# data[].attributes.headline
Anti-Racist Teaching During the Pandemic

# data[].attributes.subject
Anti-Racist Teaching During the Pandemic

# data[].attributes.body
Webinar by Rethinking Schools

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Anti-Racist Teaching During the Pandemic: Lessons from The New Teacher Book

# data[].attributes.headline
How to Talk About Racism and Police with Kids

# data[].attributes.subject
How to Talk About Racism and Police with Kids

# data[].attributes.body
The Atlantic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Schools do students a disservice when they fail to teach them about difficult issues.

Camilo Hunica

Editor's Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The "On Teaching" series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.
On a Friday afternoon in early June, educators from a community-education project called Abundant Beginnings held an online workshop for kids between the ages of 3 and 5 and their families. My own preschool-age child was 30 minutes away, at her grandmother's house, but I tuned into the San Francisco Bay Area group's Zoom call. This was a week after protests against police violence had spread from Minneapolis across the nation, and I needed help. I'd shown my daughter photos of protesters, but I struggled to answer the questions that came next about why the police had killed George Floyd. For that, I needed the guidance of skilled educators.

Early in the workshop, two facilitators used simple words to describe a protest scene. They were in conversation, modeling age-appropriate language. Soon, we were introduced to the "white-supremacy fairy." This fairy, we were told, is known to land on shoulders, including, sometimes, those of police. "It's telling them white people are better than other people," one facilitator said. "They're whispering into the police officer's ear, and their boss's ear, and their boss's boss's ear. That boss is called the system. And they're telling them to do the wrong thing."

Across the country, young children are turning to the adults in their lives to help make sense of racism and policing. The uprisings sparked by Floyd's death kicked off in May, when many schools had already shut down for the summer, and much of the work of explaining this movement has fallen to families. But as schools prepare to reopen, conversations about police violence may move to classrooms-both real and virtual.

Howard Stevenson, the Constance Clayton Professor of Urban Education at the University of Pennsylvania, helps educators and families address race with children. Families of color have long sought him out as they confront race-based inequities around discipline and curriculum at school, he says. But this summer's protests have led to a significant uptick in requests from white families and educators. "Since George Floyd died there has not been a week yet when I haven't spoken to a new school," Stevenson told me in mid-August. "For us it's been nonstop." Adults often have to examine their own assumptions and biases before they can facilitate conversations about police violence, he said-especially given that 79 percent of public K-12 teachers are white.

For students, too, prior experience of police violence will differ vastly between homes, schools, and communities. Some may have witnessed a family member's negative run-in with police, or live in a neighborhood that's regularly patrolled. "In a low-income community, school is not the place where young people are learning about the police," says Micia Mosely, founding director of the Black Teacher Project, a leadership-development program based in Oakland, California. Some students have had bad experiences with the police themselves, even within their schools; the viral footage of 6-year-old Kaia Rolle being restrained by police and removed from her Orlando grade school in February was a reminder that many administrators partner with law enforcement, sometimes to discipline terrified children.

Teaching all young children about police violence requires some understanding of structural racism. Educators have to reject any instinct to lie or sugarcoat, says Francie Latour, who co-directs Wee the People, a Boston-based social-justice project for kids between the ages of 4 and 12. Her organization offers a workshop called "What Is Racism?" to schools in the city and its suburbs, some of which have student bodies that are largely Black and brown and some of which are predominantly white. The workshop is used with children as young as kindergartners. In it, the facilitators start by challenging an idea that many young children have-that racism simply means being unkind to someone because they're Black.

Instead, Latour tells them, "It's a big unfairness in the world, and our job is to get really good at noticing the many ways that racism shows up, because sometimes it's hard to see." Sometimes it's about having a freedom denied because you're Black. It can also mean having some doors open effortlessly because you're white. The group reads a book called Milo's Museum, about a Black child who goes to a museum and notices the lack of cultural contributions from people who look like her. It's a tool that helps young people understand that racism can be embedded in institutions and culture. "Before we read the book, we challenge kids, 'Okay, we've got our binoculars on. See if you can tell us who is racist to Milo,'" Latour told me. "They struggle with it because that's all they've been taught: It's a deliberate action by a bad person."

Latour also talks with children about how historical events set the stage for where we are today. She and her co-director explain the racial hierarchy that 15th-century Europeans created to justify slavery. Kids understand sorting, and they understand lies, she said, so they get it when they are taught that people from Africa were categorized as being less than human, despite those categories having no basis in fact. "We're in the business of telling kids the truth," Latour said. "It's absolutely possible to speak with kids honestly about things that we find deeply uncomfortable."

