UCI Podcast: The role of women in the Black Lives Matter movement

March is Women’s History Month, an opportunity to celebrate the numerous contributions that women have made to American society. In this episode of the UCI Podcast, we’ll shine a spotlight on women who have worked tirelessly to bring attention to injustice via the Black Lives Matter movement and others like it.

Begun in 2013 after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, BLM encompasses yearslong campaigns across several anti-carceral organizations striving to end state violence against African Americans.

Jordie Davies, UCI assistant professor of political science, pays special attention to BLM as she examines the foundations of social movements that have emerged in response to anti-Blackness for a new book. She’ll teach us the history behind BLM and anti-carceral groups catalyzed by women, forecast what may be on the horizon, and discuss her recent publication on the process of building solidarity and sharing power in multiracial coalitions.

The music for this episode, titled “Awake,” was provided by Emmit Fenn via the audio library in YouTube Studio.

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TRANSCRIPT

Cara Capuano / The UCI Podcast:

From the University of California, Irvine, I’m Cara Capuano. Thank you for listening to The UCI Podcast. Our guest today is Jordie Davies, UC Irvine assistant professor of political science. Her research interests include Black politics and political thought, U.S. social movements, solidarity and feminism. In particular, she studies the influence of social movements on political attitudes, activism and political participation.

Professor Davies’s current book project proposes a framework called “Alienated Activism” to describe the emergence of social movements in response to long established anti-Blackness with special attention paid to the Black Lives Matter movement. Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise with us today, Professor Davies.

Jordie Davies:

Thank you, Cara. I’m excited to be here.

Capuano:

Let’s start our conversation with you. What motivated you to focus your academic career in these areas?

Davies:

Well, I grew up in Georgia and I went to college at Emory University, and I remember sitting in my African American politics class with Professor Andra Gillespie, and that class was the first time I learned about the racial wealth gap, which explains the kind of difference between wealth between Black and white folks in the United States. And I remember feeling like it was so extreme that it couldn’t be anything but purposeful. And so that kind of started my research journey. And then I was lucky enough for Dr. Gillespie to take me under her wing, encourage me to do my own research.

And around this time – it was about 2012/2013 – is when the Black Lives Matter movement started to kind of kick off nationally. Trayvon Martin was killed in 2011. In 2012, George Zimmerman was acquitted for his murder. And on my college campus, I began seeing my friends and colleagues start to protest. And I remember being really surprised at that – that protest was still a big part of the Black political repertoire. And so ever since then I’ve been writing about the Black Lives Matter movement and interested in non-traditional ways, non-institutional ways that Black people participate in politics.

Capuano:

Thank you for sharing that personal history. You never know when an experience from when we’re younger is going to shape what we choose when we’re older. You are one of our newer faculty at UCI’s School of Social Sciences. Why UCI?

Davies:

I was so excited to come to UCI in part because I knew I would be able to join a community of scholars already doing work in race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality – really thoughtful political theorists and political scientists and sociologists. In particular, I was so excited to join the political science department with Professor Claire Kim, Professor Davin Phoenix and Professor Michael Tesler – all of them who are really fabulous political scientists who study race and ethnicity.

Capuano:

We definitely have a roster of superstars in your field. As we enter Women’s History Month – celebrated each year in March – it’s really an excellent time to examine the Black Lives Matter movement, which is one of those historic social movements catalyzed by women. How would you describe the role that women played in the Black Lives Matter movement?

Davies:

I would say that Black women are the key catalyst of the BLM movement, whether we’re talking about mothers like Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton; activists like Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, who founded the Black Lives Matter network; or Black women scholars like Barbara Ransby, a historian, and Cathy Cohen, a political scientist, who both theorize, participate and support Black organizing.

So much of Black Lives Matter – and when I say Black Lives Matter, I’m not just talking about the network, I’m talking about a number of organizations that have been a part of the mass movement, including organizations under the Movement for Black Lives umbrella. So much of that organizing and activism draws theoretically from Black feminism in particular. So, bell hooks’s feminist theory, for example – “from margin to center” – is a key foundation of understanding Black women’s activism around police violence against Black women. And Black Lives Matter organizations, anti-carceral organizations really promote that kind of theory as a foundation of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Capuano:

You’ve given us a great big picture, but what about the local level? How has the Black Lives Matter movement played out at a local level?

Davies:

One really important case was the death of Rekia Boyd in 2012. So, Rekia was killed by a police officer in Chicago, perhaps a month after Trayvon Martin was killed, but her case didn’t receive the same level of national attention as Trayvon’s. So, as Black women like Crista Noel of Women’s All Points Bulletin and Mariame Kaba – partnering with Rekia’s brother, Martinez Sutton – drawing attention to Rekia’s case.

It was the Black Youth Project 100 protesting Dante Servin, the police officer who killed her. They protested his continued employment on the Chicago Police Force. So, what I’m finding in my work is that some stories go under the radar nationally, particularly women, but Black women have organized and advocated for attention to cases of police violence against Black women. And these cases often kick off local iterations and expressions of the Black Lives Matter mass movement, and around that, organizations proliferate or are revived, even, to take up these causes and build out local versions of the movement.

