August 2014

The police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, triggered weeks of sustained protest and a militarized police response broadcast globally. The uprising catalyzed Black Lives Matter from a hashtag into a national decentralized movement, forced public discourse on police violence against Black Americans to an unprecedented level, and spurred the Obama administration to convene a task force on 21st-century policing.

Following the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014, DeRay Mckesson and other activists used social media to document and organize 400+ consecutive days of protest, transforming a local uprising into a national movement. Ferguson launched the second wave of Black Lives Matter organizing and forced a national conversation about police violence and systemic racism.