Young Activists Continue To Break The Silence In Charleston And Florence Communities On Issues Of Justice And Civil Rights

As the two year anniversary of the death of George Floyd approaches marking the height of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the resounding message from that community is an overwhelming and deafening silence.

According to, Marcus McDonald, President of the Charleston, SC chapter of BLM, while they have not been taking to the streets to protest like they did in 2020, they are very much working in the community. McDonald stated that they have been busy working on several issues that impact people of color. “We have been working with legislators on issues concerning policing, a use of force bill as well as having conversations about redistricting. We have also conducted financial responsibility classes and a learning hub for young students.” He also added that his chapter took to the streets of Charleston to protest the death of Jamaal Southerland, a young man from Charleston with schizophrenia who died after two deputies, Brian Houle and Sgt. Lindsey Fickett, tried removing him from his jail cell for a bond hearing.
Chris McCray heads a social justice organization called Next is Now, out of Florence, SC. His organization often partnered with the local BLM group where there were common interests, however the Florence BLM group no longer operates under that name.
BLM was founded in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of a Black teenager, Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter started as a hashtag and grew into a movement. The movement soared during the summer of 2020, amid intense demands for racial justice after the police killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. The shocking images of Mr. Floyd's last moments, pleading for his mother, seemed to energize the movement as the video confirmed the brutality we had complained of for decades.

Just one year later, there were three more high-profile police killings of unarmed African Americans. Black Lives Matter led the protests after each killing, but none at the levels we saw after George Floyd’s murder. Without angry protests making front-page news, many claimed that support for the Black Lives Matter movement had faded, and the country had moved on. While many African Americans still support the movement and a few whites remain committed to the cause, has Black Lives matter retreated to the sidelines?

The level of protest we saw during the summer of 2020 was impossible to sustain, but it lifted the expectations for the demands from elected officials and big corporations. Those battles were of great importance because they now dictate the conditions of most people’s lives, and shaped political narratives all the way to the White House. But we know that awareness alone has never been enough to change the conditions black and brown people live under. Now comes the hard work of moving from diagnosis to treatment. Is Black Lives Matter, the catalyst we need to move forward? Or do we need new organizations and strategies, that can actually deliver on the demands that brought so many into the streets last summer?

Policing issues continue to be a racism problem visited overarchingly on the black community. There is also growing evidence that strict voter ID laws disproportionately impact black and brown voters. There are other social justice issues such as the student loan debt crisis, the battle over Critical Race Theory being taught in schools and women’s rights issues including abortion rights. All of these issues are currently garnering attention. Yet Black Lives Matter remains silent on these important issues.
In May of 2021 the Executive Director of Black Lives Matter stepped down after what was deemed “a deeply troubling lack of financial transparency”. That lack of transparency created major problems for the movement. In April of 2021, a New York Post article stated that between 2016 and 2021, the Executive Director of BLM, Patrisse Marie Khan-Cullors purchased four homes worth nearly $3 million, fueling speculation that she was using the Black Lives Matter movement for personal financial gain.

In May 2021, not long after the story about her home purchases ran, Cullors announced that she was resigning as BLM’s executive director. Many believe that was the beginning of the end for Black Lives Matter. According to Shanay Ryan, leader of the Columbia, SC Chapter of Black Lives Matter, ”The scandal from the national BLM chapter placed a negative stigma on all BLM chapters.” According to Ryan, the group is still doing important work, but because of all the negative publicity people stopped paying attention. She also indicated that much of the work being done in the Columbia area is being done under the banner of other social justice groups, but it is the same BLM members who are doing the work.
It is no longer clear how many chapters Black Lives Matter has or how many like the Charleston Chapter, is still openly operating. The truth is the revolution is still happening — it is just not being talked about or televised. All throughout the state, BLM organizers are still hard at work in their local communities feverishly fighting for change and relentlessly speaking truth to power. Because the work is now being done behind closed doors and not in the streets it is not receiving the press it once did.