Brands Are Increasingly Supporting #BlackLivesMatter, But Advocates Want More Than Words

On social media, companies and influencers who call out police violence are being told to 'open your purse'

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When Missouri teenager Michael Brown was shot by police in 2014, protests erupted across the country, and the #BlackLivesMatter movement was born. When New Yorker Eric Garner was killed by police later that year, a video of him struggling and saying “I can’t breathe” 11 times—before slipping unconscious, and later dying, went viral.

At the time, few corporations spoke out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement or in opposition to police killings of black Americans.

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