2020 Black Lives Matter Protests

Did Walmart pledge $100 million to Black Lives Matter (BLM)? No, that's not true: Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced on June 5, 2020, that "Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are committing $100 million to create a new center on racial equity" that will "support philanthropic initiatives that align with four key areas: the nation's financial, healthcare, education, and criminal justice…

Did Black Lives Matters protesters -- or anyone, for that matter -- put propane tanks on a bridge before a fiery train crash in Tempe, Arizona? No, that's not true. A train wreck on the Tempe Town Lake bridge was not the work of the "terrorist" group BLM as a viral claim has asserted. Tempe Police Chief Sylvia Moir said…

Is "Antifa" planning a training session August 15, 2020 in Garnet, a historic ghost town in Montana? No, that's not true: The remote 130-acre site east of Missoula, Montana, is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which would not permit an all-day training there with firearms or other weapons and has received no application for an antifascist training…

Did a Black Lives Matter protester attack another woman by swinging a dog on a leash at her? No, that's not true: Graphic video showing a Black woman grabbing a dog from another woman and swinging it around by the leash took place in a long line of cars backed up to get to a beer store in Canada. It…

Is the COVID-19 pandemic a conspiracy manufactured by "Deep State Democrats" and the "mass media" to disrupt, even rig, the upcoming presidential election in a bid to topple Donald Trump? And did the coronavirus provide the perfect cover for the mass racial justice protests since the death of George Floyd after being knelt on for nearly nine minutes by a…

Did anti-fascist activists linked to the Black Lives Matter movement attack and smash the windows of a bus for "mentally disabled kids?" No, that's not true: The video shows left-wing protesters chasing and hitting a bus carrying right-wing activists who were fleeing after a confrontation in Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2019. "Demonstrators dressed in black and masking their…

Did liberals and Black Lives Matter petition to change the name of the White House? No, that's not true: This claim was made in a satirical article published by a satire website that trolls conservatives. Sometimes, these stories are stolen by other websites and republished as real. The story originated as an article published by bustatroll.org on June 26, 2020…

Was Austin's Stevie Ray Vaughan statue vandalized in 2020? Yes, that's true, but a viral image of paint on the rear side of the Vaughan memorial is from a 2018 incident blamed on a football fan after his team won the SuperBowl. A second photo showing "FTP" painted on the music icon's chest was apparently the result of a May…

Was Seattle's Jimi Hendrix statue vandalized during protests in 2020? No, that's not true: The photo of the spray-painted Jimi Hendrix statue used to imply recent vandalism is from 2013. There is no evidence that the Jimi Hendrix statue in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood has been vandalized in 2020. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) where it was…

Did the hashtag "black-owned" trend on Twitter as part of an effort by protesters to tell people to "loot" white-owned businesses during demonstrations? No, that is not true: Twitter has repeatedly said an account claiming to represent an Antifa organization and urging protesters to loot white-owned businesses was in fact run by the white nationalist group, Evropa. The claim has…