Beyoncé Brought Black Lives Matter To The VMAs
Photo credit: Larry Busacca / Getty Images
Beyoncé and Jay Z may be the king and queen of hip-hop, but the couple is using their immense fame to advocate for African American rights. Beyonce quite literally handed over her platform to the mothers of the Black Lives Matter movement.
In 2016, Beyonce didn’t take a traditional date the MTV Music Video Awards. Instead, she showed up on the red carpet with her daughter and the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Oscar Grant III. These four black men were killed in racially charged gun violence. Martin was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer, while the three other men were killed by police officers. Beyoncé was attending the awards ceremony to accept a Video of the Year award for “Formation” from her visual album Lemonade. “Formation” was considered a battle cry for the Black Lives Matter movement and the music featured a graffiti wall that said, “Stop shooting us.”
