Last summer, Americans filled the streets in more than 7,750 Black Lives Matter-related protests between George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020, and Aug. 22, 2020. Polls estimate between 15 million and 26 million Americans protested in cities, suburbs and small towns in all 50 states. The protests were the largest and broadest in U.S. history.
But just because someone protested doesn’t mean they supported BLM or its goals. Indeed, about 20 percent of those in the streets never supported the movement — and were, instead, probably expressing grievances related to the coronavirus pandemic and dissatisfaction with the government and inequality.
How we did our research
Last summer, we fielded two national surveys to understand who attended the extraordinary Floyd protests and why. In the first survey, we interviewed 1,028 people from June 25 through June 28, 2020; in the second we interviewed 999 people from July 18 through July 23, 2020. Both samples were recruited through Lucid Theorem, which creates a sample with demographics similar to the U.S. population based on the respondents’ race, gender, age, household income, education, partisanship and geographic region.
How the pandemic helped the Floyd protests become the biggest in U.S. history
When asked, most respondents said they protested because of their concerns about racial injustice or police brutality. We classify those as having BLM-related motivations. But about 19 percent of respondents gave answers unrelated to BLM’s goals. Their attendance was motivated by concerns like “justice for all,” “equal rights for all” or “all lives matter.” Some also mentioned a general discontent with the federal government or a desire to “protest against the government.” So when BLM activists began emphasizing racially focused policy demands such as “defund the police,” some of the supporters they lost may well have been people who never believed in the movement’s policy goals in the first place.
Those most likely to attend a protest without BLM-related motives were Republican and/or White. The most substantial decreases in support for BLM by year end came from those two groups. Among all Republicans who attended at least one BLM protest in 2020, 24 percent said they went for non-BLM-related reasons. Among White protesters, 20 percent went for non-BLM-related reasons. Even among Black, Democratic and independent protesters, 15 to 17 percent say they attended for reasons not aligned with BLM goals.
Those affected by the pandemic were more likely to protest
We also asked whether, because of the pandemic, respondents had been furloughed, lost their job, seen reduced pay or work hours, seen less overtime, collected fewer tips, had to miss work to care for children or worked while ill because they lacked paid sick leave. We then ran a logistic regression model estimating the probability that someone outside of our sample with similar demographic and political attributes to our survey respondents attended a Floyd protest.
The results show the probability of attending a protest was only 9 percent among those not financially affected. It was 70 percent for those affected in all seven ways. Thus, people were considerably more likely to attend at least one Floyd protest if they reported being hurt financially by the pandemic.
BLM’s structure provided opportunities for people to express various grievances
Sociology research suggests people protest when they experience injustice and have opportunities to express their grievances. As political scientists Jamila Michener and Michael Heaney argued here at TMC, the deaths of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others activated an underlying anger about systemic racism and the media coverage spread the frustration — all of which pushed people to engage in costly protest. We argue that protest participation was also motivated by grievances unrelated to BLM’s demands for racial justice. BLM’s non-hierarchical and inclusive framing provided attractive protest opportunities.
Like other new social movements, including Occupy Wall Street and movements that have emerged internationally since the 1980s, BLM rejects the traditional, charismatic leader model for what they call a “leaderful” movement. BLM uses social media to turn ordinary people into journalists and protest mobilizers. By not emphasizing specific political or civil rights demands, BLM allows many people to identify with its human rights framing, even those who do not support BLM.
Professors, check out our Black Lives Matter classroom topic guide
The presence of protesters not committed to BLM still mattered
The significant number of protesters who were frustrated about the pandemic, the government and other, nonracial injustices probably explains some of what appears to be fleeting BLM support. When protesters began to emphasize policy demands such as “defund the police” and policymakers began to respond in kind, it may have appeared BLM was losing supporters who joined after Floyd’s murder.
But perhaps some of those protesters never supported BLM’s goals in the first place. Thus, we argue many who expressed support for the movement during the summer of 2020, through polls or through protests, were not committed to movement goals. Their equivocal support was unlikely to last for long.
Did last year’s Black Lives Matter protests push cities to defund the police? Yes and no.
Even so, the presence of those who didn’t fully believe in BLM or its goals contributed to the extraordinary magnitude of the protests. This matters.
Political science research suggests protests influence public policy. Even before Floyd’s death, BLM protests prompted state legislative action. A New York Times analysis suggests the Floyd protests have had a similar effect. The protests’ size, breadth and diversity prompted unprecedented levels of media coverage and helped create local coalitions among first-time activists — which probably pushed policymakers to act. Although BLM may not have gained as many loyal supporters as initial estimates suggested, the non-supporters’ turnout may have helped it nevertheless.
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LaGina Gause (@LaGina_Gause) is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California San Diego. She studies race and ethnic politics, protests, and legislative behavior.
Maneesh Arora (@maneesh_arora) is an assistant professor of political science at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. His research focuses on race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and survey methodology.