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The summer of 2019 marks the five year anniversary of the shooting of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri—an event that sparked tremendous protests, and which stirred a massive rise in mobility and voice from the Black Lives Matter movement. To reflect on five years of progress since this landmark tragedy and explore the present and future of Black Lives Matter, renowned political and social writer Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor joined us for a Town Hall event for a rising generation of activists. She surveyed the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. Taylor invited us to recall the triumphs and accomplishments of the people leading Black Lives Matter, as well as the challenges the movement has faced and the ground still left to cover. Sit in for a stirring and insightful retrospective on the nationwide movement to stand against police violence and push for Black liberation.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. Her book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation won the 2016 Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book. Her articles have been published in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, Jacobin, New Politics, The Guardian, In These Times, Black Agenda Report, Ms., International Socialist Review, and other publications.

Recorded live in The Great Hall at Town Hall Seattle on September 5, 2019.