United Kingdom-based writer Sally Dray in a piece entitled “Black Liberation Movements: Then and Now.”
“His death sparked protests in every US state and in many cities worldwide. Protests in the US were further escalated by the shooting of another Black man, Jacob Blake, by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020.”
Gary Cunningham, president and CEO of Prosperity Now, expressed interesting sentiments regarding the quest to Black liberation and what effect modern-day movements are having.
“We write report after report documenting the levels of racial, economic, and social inequalities. We march, vote, and protest to incremental effect. But even in the wake of the heinous police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a too-long list of others, we’ve seen no substantial change,” he wrote in a 2021 article “Strengthening Our Identity: Rethinking the Path to Black Liberation,” which was published by the Nonprofit Quarterly.
The collective condition of Black America has worsened over the last 50-plus years, Cunningham noted, highlighting that Black America’s current dilemma is about shaping its future and building a socially cohesive movement to amass enough power to “change the system.”
“At one time, I believed in the rational argument that if we compiled enough data on African Americans’ social and economic plight, we could win the day. If we could harness enough data, white people would wake up and realize that their ill-gotten privileges created a rigged system. Then, they would relent and change the system to help equalize the playing field in America,” Cunningham wrote.
“Years and many reports later, I have come to a different conclusion. The current dilemma facing Black people isn’t about logic or making the best argument. This is not something to be solved using a purely rational approach. It is not just about the disparity data. People of good will have worked for many years to address some of these ‘wicked’ problems of economic and social justice for Black people in America from just that standpoint.”
The struggle for Black liberation has not headed in a totally new direction, but that doesn’t dismiss the possibility that it will one day. Whether or not modern-day Black liberation’s “reawakening” has worked to the benefit of Black America is an important subject matter that warrants deeper exploration and analysis.
