Assessment
Friedberg said of Black Lives Matter (BLM) in late 2020 that “the movement itself is going to spawn a lot of change.” Normalized, this was a prediction that BLM would persist and drive significant, lasting societal and policy changes, including corporate, state, and regulatory actions, over the following years. Looking at developments through late 2025, this is broadly accurate.
1. The movement clearly persisted
- Pew Research Center’s 2025 review of views on race and policing finds that a slim majority of Americans (about half the public) still express support for the BLM movement five years after George Floyd’s murder, with particularly strong support among Black Americans, Democrats, and young adults. This indicates that BLM remains a salient, organized cause rather than a short‑lived protest wave. (pewresearch.org)
- Overviews of BLM describe it as an ongoing social movement whose support has fluctuated but not disappeared; support among people of color in particular has remained high into the mid‑2020s. (en.wikipedia.org)
- BLM leaders and organizers are still covered in 2025 news as active civil‑rights actors, reflecting an enduring organizational and activist presence rather than a dissolved movement. (theguardian.com)
2. State and local policy changes linked to BLM and the 2020 protests
- A large catalog of “police reforms related to the George Floyd protests” documents dozens of state and municipal changes enacted from 2020 onward: bans or limits on chokeholds and no‑knock warrants, new use‑of‑force standards, independent investigation mechanisms, expanded body‑camera rules, and weakened qualified‑immunity or police‑bill‑of‑rights protections in states like Maryland, Connecticut, Minnesota and many cities. These reforms were explicitly framed by lawmakers as responses to the Floyd/BLM protests. (en.wikipedia.org)
- Illinois’ 2021 SAFE‑T Act—an omnibus criminal‑justice reform statute affecting policing, bail, sentencing and corrections—was proposed by the state’s Legislative Black Caucus in direct response to the 2020 racial‑justice protests, and its major provisions (including the Pretrial Fairness Act) are now in force as of September 2023. (en.wikipedia.org)
- The Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, passed almost unanimously in 2021 and signed by President Biden, created a new federal holiday. Contemporary accounts note that this push was “spurred on” by the racial‑justice movement and 2020 protests, turning long‑standing advocacy into actual federal policy in the immediate wake of BLM’s high‑water mark. (en.wikipedia.org)
3. Federal regulatory changes on policing
- After Congress failed to advance the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the Biden administration in 2022 issued Executive Order 14074, which implemented parts of that agenda at the federal level: creating a national law‑enforcement misconduct database and tightening federal police‑use‑of‑force and body‑camera standards. These steps are explicitly described as responses to Floyd’s murder and the 2020 protests. (en.wikipedia.org)
- Although the second Trump administration rescinded some elements of EO 14074 in 2025 and moved to end certain consent decrees with police departments, reports note that not all of the underlying policy changes (e.g., body‑camera requirements) were undone; several years of federal practice and local reforms were shaped by the earlier order. (en.wikipedia.org) This pattern still fits Friedberg’s claim that the movement would “spawn a lot of change”, even if some of that change is now contested or partially reversed.
4. Corporate and institutional changes
- A Washington Post investigation found that, in the year after George Floyd’s killing, America’s 50 largest public companies and their foundations collectively pledged nearly $50 billion for racial‑equity efforts, including grants and large investment commitments; these pledges were explicitly framed as responses to the 2020 protests and racial‑justice movement. (washingtonpost.com)
- The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation received millions of dollars in donations from major corporations such as Amazon, Coca‑Cola, Microsoft, Airbnb, Intel and Google after Floyd’s murder, and created a multi‑million‑dollar fund for local chapters and allied grassroots groups—an institutionalization of support that goes beyond symbolic statements. (en.wikipedia.org)
- The 15 Percent Pledge, founded in 2020, persuaded large retailers (Sephora, Macy’s, West Elm and others) to commit to devoting at least 15% of shelf space and contracting to Black‑owned businesses, embedding BLM‑era racial‑equity goals directly into supply‑chain and merchandising policies. (en.wikipedia.org)
5. Backlash and rollback don’t negate that substantial change occurred
- By 2024–25, surveys show most Americans believe the post‑Floyd racial‑justice push has not produced as much improvement for Black Americans as they had hoped, and support for BLM has fallen from its 2020 peak, even though about half the public still supports the movement. (axios.com)
- Major outlets report that many corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives launched after 2020 are now being scaled back or rebranded in response to political and legal pressure; firms like Walmart, Target, Google, Meta, McDonald’s and others have reduced or ended explicit DEI targets and programs that were originally justified in light of the 2020 protests. (apnews.com) Likewise, federal consent decrees and a national misconduct database created after Floyd have been curtailed by the current administration. (politico.com)
- Nonetheless, analyses of the “racial reckoning” consistently acknowledge that some reforms—especially state and local policing laws, the Juneteenth federal holiday, and parts of corporate and nonprofit infrastructure—remain in place and continue to shape law, culture and institutions even amid backlash. (washingtonpost.com) Backlash itself is evidence that the movement significantly affected power structures, prompting counter‑mobilization rather than being ignored.
Conclusion
Even allowing for overpromising, partial implementation, and subsequent retrenchment, the empirical record from 2020–2025 shows:
- BLM did persist as a movement with ongoing public support and organized activism; and
- It did spawn substantial change across corporate behavior, state and local law, and federal regulatory practice, some of which remains embedded in policy and institutions today.
Given that the prediction was qualitative (“going to spawn a lot of change”), not that BLM would achieve all its goals or avoid backlash, the best overall judgment is that Friedberg’s prediction was right.