Black lives matter and imagined futures of racial dynamics in the US

ABSTRACT

As the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement fights to build an alternate future characterized by racial equality and justice, a priority is studying this projected image of what society could look like and how oppressed groups and activists who fight on their behalf feel this might be achieved. This article integrates knowledge from social movement studies, critical race theory, and futures research to add to this critical discussion. Specifically, I use the concept of social movement prospectus to investigate perspectives on future social change in relation to racial justice activism. Through analysis of interviews with 36 U.S. Black millennials about BLM and its potential impact on race relations in the United States, I examine the varied conceptualizations within this group of what success would look like for this movement and whether that success is likely to occur. Broadly, I find that Black millennials are skeptical about BLM’s ability to effect social change, but are more optimistic when change is viewed in terms of cultural outcomes than structural ones. I consider the implications of these perspectives for the future of the movement, as well as for scholarship that investigates how social movements produce social change and shape the future of society.

KEYWORDS:

• Social movements
• social change
• Black lives matter
• racism
• futures
• prospectus

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my interview participants for their time and valuable insights that made this work possible. I would also like to thank every scholar who has given feedback on various versions of this paper, particularly the anonymous reviewers for the journal. Lastly, thank you to both the Collective Behavior and Social Movements section of ASA and the DC Sociological Society for awarding previous versions of this paper in your student paper competitions.

Disclosure statement

The author has no known conflicts of interest to report.

Notes

1. I capitalize ‘Black’ throughout this article while choosing not to capitalize ‘white’ because I conceptualize Black people in the U.S. as a distinct racialized cultural group resulting from and treated based on the history of marginalization originating with chattel slavery. I do not capitalize ‘white’ because white people in the U.S. often maintain ties to specific ethnic group identities from their country of origin in ways that Black people are often unable to do as a result of this violent history. Further, the attachment to ‘white’ as an identity implies an upholding of white supremacy in a manner that capitalizing ‘Black’ does not in the context of this history. This choice in capitalization reflects an intentional dedication to anti-racism and the centering of Black voices as experts on their own experience in a social system characterized by white domination. It also aligns with my membership in this cultural group.

2. Completion of these interviews occurred prior to the resurgence and growth of the BLM movement in the summer of 2020 following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other unarmed Black people in close succession. The impact of the timing of these data on the findings and implications of this research will be addressed in the discussion section.

3. While the overall sample was chosen through a theoretical sampling frame, the actual recruitment of participants was performed through convenience sampling methods and relied on social media networks emerging from my own social location. This largely explains the geographic and educational backgrounds of the respondents. Variation in interviewees’ backgrounds were not associated with significant differences in responses relevant to prospectus and evaluations of movement success.

4. One of the participants slightly defies this definition. Upon collecting demographic data at the end of Kevin’s interview, I became aware that he was born in January 1997, but he volunteered for the study because he identifies as part of the millennial generation (rather than Gen-Z). Given his identification, the comparability of his answers to the rest of the sample, that he was born only slightly beyond the 1996 cutoff, and the myriad factors that influence how researchers and historians subjectively ‘define’ generations (Pew Research Center, 2015) he was not eliminated from the sample.

5. Use of social media networks for participant recruiting undoubtedly shaped the sample for this study. As a Black HBCU graduate and current PhD student, my network disproportionately represents these statuses. Therefore, certain characteristics, particularly pursuit of postgraduate education, are representative of my sample but not wholly representative of the Black millennial population in general.

6. Quotations in this section are drawn directly from the words of the respondents, but presented in a way that provides clarity for the reader. Supporting contextual information is inserted in brackets (‘[text]’). Interviews were open ended with many clarifying questions and returns to certain topics at different times throughout interviews. Ellipses (‘…’) between sentences included within the same block quote are used to indicate synthesis of statements on the same topic from different points in the interviews.

7. Imani is a Black woman who works as an assistant professor at a university in the southern region of the U.S. She is an older millennial and was thirty-three at the time of the interview.

8. Jacob is a Black man who at the time of the interview was 24 years old and in graduate school.

9. Adrienne is a 25-year-old Black woman who was both in college and working full time in the customer service sector at the time we spoke.

10. Maddie is a queer Afro-Caribbean woman who has a master’s degree, works in higher education student affairs, and was 27 at the time of the interview.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and a dissertation fellowship from The Graduate School at the University of Maryland, College Park

Notes on contributors

Simone N. Durham

Simone N. Durham is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also a two-time graduate and adjunct faculty member in sociology at Morgan State University. Her research agenda includes work on race, social movements, and social psychological processes. Her current research and dissertation examine the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.