Catalogue Number
NMLH.2025.35.66
Object Name
Digital photograph
Title
Black Lives Matter
Place
Manchester, UK
People
Jake Hardy (photographer), Black Lives Matter (BLM) UK
Events
Black Lives Matter uprising 2020, murder of George Floyd
Date
2020
Description
Digital colour photograph of a protester holding up a cardboard placard reading "Black Lives Matter". They have light tanned skin, long straight blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, and are wearing sunglasses. To the left is a person with brown skin and bleached blonde tight curly hair in a short afro wearing a black t-shirt. To the right in the foreground is a person with dark brown skin and very short black hair, wearing black sunglasses and white t-shirt.
One of a set of 66 colour digital photographs from a Black Lives Matter protest in Manchester, May 2020. The photographs were taken by Jake Hardy.
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is a decentralised political and social movement founded in the United States, which is also active in the UK. BLM protests against police brutality and violence against Black people with a racist motive, as well as protesting institutional racism, racial inequality, and other forms of discrimination experienced by Black people. The phrase Black Lives Matter is used as a slogan at protests, and originated as a Twitter hashtag in 2013 where it was coined by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi following the acquittal of George Zimmerman for shooting and killing 17 year old Trayvon Martin. In 2014, following the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri and Eric Garner in New York - both killed by police officers - Black Lives Matter became an internationally recognised chant at protests.
These photographs were donated following the international Black Lives Matter protests in Summer 2020 which took place after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Despite Covid pandemic restrictions on public gatherings, an estimated 26 million people in the United States protested police brutality against Black people, and tens of millions of people gathered globally in solidarity with Black Americans, including in the UK. While much of the Black Lives Matter movement is focused on the deaths of Black Americans following police contact, statistical evidence published in 2023 by the UK charity Inquest showed that in the UK Black people are 7 times more likely to die following police contact than white people. Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the National Police Chiefs Council acknowledged, âWe use our powers on Black people disproportionately often compared with White people."
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