Capuano:

Why are the stories of Black women ignored?

Davies:

I would say old fashioned sexism mixed in with particular stereotypes against Black women. In my Black feminism class, I’m teaching about the classic kind of stereotypes against Black women: “Sapphire,” the angry Black woman; “Mammy,” the kind of reliable, friendly docile Black woman who cares for everyone; and then the “Jezebel,” the kind of oversexualized Black woman.

Black women are often blamed for the societal violence against them and are often kind of pushed to the margins of narratives of violence. But the Black Lives Matter movement, particularly women and non-binary folks and queer folks, have done a lot to draw attention to these cases. “Say Her Name” was a big kind of hashtag and rallying cry when Sandra Bland was killed, for example – or we don’t know that she was killed, right? But she was found dead in her jail cell in Texas. And Kimberlé Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum published a report talking about the ways that Black women are often marginalized in these narratives around police violence.

Capuano:

What organizations do you study in your work?

Davies:

So, I’m particularly focused on the kind of number of organizations that are present at the local level and Chicago specifically. I look at the Black Youth Project 100. I’m interested in the Chicago Alliance and Black Lives Matter Chicago, in particular, but there’s so many other organizations as well. There’s Women’s All Points Bulletin, there’s We Charge Genocide. So many groups have contributed to the wins and successes of the Black Lives Matter movement in Chicago and not just those formally affiliated with the Black Lives Matter network.

And that’s why in my work I argue it’s so important to continue to have a local lens on social movements and not just this kind of national understanding. Because when you look at the local level, you’ll see long-term committed organizing rather than just these kind of flashes of protest.

Capuano:

What role do women play in these organizations? We’ve talked about the founders, if you will, but what about the continuing getting things done?

Davies:

Women are key catalysts. The Black Youth Project 100, for example, was one of the first main direct-action activism organizations in the Black Lives Matter movement. And their kind of theoretical commitment to Black queer feminism was the thing that kind of guided all of their organizing. And Charlene Carruthers talks about this in her book, Unapologetic. Black queer feminism sort of seeks to bring those who are typically on the political margins to the center – Black queer women, Black trans women, gender non-conforming folks – and consider what organizing would look like if those folks were at the center rather than folks who are typically kind of venerated in society. So Black queer women, Black trans women, Black women are essential in the foundations of that organization, and they develop protests, literature, policy, real theory for how we can kind of continue to think about Black politics today.

Capuano:

When you think about that vision that they have, what does that look like?

Davies:

It looks like a world where Black folks are liberated, where all people are liberated. The end of the capitalist, hetero-, patriarchal society that we live in. It looks like peace and freedom overseas and at home. Freedom for all people.

Capuano:

You just gave me goosebumps and the chills. It’s a wonderful dream, isn’t it?

Davies:

Mm-hmm.

Capuano:

Are there any social movements that you predict we might see on the horizon?

Davies:

I think we’re amidst a burgeoning anti-war movement, truly. So many organizations and activists have turned out in the past few months for Palestine, pushing their city councils to demand cease-fires: Long Beach – where I live, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta. And lot of folks who had organizing experience from the kind of Black Lives Matter mass movement and Black anti-carceral organizing have joined in with pro-Palestine, anti-war cease-fire protests. And I think that this is going to continue to be a major issue for the Democratic Party and the broader left moving forward. We’ve already seen activists disrupting President Biden and Vice President Harris on the campaign trail demanding a cease-fire.

Capuano:

Is there anything that we didn’t get to today that you wanted to talk about?

Davies:

I would love to share. A major part of making social movements obviously is solidarity and a report I worked on with the P3 Lab at Johns Hopkins University and Houston in Action, a wonderful organization in Houston, Texas, was just released.

Capuano:

Oh, wow!

Davies:

It’s entitled “Building and Brokering: Foundations of Solidarity and Multi-Racial Coalitions,” and you can find it on the P3 Lab research website. And it focuses on the process of solidarity building and sharing power in multiracial coalitions as well as the difficulties of building solidarity within racial groups. And that’s a piece of research I’m really proud of and excited to share with everyone.

Capuano:

What are some of the difficulties? What kind of findings can you share with us – just a treetops version?

Davies:

Sure. A few of the main findings are that it’s important to build a shared politic. Everyone kind of needs to come to the table with an agreed lens about how they see the world and understand the world and how they want to move to change the world. In addition, it’s important to build intersectional solidarity. So, even within race, acknowledging that there are differences in class, in organizing focus, in gender and sexuality, and recognizing that those things need to be acknowledged before folks can come to the table and get something done.

Capuano:

We’ll look for your publication and I’ll be sure to put a link to it in the intro page to our podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today, Professor Davies, and for sharing your in-depth knowledge around social movements and how women have affected them.

For the latest UCI news, please visit our recently redesigned website, news.uci.edu. I’m Cara Capuano. Thank you for listening to our conversation. The UCI Podcast is a production of Strategic Communications and Public Affairs at the University of California Irvine. Please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.