The Black Lives Matter movement was nominated on Friday for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for its work against police brutality and racial inequality. Norwegian MP Petter Eide was the one who filed the nomination, explaining that “Black Lives Matter has become a very important worldwide movement to fight racial injustice.” 

According to CNN, Eide wrote in his official nomination papers that “BLM’s call for systemic change have spread around the world, forcing other countries to grapple with racism within their own societies.” 

Black Lives Matter’s origins trace back to a 2013 hashtag used by friends Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The group created a non-profit organization that has since then grown with multiple chapters spread across the U.S., U.K., and Canada.  

Nearly eight years after its conception, Black Lives Matter has expanded to a global movement that encompasses several organizations in the fight for racial justice, becoming a ubiquitous chant in 2020 demonstrations after the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. It also had an undeniable impact on the way the public started to discuss police brutality and inequality around the world.

We hold the largest social movement in global history. Today, we have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. People are waking up to our global call: for racial justice and an end to economic injustice, environmental racism, and white supremacy. We're only getting started ✊🏾 pic.twitter.com/xjestPNFzC

— Black Lives Matter (BLM) (@Blklivesmatter) January 30, 2021

But not everyone was on board. The movement drew controversial criticism, with some people calling it a terrorist organization. The Nobel Peace Prize nomination also sparked some backlash, with Eide even receiving threats for his decision.

“This weekend I have received so many negative responses from individual Americans telling me that Black Lives Matter is a violent and aggressive organization,” he told ABC News. “We found studies showing more than 90% of the demonstrations in the U.S. were peaceful. Most of those incidents of violence was based on either aggressive police behavior or counter-demonstrations.” 

Black people have been historically depicted as more aggressive, more threatening, more undisciplined – and those definitions are often extended to Black activists. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, was accused by his critics in the 1950s and ‘60s of inciting violence, to the point where even the FBI investigated him. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was incarcerated and tried in the ‘60s for sabotage, treason, and violent conspiracy in his fight against the apartheid. Both men went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and 1993, respectively. 

Beyond the monetary prize – $1 million this year –, the prestigious award could mean the consolidation and recognition of Black Lives Matter as a human rights and cultural movement that, despite receiving multiple attacks and criticism, strongly inspires people to fight for a better society. 

“Awarding the peace prize to Black Lives Matter, as the strongest global force against racial injustice,” Eide wrote, “will send a powerful message that peace is founded on equality, solidarity and human rights, and that all countries must respect those basic principles.”

The official Nobel Peace Prize nominees will be announced by the end of March and the winner will be chosen in October.