RT Article
T1 What happened to Black Lives Matter? Public support for Black Lives Matter and the politics of police reform
JF Contemporary justice review
VO 28
IS 1
SP 44
OP 68
A1 Brown, Ben
A2 Davila, Mario A.
A2 Hartley, Deborah J.
LA English
YR 2025
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1928115748
AB In less than a decade, Black Lives Matter metamorphosized from a hashtag into a thriving social movement fueling protests across the U.S. but then rapidly dissipated and has since been all but forgotten, begging the question: What happened to Black Lives Matter? This query is addressed herein via a review of the literature on confidence in the police and analyses of data on support for Black Lives Matter. Prior research indicates that most Americans view the police favorably, with distrust of the police being concentrated among young people and racial/ethnic minorities, and regression analyses of multiple datasets indicate that support for the Black Lives Matter movement was concentrated among the same demographic groups which often distrust the police. It is thus suggested that Black Lives Matter’s inability to effect police reform and subsequent decline was impacted by (1) Americans’ longstanding confidence in the police and (2) variation in patronage of the movement, with support having been greatest among the demographic groups which tend to distrust the police and possess little political clout (young persons and racial/ethnic minorities), and weakest among the demographic groups which tend to be satisfied with the police and wield considerable political power (older adults and Whites).
K1 Social movement
K1 Politics
K1 Police Reform
K1 Police
K1 Black Lives Matter
DO 10.1080/10282580.2025.2484710