The Lie That Launched Black Lives Matter

Jack Cashill

Not enough attention has been paid to BLM's original lie, one that may eventually launch a thousand riots before it burns itself out.

The Black Lives Matter movement began as a hashtag in July 2013 immediately after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Although the movement would be reinforced along the way by any number of lies -- “Hands up don’t shoot” comes quickly to mind -- not enough attention has been paid to the original lie, one that may eventually launch a thousand riots before it burns itself out, namely that Trayvon Martin was an innocent little boy.

On the night of February 26, 2012, George Zimmerman shot and killed the seventeen-year-old Martin. For a week the story went nowhere until the attorneys representing Martin’s family reached out to Ryan Julison, an Orlando-based media strategist and the one white member of what was rapidly becoming Team Trayvon.

Team leader, attorney Benjamin Crump, understood that the national media were suckers for a story with a racial angle, specifically one that featured a black victim of white injustice. If Zimmerman’s parents had named their son Jorge´ Zimmerman -- he was named after his Uncle Jorge´-- there might not have been a Black Lives Matter movement.......More