Black bloc
The tactic was developed in the 1980s in the European autonomist movement's protests against squatter evictions, nuclear power, and restrictions on abortion, as well as other influences.
This was the first instance of a social movement in the western world utilizing masks and black dress, which were used not for purposes of disguise but to signify a militant uniform identity.
[14][15] In the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German black bloc movement continued traditional riots such as May Day in Berlin-Kreuzberg, but with decreasing intensity.
A coordinated black bloc of 2,000 international people came to Rostock, Germany, built barricades, rioted the streets, set cars alight and attacked the police during a mass demonstration.
[18][19] In D.C., over one thousand demonstrators—a small number consisting of a black bloc—called for the end to U.S. support for the right wing death squads in El Salvador.
[20] A black bloc caused damage to property of GAP, Starbucks, Old Navy, and other retail locations in downtown Seattle during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations.
In an unprecedented success for post-Vietnam era civil disobedience, the WTO Ministerial Conference opening ceremonies were shut down completely, host city Seattle declared a state of emergency for nearly a week, multilateral trade negotiations between the wealthy and developing nations collapsed, and all of this was done without fatalities.
[26][27][28] The call for the Seattle protest had originally come from Peoples' Global Action (a network co-founded by the Zapatistas) which supported diversity of tactics and a highly flexible definition of nonviolence.
Medea Benjamin told The New York Times that "These anarchists should have been arrested",[30][31] while Lori Wallach of Public Citizen stated that she had instructed Teamsters to assault black bloc participants.
[32] Barbara Ehrenreich decried the NGO leaders as "hypocrites", and wrote that nonviolent activists ought to be "treating the young rock-throwers like sisters and brothers in the struggle."
[34][35][36] During protests against the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto, a black bloc riot damaged a number of retail locations including an Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, Adidas Store, Starbucks and many banking establishments.
[39][41][42][43][44] In February 2017, an event at the University of California, Berkeley by commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was cancelled by college administrators after protestors of a black bloc broke windows, shot fireworks, and caused a light fixture to catch fire.
[46] In May 2021, Portland protesters in black bloc turned out at multiple rallies and marches that marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.
According to a report by two Brazilian leftists published in Al Jazeera, this coincided with a revival in the breadth of the street protests that had not been seen since its early days in June.
[63][64][65][66][67] A group of young protesters, who identified themselves as the "Black Bloc", have marked the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution by blocking the tramway tracks in Alexandria on Friday.
Broken windows can be boarded and eventually replaced, but the shattering of assumptions will hopefully persist for some time to come.Tactics of a black bloc primarily include vandalism of private property, rioting, and demonstrating without a permit.
Tactics can also include use of defensive measures such as misleading the authorities, assisting in the escape of people arrested by the police ("un-arrests" or "de-arrests"), administering first aid to people affected by tear gas, rubber bullets, and other riot control measures in areas where protesters are barred from entering, building barricades, resisting the police, and practicing jail solidarity.
[79][80][81] Property destruction carried out by black blocs tends to have symbolic significance: common targets include banks, institutional buildings, outlets for multinational corporations, gasoline stations, and video-surveillance cameras.
[82] A few radical right-wing groups, like some of the "autonomous nationalists" of Europe[84] or the Australian so-called "National-Anarchists"[85] have adopted "black bloc" tactics and dress.
