More than at any other time since its inception, The Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 changed the way the world viewed police brutality and other injustices against African Americans.
On Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month, Black Lives Matter has earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
In the country’s parliament, Petter Eide, a Norwegian lawmaker, issued the nomination for Black Lives Matter based on the movement’s “struggle against racism and racially motivated violence.”
“Black Lives Matter’s call for systemic change has spread around the world, forcing other countries to grapple with racism within their own societies,” Eide proclaimed.
He supported his nomination by noting that the Nobel committee had twice awarded the coveted peace prize to antiracist South Africans — Albert Luthuli in 1960 and Nelson Mandela in 1993.
“Awarding the Peace Prize to Black Lives Matter, as the global strongest force against racial injustice, will send a powerful message that peace is founded on equality, solidarity, and human rights, and that all countries must respect those basic principles,” Eide said, according to NBC News.
Later, he told USA Today that to carry forward a movement of racial justice and “to spread that to other countries is very, very important. Black Lives Matter is the strongest force today doing this, not only in the U.S. but also in Europe and Asia.”
In 2013, three self-described radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi — created the Black Lives Matter Movement.
The women announced that they created the organization as “a Black-centered political will and movement building project, in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman.”
According to its official website, the project is now a member-led global network of more than 40 chapters.
“Our members organize and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes,” the organizers wrote on the website.
Black Lives Matter activists called the movement an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise.
“It is an affirmation of Black folks’ humanity, our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression,” they wrote.
For the Nobel Prize Committee, “this is not unusual to link a fight for [racial] justice, to link that with peace,” Eide said. “There will be no peace without justice.”