U.S. teens are more likely than adults to support the Black Lives Matter movement

By Kiley Hurst

American teenagers are more likely than adults to express support for the Black Lives Matter movement, according to two Pew Research Center surveys fielded this spring.

Seven-in-ten U.S. teens say they at least somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement, including 31% of teenagers who strongly support it, according to a survey conducted in April and May among American teens ages 13 to 17. By comparison, a little over half of U.S. adults (56%) said in a March survey that they support the Black Lives Matter movement, similar to the 55% who said the same in September 2021 and September 2020. Around a quarter of adults (26%) strongly support the movement.

While support for the Black Lives Matter movement varies considerably between teens and adults, similar shares of 13- to 17-year-olds and young adults ages 18 to 29 express at least some support for the movement (70% vs. 66%, a difference that is not statistically significant). Some 57% of adults ages 30 to 49 support the movement – comparable to the 54% of adults ages 50 to 64 who do so, but higher than the share of adults 65 and older who support it (49%).

As is the case among adults, there are large racial and ethnic gaps in support for the Black Lives Matter movement among teens. Black teenagers are the most likely to say they at least somewhat support the movement (92% say this), with 57% saying they strongly support it. Roughly eight-in-ten Hispanic teens (82%) express at least some support for the movement, compared with a smaller majority of White teens (57%).

In each racial and ethnic group for which data is available, adults are less likely than teens to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Eight-in-ten Black adults do so, compared with two-thirds of Hispanic adults and half of White adults. The sample sizes for Asian teenagers and adults were too small to analyze separately.

Teens’ views of the Black Lives Matter movement differ along party lines, but Republican and Democratic teens are still more supportive of the movement than their adult counterparts. About four-in-ten Republican and Republican-leaning teenagers (42%) say they at least somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement, compared with 22% of Republican and GOP-leaning adults. Democratic and Democratic-leaning teenagers’ views align more closely with those of their adult counterparts, with a 9 percentage point gap saying they support the movement (94% vs. 85%). Democratic teens are also slightly more likely than Democratic adults to say they strongly support the Black Lives Matter movement: Half of teenage Democrats say this, compared with 44% of adult Democrats.

About Author

Kiley Hurst is a research assistant focusing on social and demographic research at Pew Research Center.

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