10 Times Beyoncé Pulled Up For the Black Community, Even Before Black Is King

In partnership with NAACP, Beyoncé's BeyGOOD foundation (established in 2013) is providing financial relief to Black-owned small businesses that have been impacted by COVID-19.

"Over the last couple of months, the pandemic and outpours for justice throughout the Black community and across the country has been felt in every imaginable area of our lives, including in how our local businesses continue to operate," reads the NAACP's website. "The challenges of Black business owners navigating in the climate cannot be understated, as the effects of uprisings across the nation have led to many businesses being placed in dire straits due to damages and other small business needs."

The organizations are committed to gifting $10,000 grants to eligible businesses in Houston, Atlanta, New York and Minneapolis.

Beyoncé urged fans to keep up the BLM momentum while accepting her award. "Your voices are being heard and you're proving to our ancestors that their struggles were not in vain," she said. "Now we have one more thing we need to do to walk in our true power and that is to vote. I'm encouraging you to continue to take action. Continue to change and dismantle their racist and unequal system."

Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, hit differently for many Americans this year amid protests against racial injustice. Beyoncé released a surprise song, entitled "Black Parade" to empower the Black community.

"Happy Juneteenth," she stated on her website. "Being Black is your activism. Black excellence is a form of protest. Black joy is your right. 'Black Parade' benefits BeyGood's Black Business Impact Fund, administered by the National Urban League to support Black-owned small business needs."

Beyoncé's iconic speech to 2020 graduates was a tribute to the good work the younger generation has done to champion Black Lives Matter and call out the sexism and racism that exists in America.

"Thank you for using your collective voice and letting the world know that Black lives matter," she said. "Real change has started with you, this new generation of high school and college graduates who we celebrate today . . . don't let the world make you feel that you have to look a certain way to be brilliant."

Following the death of George Floyd, a Black man and father who was unarmed when he died at the hands of police, Beyoncé used her platform to make a statement.

"We're broken and we're disgusted. We cannot normalize this pain," she said on Instagram. "No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away."

26-year-old Breonna Taylor was killed by police in her own home. Like many of us who were outraged by this injustice, Beyoncé wrote a letter to the Kentucky Attorney General, Daniel Cameron calling for a swift decision on the policemen involved in the case.

"Three months have passed — and zero arrests have been made, and no officers have been fired," she wrote. "Don't let this case fall into the pattern of no action after a terrible tragedy. With every death of a Black person at the hands of the police, there are two real tragedies: the death itself, and the inaction and delays that follow it."

As a Southern California native, Coachella has always had a permanent spot on my social calendar. When I became an NYC transplant three years ago, I made the journey to watch the Queen herself become the only Black female to headline the music festival. The performance was an ode to historically Black colleges and universities and included marching band orchestras, step-dancing, and quotes from influential Black leaders and public thinkers. Her dancers, mainly Black, were of all sizes, shades, and hair textures.

Homecoming was a beautiful display of Black culture, and you didn't see it in person, you can watch the concert documentary over and over on Netflix.

Similar to Homecoming, Lemonade shed light on the Black American experience. The video for "Formation" referenced Black Lives Matter, civil rights, police brutality, and the poor response to Hurricane Katrina. Set in New Orleans, the video features the singer on top of police cars, Black girls dancing around in afros and braids, and ends with a young boy in a hoodie dancing in front of a police officer, holding a sign that says, "Stop shooting us," in reference to Trayvon Martin and the many Black Americans killed by cops.

Although the superstar received criticism for protesting police, fans and Black advocates praised her Super Bowl performance for providing the most "unapologetically Black" visuals of the decade. From her Michal Jackson-inspired costume to dancers in Black Panther berets to honor the Black organizations vision of challenging police brutality, the halftime performance was legendary. Dancers and musicians arranged themselves into a letter "X" to pay tribute to the great Black activist, Malcom X, and ended raising their fists for Black solidarity just as Tommie Smith and John Carlos famously did at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

To address the unemployment crisis in 2013, which affected a large percentage of Black men and women, Beyoncé teamed up with Goodwill. "I wanted to team up with an organization that puts people first and works every day to help them improve and re-establish their lives," Beyonce said in a statement. Aside from tremendous monetary donations, one of the many ways she achieved this was sharing it with her fans (aka the Beyhive), who then donated clothes and electronics to help people look for jobs.