Annotation: Black Lives Matter was founded by activists Cullors, Alicia Garz, and Opal Tometi in 2013 as a hashtag meant to draw attention to the police brutality and racially motivated violence perpetrated against Black people. The group rose to prominence the following year when authorities in Ferguson, Missouri shot a young Black man, Michael Brown, as he walked down the street. Since that time the decentralized movement, which emphasizes local organizing, has been a driving force in thousands of nonviolent civil disobedience protests again systemic racism.