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John,
The highlight of our month was the launch of our new Black Play Matters campaign. ✨
But trust, we have a whole lot more to get into as well! Keep reading to learn more about our work in July.
Black Play Matters
Black Lives Matter has always been rooted in community, and we’re taking the next step to uplift joy in Black communities across the globe.
The challenges facing Black children today are profound: System barriers, including inequitable funding and harmful biases, steal Black joy and limit kids’ opportunities for healthy play. Every child deserves a safe and nurturing environment to explore, learn, and grow.
We know that play is essential to development—as children and adults—which is why we’re focused on celebrating, defending, and investing in the power of play. In the face of challenges, we find strength, determination, and revolutionary joy in all forms of play: music, creativity, connection, dance, storytelling, and sports. This joy, rooted in community, is exactly what we're celebrating and uplifting.
✨ PLAY IS RESISTANCE AND A TOOL FOR LIBERATION ✨
Play heals trauma, asserts our humanity, and fosters community resilience. It’s our vibrant defiance and radical reclamation of space, dignity, and identity.
In Black neighborhoods, play is a lifeline. Play cultivates empowerment and community solidarity, ensuring we can thrive, not just survive.
Turn on any sports league, and you’ll see Black folks doing the damn thing, winning championships, and pushing the boundaries of athleticism. Icons like Serena Williams, LeBron James, and Simone Biles show us what's possible, inspiring collective pride and fostering economic and cultural strength.
Policy is critical when it comes to protecting Black play. That’s why we are working to pass the P.L.A.Y. Act: Protecting Lives of Active Youth which will:
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Establish a federal Office of Youth Safety to support proactive youth programs.
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Form a Youth Safety Task Force, with young voices at the center, to coordinate federal policies that benefit kids.
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Fund community programs in sports, mentorship, and enrichment.
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Empower local governments to fund programs for youth thriving and violence prevention.
WNBA All Star Weekend
For All Star weekend when Team BLM stepped into the historic Madam C.J. Walker Legacy Center in Indianapolis, a place built by a visionary Black woman millionaire, we felt the power of our ancestors surrounding us. It reminded us how essential spaces like these are for Black joy, culture, play, and leadership.
We were honored to moderate a powerful conversation with some truly inspiring women in sports and culture. We spoke openly about what it means to break barriers with love and authenticity. Play is our resilience, our healing, and our radical act of liberation.
That evening, Black Lives Matter presented awards to five remarkable Black women whose lives embody the essence of Black play and leadership:
🥇 Sheryl Swoopes, WNBA legend and Olympic champion
🏀 Ty Young, athlete, entrepreneur, and advocate for authentic self-expression
💼 Natalie White, sports executive creating equity in basketball operations
💇🏾♀️ Kristian Stricklen, CEO of Madam Walker Legacy Center, preserving our history
🧠 Katina Washington, founder of The SHE Xperience, empowering through creativity
Listening to their stories reaffirmed that Black play is not optional. It is fundamental and it is our right. Our joy, imagination, and playfulness are revolutionary acts. They allow us to reclaim space, dignity, and the right to thrive.
Get Free x Black Lives Matter Partnership
On July 4th, Black Lives Matter and Get Free announced our partnership to pursue real freedom for Black folks across the country. Watch Get Free’s video to learn more.
As we approach America's 250th anniversary in 2026, a white supremacist faction across the country seeks to rewrite history, erase the struggles of Black, Indigenous, and immigrant communities, and silence the truths of our past. They promote a false narrative to justify ongoing inequality, systemic racism, and oppression, contradicting the very freedoms they claim to celebrate.
Whose freedom and independence are we truly commemorating? The freedoms built upon the exploitation and oppression of enslaved Black people? The liberties still unequally applied to Black communities today? If there is anything worth celebrating, it is the historic resilience, strength, and beauty Black people continually demonstrate in our ongoing fight for genuine liberation.
Sign our pledge right now to continue the work that our abolitionist and civil rights ancestors started and turn the tide by the 4th of July, 2026. Together we are committing to:
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Finally make our country reckon with the ongoing harms from our past, right historic wrongs, and repair the damage done to Black and Indigenous communities.
