Black Lives Matter

Even a well known story depends on where you begin to tell it.

In the summer of 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy visiting Mississippi, was lynched by white men who said he'd flirted with a white woman. Till's body was returned home to Chicago where his mother insisted on an open casket. Photos were wired around the globe and the world saw his mutilated body. His murderers would be free within a month.

It was two years ago this week that a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in a case that became an inflection point in the way Americans talk about race and policing.

Editor's Note: This piece contains language that some readers may find offensive.

It was a hot day in Cleveland at the height of the Republican National Convention and Stevedore Crawford Jr. was angry. He stomped through the city sweating through his white T-shirt, stopping at corners to denounce police. Right next to him was his young daughter, wearing the same camouflage pants as her dad. She also wore the same white T-shirt, scrawled with Tamir Rice's name.

Tamir was a 12-year-old boy killed by Cleveland police in November 2014.

A Baltimore court has acquitted Officer Caesar Goodson of second-degree murder and all other charges in a case related to the death of Freddie Gray.

Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died from a spinal cord injury sustained while in police custody last year.

Goodson drove the van that transported Gray after his arrest. Gray apparently sustained the fatal injury during that van ride, during which he was handcuffed, shackled and not wearing a seat belt. The incident sparked protests and riots in Baltimore and raised questions about police negligence.

The city of Cleveland agreed Monday to pay $6 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit brought by the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a police officer on Nov. 22, 2014.

The city did not admit any wrongdoing in the killing of Tamir, who was holding an air pellet gun and walking outside a recreation center when he was shot by Officer Timothy Loehmann.

The Oregon Department of Justice recently commissioned a review into why state investigators were scrutinizing Oregonians who used the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media, including tweets by the head of the agency’s own Civil Rights Division.

The  suggests that two employees potentially broke state laws with their searches, but ultimately acted on their own volition.

Bill Clinton on Friday stopped short of saying he was sorry for a recent clash with Black Lives Matter protesters. Instead, the former president tried to make the squabble into a teachable moment.

"I did something yesterday in Philadelphia I almost want to apologize for, but I want to use it as an example of the danger threatening our country," he told the crowd at a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Erie, Pa.

This post has been updated at 10 a.m. ET, April 8

In a prolonged exchange Thursday afternoon, former President Bill Clinton forcefully defended his 1994 crime bill to Black Lives Matter protesters in the crowd at a Hillary Clinton campaign event.

He said the bill lowered the country's crime rate, which benefited African-Americans, achieved bipartisan support, and diversified the police force. He then addressed a protester's sign, saying:

DeRay Mckesson, 30, is a leading Black Lives Matter activist who is now running to become mayor of Baltimore, his hometown, almost a year after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody caused rioting in the city. Mckesson tells Here & Now’s Robin Young what inspired him toward activism and now politics.

[Youtube]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scolding employees for what he calls "several recent instances" of people crossing out "black lives matter" on signature walls at the company's headquarters and writing "all lives matter" instead.

The country remembers the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday. More than four decades after his death, many people see the Black Lives Matter movement as the modern incarnation of the drive for human dignity and legal standing that Dr. King embodied.

But others, including members of an earlier generation of activists, find fault with the group, seeing it as an aimless, formless group that still lacks direction and follow-through. Meanwhile, younger activists sometimes see their seniors as too narrow in their focus and rigid in their methods.

Update at 8:40 p.m. ET

Three people are in police custody after five people were injured last night as gunmen opened fire near the site of a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis.

Early Tuesday afternoon, police arrested one man, saying in a press release: "A 23 year old white male was taken into custody in the City of Bloomington in relation to this case. His name will be released upon charging. The search for additional suspects continues."