Black lives matter: Organization recommits to racial justice

Abstract

We at Organization are committed to "Black Lives Matter," three simple words that represent a complex and powerful set of truths about the ongoing struggles of the Black community against the structural interests that beset them. We share many of the values that guide this global social movement. As a journal, we pledge to carry the ethical and political momentum generated by this mobilization for justice forward in the organization studies community and beyond. This brief note is both a reminder of what we have stood for as critical scholars since our early days, and an admission that we have not done nearly enough. Most importantly, it is a commitment to foregrounding and addressing anti-Black racism in our analyses, our actions, and our institutions. The brutal murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis at the hands of the police ignited one of the largest and most widespread series of protests against anti-Black racism in the United States in recent history. Floyd and Breonna Taylor, another name in a far-too-long list of Black women and men unjustly killed by the police, became the symbols of the protests spurred by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which drew the world's attention to the enduring and indeed, intensifying, nature of such racism and violence. The BLM movement emerged in 2013 out of the Black community's outrage at the acquittal of the vigilante murderer of 12-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida, a particularly egregious example of the way in which the legal system had been stacked up against the African American