Galvanizing Grief: Black Maternal Politics, Respectability, and the Pursuit of Elected Office

ABSTRACT In the aftermath of public outcry of multiple high-profile killings of Black teens at the hands of police or under the auspices of stand-your-ground laws, several bereaved mothers became symbols of resistance to white supremacist policing and surveillance. Known as the “Mothers of the Movement,” this paper traces three of these women (Sybrina Fulton, Lucy McBath, and Lezley McSpadden) from the national stage at the Democratic National Convention in 2016 to the transition to candidates themselves. Their engagement in maternal politics is part of a long lineage of Black maternal activists that have sought justice for their fallen children through public advocacy. While McSpadden, Fulton, and McBath all lobby against white supremacist violence, they are most politically successful when they make their case from a rhetoric that affirms a respectability politics that measures the value of Black citizens in their ability to comport themselves within middle-class cultural standards.