Black Lives Matter statistics show a movement with broad reach, intense public engagement, and sharply divided assessments of its effectiveness. The figures below cover public opinion, social media activity, participation, experiences of discrimination, police killings, and hate crimes in the United States. Measurement periods differ, so each statistic is identified by its source and date.
Contents
- Public support and changing views
- Social media reach and the 2020 surge
- Participation in protests and civic action
- How Americans assess the movement
- Experiences of racial discrimination
- Police killings and racial disparities
- Hate crime statistics
Public support and changing views
Public support for Black Lives Matter has changed substantially across the periods measured by Pew Research Center. In June 2020, 38% of all adults said they somewhat supported the movement, while 31% said they opposed it. Support was higher among every listed racial and ethnic group than the overall opposition figure: 86% of Black adults said they at least somewhat supported Black Lives Matter, including 71% who strongly supported it. At least somewhat supportive views were reported by 77% of Hispanic adults, 75% of Asian adults, and 60% of White adults.
Political differences were also visible in June 2020. Pew Research Center reported that 91% of Democrats and Democratic leaners supported the movement, compared with 40% of Republicans and Republican leaners. Among White adults, 62% of Democrats strongly supported Black Lives Matter, compared with 7% of White Republicans.
Pew Research Center’s later trend figures place support at 67% of U.S. adults in June 2020, the peak in its trend series. In 2025, public support had fallen to 43%. The same 2025 figures found that 43% of Americans had favorable views of Black Lives Matter and 49% had unfavorable views. These are different measures—support and favorability—so they should not be treated as identical series.
| Measure | Result | Period or source |
|---|---|---|
| Adults supporting Black Lives Matter | 67% | June 2020 peak; Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| Adults supporting the movement | 43% | 2025; Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| Favorable views | 43% | 2025; Pew Research Center, 2025 |
| Unfavorable views | 49% | 2025; Pew Research Center, 2025 |
Pew Research Center also reported that 54% of Americans in 2025 agreed that efforts to increase diversity almost always strengthen an organization’s workforce. The comparable figure for 2023 was 54% as well.
Social media reach and the 2020 surge
The online scale of the movement is documented in Pew Research Center’s analysis of publicly available posts. The analysis covered more than 44 million tweets from nearly 10 million distinct users between July 2013 and March 2023. More than half of all existing #BlackLivesMatter tweets were posted from May through September 2020, a five-month period that included 6.8 million of the nearly 10 million distinct users.
After October 2020, the hashtag was still used in nearly a quarter-million tweets per month. Across the full period, 72% of #BlackLivesMatter tweets expressed clear support for the movement or its broader objectives, while 11% expressed opposition. One-third mentioned police, victims of police violence, or violent confrontations between civilians and law enforcement. Another 55% included additional hashtags.
The available record is incomplete. Around one-third of #BlackLivesMatter tweets known to have been posted from 2013 through 2021 were no longer accessible on Twitter, and as much as 40% of tweets posted during summer 2020 were no longer accessible. These figures describe accessibility in the analyzed archive; they do not establish that the posts were deleted for one particular reason.
Survey data show that exposure extended beyond people who posted. Pew Research Center found that 77% of social media users had come across Black Lives Matter-related content. Twenty-four percent had ever posted or shared things in support of Black Lives Matter, while 10% had ever posted or shared things in opposition. Among Black social media users, 52% had posted or shared supportive content. About one in five White, Hispanic, and Asian social media users had done so.
Participation in protests and civic action
Seven percent of Americans said they had ever attended a Black Lives Matter protest, according to Pew Research Center. The proportion was 15% among Black Americans. A separate June 2020 measure asked about race- or racial-equality-focused rallies and protests during the previous month: 6% of Americans said they had attended, including 10% of Black adults, 9% of Hispanic adults, 10% of Asian adults, and 5% of White adults.
Age differences were especially pronounced in the Hispanic adult measure. Eighteen percent of Hispanic adults ages 18 to 29 said they had attended such a protest or rally in the last month, compared with 4% of those ages 30 to 49 and 3% of those 50 and older.
Other forms of civic action were also measured in June 2020. Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they had discussed race or racial equality with family or friends in the previous month. Nine percent had contributed money to an organization focused on race or racial equality, 7% had contacted a public official, and 37% of social networking site users had posted or shared related content. Looking beyond the previous month, 15% of Americans had ever attended a race- or racial-equality-focused rally or protest, and 46% of social networking users had ever posted or shared content about race or racial equality.
