Movements

To move means to change location and or position and a movement is generally a group or organization that is advocating for some change.  Throughout our history there have been many movements.  There have been various groups or organizations that have tried to bring about some change.  Some movements have been formally organized, others have formed organically overtime.  One thing that is common though, is the central purpose that generally unites these groups and mobilizes them to push for change. 

The Black Panther Movement and the Civil Rights Movements were born out of a need for change in the general conditions placed upon people of African origins and other indigenous people worldwide.  The Black Panther Movement recognized and addressed the need to serve and protect the people.  They advocated self-defense, education and a provision for the general welfare of the community.  Their love for and from the people sustained the movement. 

The Civil Rights Movements sought to remind, those who had forgotten, of the natural freedoms we collectively and individually have as human beings.  It also sought to secure these rights for the people.  The energy of civility and justice propelled this movement forward.  These movements
had an organized center with clear leadership structures and a chain of command. 

A more recent movement such as the Black Lives Matter movement is less centrally organized.  This movement was generated out of a purpose similar to those before it.  A purpose of bringing forth a more just environment for ‘Black Lives”.   Its emergence bade out of the killing of a
young ‘Black’ teenager.  Due to the advent of social media, the energy of this movement spread quickly and to a wide audience.  It was quickly and independently adopted by many like minds with a similar mission and is now one of the largest social movements. 
Movements, whether centrally structured or more widely, collectively directed, have two things in common.  First there is a spark, there is an energy, a cause that propels the movement and secondly there is a common purpose, goal or mission that unites and sustains the movement to the fulfillment of its mission.