“White Lives Matter” is a white supremacist phrase that originated in early 2015 as a racist response to the Black Lives Matter movement, which arose to protest against police brutality against African-Americans and garnered considerable publicity in 2014 for protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting death of Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson police officer.
Since 2015, white supremacists in several states, especially members of the Texas-based white supremacist group Aryan Renaissance Society, have promoted the slogan “White Lives Matter” with flyers and protests, forming a loose campaign to popularize the phrase.
By 2016 other white supremacist groups, including Ku Klux Klan groups, were also using the slogan, and it soon became a staple among white supremacist mantras, continuing even after the original campaigners ceased their activities.