Beyoncé Brought the Mothers of the Black Lives Matter Movement to the VMAs
Beyoncé's performance of Lemonade was the inevitable high point of last night's VMAs, dwarfing everything around her so completely that you had to feel a little bad for the performers that followed. Record-breaking and iconic though her entire night was, the most important thing she did happened before the show started.
With Bey on the red carpet were Wanda Johnson, Gwen Carr, Sybrina Fulton, and Lezley McSpadden–the mothers of Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, Jr. respectively–who have become known as "the Mothers of the Movement," having all lost their sons to gun violence.
It was a touching move that spoke to Beyoncé's ongoing commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement, which was a central theme in her Lemonade video. Following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in July, Beyoncé penned an open letter arguing: "It is up to us to take a stand and demand that they 'stop killing us.'"
Carr, Fulton, and McSpadden were featured in Lemonade, holding framed photographs of their sons, and all four mothers appeared at the Democratic National Convention last month in support of Hilary Clinton.
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