Raised Fist

It means people standing together against injustice. The salute is far older than the emoji: its popular political use took shape in the early 20th century. One early U.S. example came in 1913, when labor organizer Bill Haywood raised a fist at a New Jersey silk workers’ strike. By 1926 Germany’s communist Red Front Fighters’ League made it their salute, and in the 1930s it spread through European campaigns against fascism. Black Power activists, opponents of apartheid (South Africa’s system of racial separation), and women’s and gay liberation movements took it up; London’s Gay Liberation Front put it on its 1971 manifesto cover.

What does it mean when someone sends it to you?

Look at the topic; on its own, it can’t name the cause. Beside strike news it backs workers; beside a Black Lives Matter post it backs racial justice. In a one-on-one chat after bad news, it often just means “hang in there.” At the 1968 Olympics, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised gloved fists against racial inequality. Their salute is often called Black Power, though Smith later described it as standing for community and power in Black America.

Does the skin tone you pick change the meaning?

It can sharpen the signal. In Emojipedia’s June 2020 sample of Black Lives Matter tweets, ✊ was the most-used emoji, and the two darkest skin tones made up 52% of its variants. That describes one sample, not every sender’s identity or intent, so choose a tone because you mean what it says.