Black Protests in the US, 1994-2010
We use a novel dataset to provide the first panoramic view of US Black movement protest events as reported in US newswires between 1994 and 2010 and put our quantitative data into dialog with qualitative accounts of the period. Struggles during these years presaged the Black Lives protest waves of 2014-2016 and 2020. We find that protests were building in frequency in the 1990s after the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the widely discussed 1995 Million Man March into 2001, but dropped abruptly after the 9/11 attacks, with mobilization building again at the end of the 2000s. Protests in response to police violence and other criminal legal issues were major arenas of struggle and news coverage. Also common were issues of national identity including celebrations of Black history and Black solidarity, protests against Confederate symbols, and protests about White hate groups and hate crimes. While Black people protested about a wide variety of issues, mainstream national media attention focused disproportionately on incidents of police violence and perceived threats of Black violence. We find substantial continuity in issues, organizations, and activism between this period and the Black Lives Movement of 2014-2020. Content warning: parts of this article describe incidents of police violence.