Contributions varied by racial and ethnic group: 13% of Black adults, 11% of Hispanic adults, 21% of Asian adults, and 7% of White adults said they had contributed money in the last month. Adults younger than 30 were three times as likely as adults ages 30 and older to report such a contribution, at 21% versus 7%.
Political differences appeared across several actions. Ten percent of Democrats had contacted a public official, 10% had attended a protest or rally, and 16% had contributed money in the last month. The corresponding Republican figures were 3%, 2%, and 3%. Among social networking users, 49% of Democrats and 25% of Republicans had posted or shared race- or racial-equality-related content in the last month.
How Americans assess the movement
Pew Research Center’s 2023 measures distinguish awareness of the movement’s goals from judgments about its outcomes. Thirty-one percent of Americans said they understood the goals extremely or very well, 40% understood them somewhat well, and 27% did not understand them too well or at all well.
The strongest perceived effect was raising attention to racism against Black people: 32% called Black Lives Matter extremely or very effective at doing this. The figure was 48% among Black adults, 46% among Asian adults, 33% among Hispanic adults, and 27% among White adults. Politically, 50% of Democrats and 14% of Republicans gave that highest effectiveness assessment.
Only 14% of Americans said the movement was highly effective at increasing police accountability. Twenty percent of Democrats and 9% of Republicans said so. Eight percent called it highly effective at improving the lives of Black people, and 7% said the same about improving race relations in the United States. Conversely, 57% said it was not too or not at all effective at improving the lives of Black people, while 61% gave that response about race relations.
Descriptions of the movement were mixed. Thirty-three percent said “dangerous” described Black Lives Matter extremely or very well, and 34% said the same about “divisive.” The corresponding figures were 26% for “empowering” and 18% for “inclusive.”
Experiences of racial discrimination
Pew Research Center’s 2020 survey measured several experiences that help explain why racial justice became a prominent public issue. Eighty-three percent of Black adults said people had acted as though they were suspicious of them because of their race or ethnicity. The same measure was reported by 46% of Hispanic adults, 43% of Asian adults, and 20% of White adults.
For discrimination or unfair treatment because of race or ethnicity, the reported figures were 73% among Asian adults, 65% among Hispanic adults, 31% among White adults, and a separate Black-adult measure reported 83%. Pew Research Center also reported that Black adults were 83% more likely than White adults to say they had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment.
About four in ten Black Americans said they had been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity. Black Americans were 78% more likely than White adults to say people had acted as though they were suspicious of them. The survey includes overlapping measures of suspicion and discrimination, so the percentages should be read as separate responses rather than combined totals.
Police killings and racial disparities
Mapping Police Violence reported that Black people were 2.8 times more likely than White people to be killed by police in the United States. Between 2013 and 2021, police killed 99 Black people per 1 million Black people. The corresponding rates were 35 per 1 million White people, 46 per 1 million Hispanic people, 12 per 1 million Asian people, 62 per 1 million American Indian and Alaska Native people, and 130 per 1 million Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander people.
| Population group | Police killings per 1 million, 2013–2021 |
|---|---|
| Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander people | 130 |
| Black people | 99 |
| American Indian and Alaska Native people | 62 |
| Hispanic people | 46 |
| White people | 35 |
| Asian people | 12 |
Mapping Police Violence also reported 1,382 police killings in 2024, 1,316 in 2025, and 440 through April 30, 2026. The 2026 figure is year-to-date, not a full-year total. Police killings had been reported in 46 states and the District of Columbia in 2026 so far as of that measurement point.
Hate crime statistics
The FBI reported 10,627 hate crime incidents in 2023, down 0.6% from 10,687 in 2022. Its 2023 hate crime dataset covered 11,862 criminal incidents and 13,829 related offenses reported by law enforcement agencies. The incident totals and offense totals are different units and should not be added together.
Race-, ethnicity-, and ancestry-based hate crimes totaled 5,900 incidents in 2023, according to Justice Department CRS. Anti-Black or African American incidents made up 51.3% of that category and were more than three times higher than the next highest racial or ethnic category. This places anti-Black incidents at the center of the reported race-, ethnicity-, and ancestry-based hate-crime data, while the broader FBI total includes other bias categories as well.