Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement

I thought I knew a lot about the movement, but I learned so much about the people involved in it as well as about the movement itself. Highly impressed with the quality and timeliness of the information. It has details about the founders, their motivations, and strengths that remind me of my life in Washington, DC during the 1960's and early 1970's. This video is motivating to become more directly active and more deeply involved again. The times when I was active also included the women's rights movement. I lived on the edge of Capitol Hill in Washington DC during the riots, and I watched the rioting from my Massachusetts Ave apartment window, and climbed to the building's roof where I could see the billowing smoke of burning buildings. I watched as the liquor store across the street was broken into, and our building janitor ran from our building and returned with a few treasured bottles, and he offered to share his spoils with me, which I declined. My brother was in the Marine Corp in Quantico, VA. His battalion was stationed to protect the Capitol building, and they patrolled the streets in the nearby surroundings, which included my street. As the crises began to ease, his platoon visited my efficiency apartment, which now had the janitor's empty whiskey bottle sitting on my window ledge containing water dyed a deep but bright blue. My brother was convinced I had imbibed of that rotgut, but truthfully it was many years later that I learned to enjoy a good whiskey. It is great in a hot cider on a cold fall evening as the sky spreads streaks of fading sunlight into a multicolored kaleidoscope of visual delights. That was then, and this is now. Time to get active for the cause.

I'm surprised to see this documentary so lowly rated. The director does a great job interviewing activists at the heart of the movement like Alicia Garza, DeRay McKessen, historian Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and others.

Tracing a narrative arc from the killing of Trayvon Martin to just a few months ago, the directors capture the rise of the movement and what the movement means for Black people in the U.S. and beyond, the importance of social media, and the backlash to the movement.

The film is short (40 mins.) which is a strength in terms of telling a concise story. In such a short film, there is certainly stories, complications, and people left out. Yet, all together the director does admirable work letting the people at the heart of the movement tell the story.