The Phrase “All Lives Matter” Is Rooted in White Supremacy

The link between Jim Crow and 2021 is this three word phrase.

We’ve all heard the common reflexive response to the phrase, Black Lives Matter, which is, All Lives Matter. It’s typically spoken by those who don’t understand that when a person says “black lives matter,” they don’t mean to infer that all other lives don’t or that Black lives matter more. And some may say it because they disagree with the doctrine of the organization, Black Lives Matter, who coined the phrase in 2013.

This article is not about Black Lives Matter, the phrase nor organization, but rather the phrase, All Lives Matter. The phrase and the mindset that accompanies it has been around much longer than a few years.

The origin of the exact phrase is not clear. But what is clear is that the mindset began the moment slavery ended in America, when free Blacks (and their advocates) began crusading and demanding the same liberties as those who had enslaved them.

Meet former Governor of Georgia, Lester Maddox, an unwavering segregationist who stepped into the national spotlight when he violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by refusing to serve Blacks at his Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta.

Three days after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Bill on July 2…