Black Lives Matter
noun
Note: Black Lives Matter was founded by Black community organizers Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi after George Zimmerman was acquitted of charges relating to his fatal shooting of Black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012; the movement expanded as people reacted to police killings of unarmed Black people in years following. The name Black Lives Matter functions as a declaration that Black people's lives have as much value as white people's lives, and as a call to end systems and practices that challenge this fact.
—abbreviation BLMExamples of Black Lives Matter in a Sentence
Ian Miller Outkick,
FOXNews.com,
19 June 2026
Decades later, a similar erasure occurred with the three Black women, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, who spearheaded the Black Lives Matter movement and whose contributions have been severely undermined.
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Janice Gassam Asare,
Forbes.com,
11 June 2026
Located opposite the balcony where King was shot, the museum’s new Legacy Experience focuses, with urgency, on the modern era, with its controversies over immigration and Black Lives Matter activism.
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Usa Today Network,
USA Today,
10 June 2026
Black Lives Matter of Greater New York held a small protest against the decision to grant Duran's bail in Manhattan's Flatiron District.
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Mark Prussin,
CBS News,
17 Apr. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Black Lives Matter.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Black%20Lives%20Matter. Accessed 26 Jun. 2026.
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