When one looks for similarities between Martin Luther King Jr. and Black Lives Matter, it may be suggested that both are disruptors.
The comparisons do not end there. There are also similarities between hate mail received by MLK and the recent criticism received by Black Lives Matter. Eerily, both Dr. King and the group have been told that their disruption is self-destructive and that it alienates supporters. But Black Lives Matter is not a revival of the 1960s civil rights movement.
Black Lives Matter is of a new era and a new generation. For one, it does not stand behind a charismatic leader like King, Sharpton or Jackson. It fully embraces a new grassroots movement instead.
When viewed from the ground, Black Lives Matter is less like Dr. King and more like Occupy Wall Street,. Of course, the group is guided by King’s dream of true equality for all people. Yet, it is the methods they use to achieve it that differ. Rather than following the instructions of a single leader or the church, Black Lives Matter prefers to leave the past in the past.
Rather than following the instructions of a single leader or the church, Black Lives Matter prefers to leave the past in the past. They can do this because they have a new, powerful tool that was not available to their predecessors: the internet.
Dr. King did not have the option of creating the type of internet-based grassroots movement that local organizers from Black Lives Matter use today. He did not live to see social media, one of the greatest organizing tools in the world.
Black Lives Matter’s lack of central organization is available only because of social media and the social media generation. This is because social media provides free access to a huge amount of information. This information serves as the ultimate equalizer because it no longer relies on top-down networks. Once posted, information can be gathered, measured, examined and shared instantaneously.
This new organizational system is becoming crucial for creating national campaigns that want to make an impact at the local level. Because they have forgone a system that forces information to trickle down, they can create an organization with space for anyone to fit in right from the beginning. More importantly, this kind of organization provides room for people to grow.
Their use of social media and the internet has allowed Black Lives Matter to transform from a collective group of protestors into a political tour-de-force. The result of this shift in allows the group to pivot to local issues as a means of serving national issues. This broadens the group’s scope and increases their efficacy when tackling their goals.
The reason that Americans are so familiar with this grassroots group is because they have brought forward Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream and his brand of disruption to update it for a new generation. This familiarity proves their success because in a world where Americans have more information to distract themselves with, Black Lives Matter dominates local and national conversations.
Black Lives Matter are major disruptors. Their organizational tools may be a far cry from Dr. King’s but their message is not.
Like Dr. King's hate mail, the criticism they receive only proves that their new methods are working.