The Internationalization of #BlackLivesMatter: Solidarity From Minneapolis to Gaza

This article aims to better understand the contemporary nature of Black-Palestinian solidarity by directly speaking to activists and explain why US-based Anti-Police Brutality Movements, like Black Lives Matter, share a sense of common solidarity with Palestinians. We argue that solidarity by US-based anti-police brutality movement activists with Palestinians has become more salient since the 2014 Ferguson Protests and especially since the 2020 George Floyd protests that started in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Interviews with activists in Minnesota reveal that interviewees tend to highlight a shared sense of oppression with Palestinians, which is largely perceived through symbolic images and videos shared on social media. Moreover, we find that the Covid-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for the unprecedented mass mobilization that followed the murder of George Floyd. The Covid-19 pandemic, the simultaneous struggle with similar injustice frames occurring in both Ferguson and Gaza, and the powerful images and videos of oppression and police brutality all influenced increasing solidarity and connections among these two disparate struggles.