Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation wins Swedish human rights prize

Published by BBN Staff at January 30, 2021

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Posted: Saturday, January 30, 2021. 9:51 am CST.

By Aaron Humes: Ceremonies take place virtually today for an award of US$100,000 to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Global Network Foundation, which has won the Sweden Olof Palme Human Right Prize for 2020, the BBC reports.

The Foundation, organizers said, received the honour for promoting “peaceful civil disobedience against police brutality and racial violence” worldwide, with 20 million counted as having taken part in protests in the U.S. and millions more around the world last year.

The prize, to be given in the Swedish capital Stockholm, commemorates the late Prime Minister and prominent human rights advocate who was assassinated by persons whose motives remain unknown in 1986.

The BLM movement was founded in the U.S. in 2013, but became worldwide following several high-profile cases of police brutality against African-Americans. Protests that followed the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others saw chapters of Black Lives Matter spread across the US and around the world.

Prize organizers explained: “This illustrates that racism and racist violence is not just a problem in American society, but a global problem… [the foundation had] “in a unique way exposed the hardship, pain, and wrath of the African-American minority at not being valued equal to people of a different colour”.

Separately, Norwegian member of parliament Petter Eide has nominated the group for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, citing their growing importance in the fight against racial injustice.

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