Movement for Black Lives Timeline

Until The Flood follows eight Missourians whose lives are changed by Michael Brown’s death and the protests that followed. This timeline offers some context for the Movement for Black Lives, from the first time Patrisse Cullors coined #BlackLivesMatter in 2012, following the murder of Trayvon Martin, through the shooting death of Michael Brown, the protests that followed, and the ongoing work for racial justice in the United States.  

2/26/2012: George Zimmerman shoots Trayvon Martin in Sanford, FL 

3/26/2012: A month after Trayvon Martin's death, people rally across the United States to protest his killing  

7/13/2012: George Zimmerman is acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin; on the same day, Patrisse Cullors re-posts a message about the acquittal of George Zimmerman with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter 

Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza (who wrote the original post), and Opal Tometi create the Black Lives Matter network over the next months, protesting anti-Black racism and violence against Black lives in the United States 

7/20/2013: First mass protest for Trayvon Martin; over 1,000 people stage a sit-in in Times Square 

7/17/2014: Eric Garner is murdered by police officer Daniel Pantaleo in Staten Island, NY 

7/18/2014: The New York Daily News releases the video of Eric Garner’s death 

8/1/2014: The city's medical examiner rules Eric Garner's death a homicide, saying a chokehold killed him 

8/9/2014: Michael Brown is shot by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO 

8/9/2014: Patrisse Cullors and Darnell Moore organize Black Lives Matter Freedom Riders to bring buses of protestors to Ferguson, MO

8/10-8/30/2014: Mass protests against police harassment and violence in Ferguson, MO

8/13/2014: Police in military equipment teargas protestors in Ferguson, MO; the event is covered across the world

8/15/2014: Protests held across the country support the Ferguson, MO protestors 

8/16/2014: Senator Claire McCaskill declares a state of emergency in Ferguson, MO

8/18/2014: Governor Jay Nixon releases the National Guard in Ferguson, MO

8/25/2014: Michael Brown memorial service

8/30/2014: Protests in St. Louis stop traffic for 4.5 hours in symbolic tribute to the length of time Brown spent lying in the sun before medical examiners covered and removed his body 

11/22/2014: 12-year-old Tamir Rice is murdered at a playground by police officer Timothy Loehmann while holding a toy gun

11/24/2014: A Missouri grand jury decides not to indict Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown

11/25/2014: Thousands of protestors march to the Department of Justice in Washington, DC following the verdict

12/3/2014: A grand jury decides not to indict Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner; hundreds of protests break out across New York City following the grand jury’s decision not to pursue charges.

12/3/2014: US Attorney General Eric Holder announces a full federal investigation into the death of Eric Garner

1/22/2015: Black Lives Matter (BLM) release their Black State of the Union address

2/1/2015: African American Policy Forum releases report on the deaths of Black women by police brutality and coin #SayHerName

4/18/2015: Freddie Gray dies while in police custody in Baltimore, MD

4/19/2015: Massive protests erupt in Baltimore, MD

6/29/2015: BLM activists stage a die-in at the UN General Assembly following meetings on police brutality

7/13/2015: Sandra Bland dies while in police custody in Waller County, TX

7/5/2016: Alton Sterling is shot by police officers Howie Lake II and Blane Salamoni at close range in Baton Rouge, LA

7/6/2016: Philando Castile shot by police officer Jeronimo Yanez during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, MN

7/6-7/31/2016: Over 100 protests take place across America responding to the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile

7/13/2016: LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Dwayne Wade challenge other athletes to speak out against police brutality in a speech at 2016 ESPN’s ESPY awards

8/14/2016: Colin Kaepernick begins kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality

6/16/2017: Officer Jeronimo Yanez is acquitted of killing Philando Castile

5/1/2018: Study finds that the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was used nearly 30 million times on Twitter since 2013

4/28/2019: Teenager Isaiah Lewis is shot and killed by police officers Milo Box and Denton Scherman in Edmond, OK

2/23/2020: Ahmaud Arbery is shot and killed by white residents of a Glynn County, GA neighborhood while jogging

3/13/2020: Breonna Taylor is shot and killed by police officers Myles Cosgrove, Joshua Jaynes, and Brett Hankison, who entered her apartment at night during a failed drug raid in Louisville, KY

5/23/2020: George Floyd is killed by police in Minneapolis, MN. A video showing police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck goes viral after his death, spurring more than 450 major protests on three continents throughout the summer

5/27/2020: Tony McDade, a trans man, is shot and killed by police in Tallahassee, FL; as of March 16, 2021, the Tallahassee Police Department has not identified the officer responsible for McDade’s death.

5/22-8/22/2020: More than 10,600 Black Lives Matter events and protests take place in all 50 states


Sources for this timeline include The Washington Post; The New York Times; The New Yorker; The Guardian; The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Louisville Courier-Journal, Time Magazine, Vice Magazine, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Black Lives Matter webpage; the Library of Congress webpage; History.com, and Wikipedia.

Annabel Heacock