# data[].attributes.body
African Americans, black people, has been facing injustice and brutality from white people since in the 1600’s leading up to 2020.
Let’s expound a bit on the history of slavery from within the Caribbean, expanding to America.
The earliest indigenous people of the Caribbean were the Paleo-Indians, 5,000 B.C., Meso-Indians, 500 B.B., and then the Neo-Indians. To date, the Neo Indians live on islands in the Eastern & Southern Caribbean. On arrival of the Spaniards, they found the Neo Indians settlements. The Neo-Indians were exterminated from 1493-1540. The Spaniards believed the neo-indians were savages, and hunted them with dogs as well as torturing and killing them for sport. “Our ancestor stood up against early European conquerors and because they stood up…were labelled savages and cannibals up to today.” Basil Reid (2005b).

# data[].attributes.headline
Raised fist for black lives matter movement. rawpixel.com

# data[].attributes.subject
Raised fist for black lives matter movement. rawpixel.com

# data[].attributes.body
BLM’s #WhatMatters2020 focuses on issues concerning racial injustice, police brutality, criminal justice reform, Black immigration, economic injustice, LGBTQIA+ and human rights, environmental injustice, access to healthcare, access to quality education, and voting rights and suppression.

# data[].attributes.body
10 out of 1,000 American police officers are accused of misconduct.
23.8% of those have been accused of excessive force.
68% of felony defendants in the general population are convicted.
However, only 33% of police accused of misconduct are convicted.

(All these facts are via FiveThirtyEight).

# data[].attributes.body
Breonna Taylor, 26 year old EMT Technician, was shot in her residence by police officers who were conducting a no-knock search warrant on March 13th, 2020. Taylor had been suspected to be a part of a narcotics investigation. Breonna Taylor was asleep with her boyfriend before hearing poundings on the door ordering her to open the door. While going to the door, police forced themselves in her home and fired 5 shots at her, while being unaware of her boyfriend’s presence. Her boyfriend, Kennath Walker, told investigators that Breonna Taylor did not receive any medical attention as he cried for help. He also indicated that Breonna was alive for about 5-6 minutes before she died. After searching the apartment, no drugs were found and Breonna Taylor was cleared of the charges. However, to the date, none of the officers were charged.

# data[].attributes.body
Police officers responded to a call on May 25th 2020 in regards to a counterfeit bill. The grocery store employee report that George Floyd used a counterfeit bill to purchase cigarettes. While sitting in a vehicle with friends, police approached the vehicle, drawing his gun to Floyd and ordering him to show his hands and to get out of the vehicle. As the officers tried to put Floyd in the police vehicle a struggle followed. Floyd fell to the ground and informed the officers that he was claustrophobic. In another attempt to put Floyd into the vehicle, Mr. Chauvin, an officer on the scene, pulled him causing him to fall to the ground. As he lay face down in handcuffs, Mr. Chauvin placed his knee between Floyd’s head and neck. Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd for 7 minutes and 46 seconds while Floyd was shouting “I can’t breathe” and begging “please, please, please”, and also pleading for his mother. Officer Chauvin replies: "Then stop talking, stop yelling. It takes heck of a lot of oxygen to talk." Mr. Floyd became unresponsive, no pulse was found. After being carried to the County Medical Centre, he was pronounced dead an hour later. Mr Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder. He was initially charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter - two charges he still faces.

# data[].attributes.body
In 2017, on November 22nd, a 12 year old boy by the name of Tamir Rice was shot by a Cleveland police. A witness informed the police that a guy had a gun at the playground.  He proceeded to notify the dispatcher that person pointing the gun was probably a juvenile and that the gun is probably fake. The dispatcher failed to mention to the officers who arrived at the scene that Tamir is a child and the gun might be fake. However, she told investigators that she was not aware of what the caller said. Loehmann, a trainee officer, got out of the police vehicle and fired 2 shots at Tamir, as he claimed he shouted warnings to Tamir to drop his firearm. As Tamir body laid on the snow, another officer and an agent came and gave medical attention to Tamir. Both Loehamann and Garmback stood there as they told the agent that they did not know what to do. Loehamann was fired, not for the death of Tamir, but faces discipline for omissions on his application.  Investigator seek charges for Gramback for not employing proper tactics, Cunningham who was off duty is facing discipline for working off duty and lying to investigators.

# data[].attributes.body
Eric Garner was killed by a white NYPD officer on July 17th 2014. He was arrested for selling untaxed cigarettes.  “Every time you see me, you try to arrest me. I’m tired of it. It stops today,” said Garner while the police men tried to arrest him. Officer Pantaleo placed Garner in a choke hold which is banned by the NYPD in 1993. Garner was also asthmatic. Before Garner died, his last words were “I can’t breathe”. Pantaleo was stripped of his badge and gun following the death of Graner.  Garner hit his head on the concrete and bleed from his mouth. Neither the EMT’s nor police officers at the scene tried to give Garner CPR while he was showing signs of unconsciousness. The police officer who killed Garner was not indicted.

