How Black Lives Matter Protests Help or Hinder Black Candidacy

The literature has yet to examine the effect of Black American protests on Black American candidacy.With an overwhelming scholarly emphasis on protests' impacts on party success and public opinion, a gap persists.This research examines the effect of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests on Black candidates running in federal, state, and local elections.I conduct a cross-sectional analysis of over 9,000 contests and 13,000 protests.Controlling for a jurisdiction's typical Black electoral success, I find that jurisdictions experiencing more protesting activity elected more Black candidates than other jurisdictions.Protests were particularly associated with Black Democratic success, and negative effects were concentrated among Black Republicans.The results also provide novel evidence that challenges scholars who claim that violent and extreme protest tactics are counterproductive.collectively defines as unjustified and racially motivated.Protestors often demand justice for individuals, and the protests tend to nest with each other, with protestors resurfacing past perceived injustices and asserting the existence of a pattern.The protestors often urge police reform, march with signs, lead chants, and sometimes engage in civil disobedience, violence, or property destruction.While not every protester is Black, BLM is a Black protest movement due to its central aims and high levels of Black engagement.The largest explosion of BLM protests to date came after a white officer, Derek Chauvin, killed George Floyd, a Black man, on May 25th, 2020 (Hill et al. 2020).The subsequent summer through fall movement in the United States of America (US) is the focus of my study.