Call for Submissions: Black Lives Matter Demonstrations
A movement or a moment?
The Set-up
History will forever link the year 2020 with the countless Black Lives Matter demonstrations of this summer. By George, Breonna, Ahmaud, Sandra, Michael, Tamir, and Trayvon, and innumerable others—America, you did that. Even during the raging, global COVID-19 pandemic, you came out, congregated, and marched through capitals, towns, hamlets, and boroughs in numbers never before seen in this country — and around the world — to bring attention to and demand remedy to the systemic racism and police brutality that plagues this country. You were every demographic, every race, every gender, every employment status from just about every stratum of society. You walked the talk with skin in the game and placed your body in harm’s way in the name of Black people’s humanity.
You brought traffic to a standstill and economies to a grinding halt. Giant corporations issued recantations, pledged support where there was once scorn, and big wigs danced the mea culpa in public— the conviction of choreography remains yet to be seen.
Boards have banned racist emblems and in the legislature in die-hard states, those emblems have been retired by law. Monuments have tumbled by the might of your strength in some locales, and by municipalities’…