Q&A: A founder of Black Lives Matter answers a question on many minds: Where did it go?

To supporters, it is a respectable civil rights movement. To critics, it's an anti-police organization that deserves to be banned.

Black Lives Matter came into existence following the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American teen, by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla. The group became known nationally amid protests in Ferguson, Mo., after a white police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man.

Since then, the organization founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi has been on the front lines of protests against what it calls "the sustained and increasingly visible violence against black communities."

While its prominence appears to have waned in recent months, Cullors, 32, a native of Van Nuys who lives in Los Angeles, insisted that the movement is today