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Black Lives Matter UK

Author(s): Milan Rai, Adam Elliot-Cooper

In: Peace News, No 2652-2653, 2021, pp. 16-17

An informative interview with one of the co-founders of UKBLM explaining the group's history and policy. It emerged from solidarity demonstrations with the US movement in 2014-15, and an international conferencce in Nottinghma in 2016 which included US anti-racist activists and theorists. UKBLM were set up in Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham and London and during 2016 challenged deportations, the police and prisons through a series of shutdowns of transport linked to airports. From 2017-19 UKBLM turned to work in local communities, schools and colleges. The organisation did not take part in the BLM demonstrations from May 2019, cautious about promoting crowd activism during Covid restrictions, but did provide legal aid to demonstrators.