Black Lives Matter in the UK: 'We're still not being heard'

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What's in your Instagram Stories today - is it packed with Black Lives Matter content from around the UK?

Probably not. That peaked here earlier in the summer, when British people marched in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and big UK protests trended on social media.

At first, our feeds were full of messages and images of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, along with the police officers accused of being responsible for their deaths.

Then we learned names like Elijah McClain,Tony McDade and Dion Johnson - more black people who died during encounters with US police.

But there were worries in June that Black Lives Matter would be just a trend for some people.

Two months later, Black Lives Matter events in the UK are rarely in the news and it's business as usual on Twitter.

America's ongoing protests have made some headlines - but that's mostly been because of violence or federal agents driving protesters away in unmarked cars.

But Black Lives Matter is still moving, and still marching, in the UK.

"Despite the fact there's not a lot of media attention - that there's not as many people as there was in the beginning - the amount of people that come out are still able to make a change and have their voices heard," 18-year-old Aima tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

She helped organise protests in Central London in June that attracted thousands of supporters. And she's been marching every week since.


The organisation she's part of - All Black Lives UK - is responsible for ongoing marches in Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds and more.

It's a different organisation to the US group Black Lives Matter, which faced anti-semitism claims about a tweet which said "Free Palestine."

Within the Black Lives Matter movement, there are different groups at work, like the one Aima is part of in the UK.

'Government hasn't engaged'

Aima says protests can engage with people who happen to see them, but she doesn't believe the movement's message is reaching people at the top.

"There hasn't really been a lot of direct engagement between the government and a lot of the Black Lives Matter organisations in this country," she says.

"I feel like we are being ignored and we aren't being directly spoken to."

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I'm black and I'm proud... My life matters

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I'm subscribe your profile , Please subscribe me...

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4 years ago

Good notice in this article

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