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Heal our communities and honor the freedom fighters who paved the way by delivering Black, immigrant, and Indigenous dreams.
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Build a country that meets its ideals and where freedom and equality are for all, no matter our races, backgrounds, or genders.
Add your name today to reckon with our full history and create an America we want to celebrate, one that truly lives up to its ideals.
BLM Day
In the lead up to BLM’s 12-year anniversary we broke down some of the work that we’ve accomplished under each of our six pillars in the year since our organizational refresh to center Black joy and community.
Since 2013, Black Lives Matter has honored this legacy by demanding justice and dismantling white supremacy. We have since grown into the largest social justice movement in U.S. history, with millions around the globe mobilizing for Black liberation.
Our movement has changed the way this nation thinks about police violence and Black flourishing: According to polling, a majority of people support abolition as a framework for social change. Our vision for a world where Black people thrive resonates deeply, especially within our communities. Recent research shows compelling support: 77% of Black people, including 75% aged 18-49 and 82% aged 50+, strongly support our BLM Thrive Agenda. These numbers represent our community, affirming the collective desire to move beyond mere survival towards thriving.
While there's still work to do, these numbers also symbolize hope. They reflect the trust and urgency of our mission: to invest time, energy, resources, and funding into our communities, actively nurturing liberation and rebuilding.
This 12th anniversary, we're not resting on our laurels; we're rebuilding. BLM is committed to building community supporting Black-owned businesses, advocating transformative justice, and reimagining a future beyond systemic racism.
Elaine Brown Way
We celebrated Ms. Elaine Brown, former Chairwoman of the Black Panther Party as she was honored in Oakland by the renaming of the intersection at 7th and Campbell Streets as "Elaine Brown Way."
Her revolutionary love and spirit of relentless struggle inspire the work that we do today, and she is one of the fierce elders that we look to for guidance and inspiration.
This honor belongs to every revolutionary, every Panther, and every comrade who has dedicated their lives to our collective liberation.
Congratulations again, Ms. Elaine Brown, on this incredible honor!
Petty Tyrant Watch 🙄
Trump’s Big Ugly Bill
Trump and his Republican enablers passed a DISASTROUS monster of a bill that completely guts critical policies and programs for our communities.
Here’s what the bill does:
→ Gives Trump a $150 BILLION slush fund to massively expand ICE's kidnapping, detention, and deportation machine, further targeting Black and Brown communities.
→ Strips healthcare away from 16 MILLION Americans, hitting Black communities hardest.
→ Eliminates food assistance for over 4 MILLION children, the largest SNAP cut in history, disproportionately affecting Black families.
→ Increases energy costs for families who will see their energy bills go up by $400.
→ Adds $3 TRILLION to the national debt, diverting funds from critical community resources to line the pockets of ultra-wealthy donors.
We organized to get folks to call their representatives to vote NO on this bill because we knew just how awful it would be if it passed. But just because the Big Ugly Bill came to fruition doesn’t mean our work stops here. We’re still fighting every single day to protect our communities. We got us, even if our government turned their backs on us.
Jacksonville, FL Police Brutality
William Anthony McNeil, Jr. (@904Will on Instagram) was brutally assaulted during a traffic stop in Jacksonville, Florida, allegedly for not having headlights on due to "inclement weather," despite clear daylight.
When McNeil calmly asked for a supervisor, Officer Bowers escalated the situation violently. Body camera and cellphone footage clearly show Officer Bowers shattering William McNeil’s car window and punching William in the face multiple times, despite McNeil sitting with his hands at his side.
As a result of the beating, McNeil suffered severe injuries:
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A concussion
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Short-term memory loss
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Over nine stitches in his lips
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And a chipped tooth
The Florida State Attorney’s Office has already declared these violent actions "not criminal." Typical.
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s office is reviewing whether Officer Bowers “acted appropriately" – as if the video doesn’t clearly show an unprovoked beating of a Black man by one of their officers.
We cannot let this stand.
Black lives remain at risk each day we allow officers like D. Bowers to operate without accountability.
📢 We’re flooding the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to demand accountability. Take a moment right now to send them an email and demand the immediate expulsion of Officer Bowers »
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More soon,
Black Lives Matter
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