Black Lives Matter: The Making of a Movement

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Shem Fleenor's book presents a concise but broad history of systemic white supremacy in North American history and black resistance to it. The thesis of this book is that the Black Lives Matter movement was four hundred years in the making. Fleenor argues that "Black Lives Matter" does not equate to, as some think, "only black lives matter." The fact that so many opponents of the Black Lives Matter Movement think that the antipodal of "Black Lives Matter is "All Lives Matter," Fleenor argues, speaks to how deeply entrenched white supremacy is in American history and society. Chapter one provides an overview of the devaluing of black life and black resistance in the Americas before the American Revolution. Chapter two examines the devaluing of black life and black resistance in the Age of Revolution. Chapter three examines those themes in the antebellum era of American history; chapter four examines the American Civil War and Reconstruction; chapter five delves into the Gilded Age and Progressive Era; chapter six provides an overview of white supremacy and black resistance from World War I through World War II. Chapter seven rehashes African American resistance to white supremacy during the Cold War. The eighth and final chapter explores the often ignored but no less pernicious racism that took shape in American society in the decades after the social upheavals of the 1960s.