# data[].attributes.body
Sandra Bland, a vocal civil rights advocate was pulled over on July 10, 2015, after a state trooper said she failed to signal a lane change. The trooper stated that she seemed “very irritated.” She said she was, because she was being written up simply for moving out of the trooper’s way. She was threaten to be pulled out of her vehicle while the officer pointed his stun gun at her. The officer Brian Encinia, claimed his ‘safety was in jeopardy’.  As the confrontation got heated it also escalated quickly with Ms Bland being in handcuffs and was booked and placed in Waller County jail.  On July 13th, she was found with a plastic trash-can liner roped around her neck and affixed to a U-shaped metal hook overhead and was pronounced dead. The authorities ruled her death a suicide. Mr Encinia was indicted in 2016 for falsely claiming he sought safety when Ms. Land was removed from her car. In 2017, the charge was dismissed.

# data[].attributes.body
25 year old Freddie Gray, an African American from Baltimore, was arrested on April 12th 2015 for possession of a switchblade. In transport to the police station, Gary was found unconscious, not breathing and had injuries to his spinal cord. Freddie Gray died on April 19th from being in a coma for seven days. State attorney Marilyn Mosby indicated that “the knife was not a switchblade and is lawful under Maryland Law.” Investigators announced that was in fact a legal knife. All witness accounts for Grays’ arrest was dismissed, however, a witness named Jacqueline Jackson saw the van’s second stop, just one block from the arrest. Jackson alleged that she saw Miller, Nero, and Lieutenant Brian Rice’s first attempt to put Gray back into the van after shackling his legs. She alleged that they threw him face down, head first and hard into the metal van compartment. Jackson said she was never interviewed by detectives, despite giving her account to both print and television outlets. The police and investigators did not properly investigate any leads pertaining to Freddie Gray’s case.

# data[].attributes.body
As historian Michael Dickman notes, whipping was a common punishment on Southern plantations, though there was a debate about whether to use it sparingly to keep slaves from revolting. “Masters desired to maintain order in a society in which they were in unquestionable positions of authority,” he writes. “They used the whip as a tool to enforce this vision of society. Slaves, on the other hand, through their victimization and punishment, viewed the whip as the physical manifestation of their oppression under slavery.”
It took years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 for enslaved people to be freed nationwide. Juneteenth celebrates June 19th, 1865, the day when the Union Army issued an order proclaiming the emancipation of the enslaved people in Galveston, TX — a full two and a half years after President Lincoln took action. The name Juneteenth comes from a blending of the date.

# data[].attributes.headline
An escaped slave named Peter showing his scarred back at a medical examination in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863.

# data[].attributes.subject
An escaped slave named Peter showing his scarred back at a medical examination in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1863.

# data[].attributes.body
In March 1963 a runaway slave, Peter escaped the plantation and made his way to a Union encampment in Baton Rouge. He was a survivor and living proof of the brutal whipping that took place on the plantations. As he exposed his scars, they extended from his shoulders to his buttocks. An image of Peter’s back, photographed by Mcherson and Oliver, that circulated and shared acrossed thousands of white people, helped in the abolition during the Civil War. This also portrayed the importance of mass media. Peter’s experience was shared by many enslaved persons, but was unfamiliar to the Northerners who was never able to witness the brutality caused by slavery.

# data[].attributes.body
Life for enslaved men and women was brutal as they were subject to repression, harsh punishments, and strict racial policing. Legal codes governing the behaviour of enslaved men and women became harsh in the South, in the early 19th century. Enslaved people were not allowed to defend themselves against violence from whites, nor could they stand in courts. They were not allowed to testify, unless it was against another enslaved or a free black person. Entering into contracts and owning property was prohibited and they were not allowed to leave their owner’s property without permission. 
Whipping was prescribed for minor offenses, and branding, mutilation, and even death was a punishment for more serious indiscretion. Slave patrols, the militias of free white men, were created to oversee and enforce the slave codes. Strict racial policing was designed partly to ensure that enslaved people would never be able to revolt against those who held them in slavery.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1619 the privateer, The White Lion, brought 20 African slaves to the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Throughout the 17th century, European settlers in North America turned to enslaved Africans as a cheaper, more plentiful labour source than indentured servants. Historians have estimated that 6 to 7 million enslaved people were imported to the New World from Africa during the 18th century alone. 

# data[].attributes.body
Harriet Tubman. Born into slavery and escaped to become an American abolitionist and political activist. Tubman was one of the many slaves who were repeatedly beaten. After her successful escape she led the Underground Railroad. Between 1850 and 1860, Tubman made 19 trips from the South to the North following the network known as the Underground Railroad, and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom.
“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

—Harriet Tubman

# data[].attributes.body
Photo: © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images