When They Call You a Terrorist

Here, Cullors finally reaches the point in the narrative where she cofounds Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. It is also where the book’s central argument—that Black Lives Matter exists to protest terrorism, not engage in it—comes into full focus. Cullors mounts this defense against a horde of naysayers that includes the 140,000 people who signed the 2016 petition to have Black Lives Matter designated a terrorist group. While this charge hasn’t been made directly by President Donald Trump—nor has the Trump White House answered calls from individuals like Rudy Giuliani to make that designation official—his public statements concerning Black Lives Matter clarify his animosity toward it. Of Hawk Newsome, President of the Greater New York chapter of Black Lives Matter, Trump lobbed accusations of “treason, sedition” (Trump, Donald (@realdonaldtrump). “Black Lives Matter leader states...” 25 Jun. 2020, 1:29 PM. Tweet.)

As early as 2017, in the wake of Trump’s controversial response to the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, White House legal adviser John Dowd forwarded an email to the Department of Homeland Security claiming that terrorists had infiltrated Black Lives Matter’s leadership. (Schmidt, Michael S. and Matt Apuzzo. “Trump Lawyer Forwards Email Echoing Secessionist Rhetoric.” The New York Times. 16 Aug. 2017.) As stated earlier, the FBI under President Trump has sought to disrupt and intimidate Black Lives Matter members and other racial justice activists in efforts that echo the controversial COINTELPRO programs of the 1960s and 1970s. In short, Cullors’s concerns over being labeled a terrorist, by both individuals and institutions, are well-founded.

One of the main arguments underlying the claims that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization or a racist movement is the belief that by asserting the worth of Black lives, the lives of White people or police officers are devalued. This has led to the rise of counter-hashtags like “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter.” Cullors, however, expresses her firm belief that such declarations are direct refutations of the movement’s goals for racial equity. When she hears someone say “All Lives Matter,” she wonders “how many white Americans are dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night because they might fit a vague description offered up by God knows who” (194). The implication is that the phrase “Black Lives Matter” must be voiced because so many American systems, institutions, and individuals behave as if they don’t matter. The same simply isn’t true, in her view, of White lives.

This is consistent with Cullors’s broader defense strategy against her opposition, which is to draw attention to what she views as the “real” terrorism in America: that which is visited upon Black men and women. Other defenses of the movement include the one Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza gave in a 2018 interview with The Economist. She states:

We are not trying to build a world where black people are empowered and white people aren’t, or where there is black supremacy. That wouldn’t make things better; you can’t replace one group with another. Instead, we want to transform the way that power currently operates. (“Black Lives Matter is not a terrorist organisation.” The Economist. 9 Aug. 2018. https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/08/09/black-lives-matter-is-not-a-terrorist-organisation.)

This focus on remaking power structures is key to Black Lives Matter’s broader ethos, which is reflected in the guiding principles Cullors lays out in Chapter 13. Those principles advocate for a defense of all oppressed groups, whether they are oppressed by their race, gender identity, or age. Cullors’s egalitarian tone and the nonviolent demonstrations she describes in these chapters paint a portrait of Black Lives Matter that counters the claims that it is a terrorist movement.

Finally, these chapters depict the event that, in the minds of many, went furthest in disabusing the myth of national colorblindness ushered in by President Obama’s election: the killing of Trayvon Martin. In addition to setting in motion the Black Lives Matter movement, Trayvon Martin’s death was, according to The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, the moment Obama finally stepped into the racial fray, for which he paid dearly. In the landmark essay “My President Was Black,” Coates argues that when Obama uttered the words, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” the bipartisan outrage over the young man’s death suddenly became bifurcated along party lines. He writes:

Before the president spoke, George Zimmerman was arguably the most reviled man in America. After the president spoke, Zimmerman became the patron saint of those who believe that an apt history of racism begins with Tawana Brawley and ends with the Duke lacrosse team. (Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “My President Was Black.” The Atlantic.)

If the Trayvon Martin killing mobilized activists like Cullors to demand action on racial justice, it also unearthed the barely-veiled sense of White grievance that, according to Michelle Alexander, fully manifested itself in the election of Donald Trump. (Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow 10th Anniversary. New York: The New Press. 2020.)