"Because when there is a real cause, anger and protest becomes more attractive than organizing." Unrest in the West In the United States, the group ACLED tracked increases and decreases in the frequency of protests, including the sweeping Black Lives Matter movement. Remarkably, the numbers "mimicked" spikes and valleys in U.S. infection rates throughout 2020. By November, the group says 40 per cent of all demonstrations were related to the pandemic. That includes the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, says Zachariah Mamphilly, co-author of Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change, who studies protest movements worldwide at City University of New York.