A liberal history of a radical movement

The Making of Black Lives Matters reaches across a number of Black intellectuals and activists to identify common ground that could birth a Black Lives Matter (BLM movement), but its choice of thinkers and Lebron’s interpretation fail to produce a radical enough historiography to help readers fully engage with the emergence of the BLM movement. In response to Lebron’s text, I take up three central concerns: (1) the audience for the book, (2) which/who’s BLM movement?, and (3) the historical antecedents to BLM. The thinkers and concepts in the volume provide insight into the Black Freedom Struggle in general but do not elucidate the particular paths to or the contours of the BLM movement. The complex intersecting and interlocking agendas of BLM deserve a more radical undergirding to help readers understand the significance of the current movement relative to the past.