Even in the earliest grades, young people have the building blocks they need to understand what adults might perceive to be complex social forces. In Latour's workshops, facilitators ask children to share something that's happened in the past week that they thought was unfair. Every hand shoots up. "Kids have a hardwired, innate sense of fairness," Latour said. "It's the job of adults in kids' lives to connect that strong sense of fairness to issues of justice in the world." Children can also weave ideas about sameness and difference into their play. Dena Simmons, assistant director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, models how the topic could be introduced to kids: "'Let's talk about different textures. Let's talk about different patterns,'" she offers as examples. "Differences don't need to be bad," she told me. "They can make the interaction even richer."

Even more complex ideas can be introduced with concrete examples. Latour uses a bicycle to explain systemic racism, pointing out that handlebars, pedals, brakes, and wheels all work together to make it move. "You can show a child a picture of a bike and all of its different parts and say, 'When we say system it's a fancy word for lots of things that work together to do one thing,'" Latour said. The racism embedded in our culture and institutions can be harder to spot than the components of a bike. She tells children, "The reason it's so hard to see is there are lots of different parts of our lives that are working together to keep this lie going, this lie that being white is better."

Adding joy and a sense of agency helps kids absorb weighty messages, these educators said. Some stressed the importance of emphasizing the beauty and pleasure in being Black, so that young people don't associate the problem of police violence or racism with Blackness itself. It can also involve music and movement: The Abundant Beginnings workshop was led in part by a musician called Teacher Aunty Monica from the Bay Area music and storytelling program BoomShake, whose songs and drum-supported chants were interspersed throughout the dialogue. At one point, the facilitators' conversation shifted from police and white supremacy to talk of how family members and neighbors can keep each other safe, and a chant drove home the lesson: "We keep us safe!" The pivot away from the problem and toward a solution offered an age-appropriate lesson in alternatives to policing.

Still, it can be tough to discuss serious topics with children, especially in a complex way that works for both students and their families. Liz Kleinrock, who taught for seven years at a public charter school in Los Angeles, told me she addressed racism and policing with her fourth-grade students in the fall of 2016. Over the summer, there'd been two high-profile police killings of Black people, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in the Twin Cities.

Kleinrock tried to get her students to move beyond simplistic statements such as "All lives matter" and to understand why such a declaration was potentially hurtful, particularly to the handful of Black students in class. But sometimes the nuance she encouraged got lost on the way home. She said she heard from the mother of a student who had a police officer in his family. The child's takeaway from class had been that all police are bad. Kleinrock explained that her message had been about bias and abuse of power, and the parent was eventually satisfied. But the exchange helped Kleinrock see that her students needed an opportunity to reflect back to her what they were hearing. "The next day I had to go in and re-teach part of it to make sure kids weren't walking away with these blanket statements," she said.

Stevenson, the University of Pennsylvania professor, said it's never too early to start these discussions. Adults can make the conversation age appropriate by approaching it as they would any other complex topic, such as unsafe touch, strangers as a potential threat, or what to do in case of a fire. "I would rather prepare them early for things and scaffold it," Stevenson said, referring to how educators craft lessons so that students learn progressively more complex information or skills over time. "You don't have to say everything" in the first conversation.

Talking to students about the basics of racism and policing early on can help them develop complex thinking, and that, in turn, will help them understand tricky issues-like those related to the criminal-justice system-with nuance. Last year, Wee the People hosted a workshop called "What Are Jails For?" in an effort to get families talking about mass incarceration. Facilitators asked kids about the purpose of jails, and got responses about superheroes and "bad guys." Then the leaders displayed mug shots of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. Upon seeing the photos, the kids wondered why these "good guys" had been taken to jail, a place they believed was reserved for people guilty of committing a crime. When given the opportunity, children learn to hold contradictions.

Schools do students a disservice when they fail to teach them the messy truth about this country's history and how it shapes the present, Latour said. The world got to be this way because people made it so-and when educators don't communicate that to young people, they limit students' ability to imagine something better. "They can't unmake it or remake it if they don't see that it's made."
This article is part of our project "On Teaching," which is supported by grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Panta Rhea Foundation.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Talk to Kids About Racism and Police

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Schools do students a disservice when they fail to teach them about difficult issues. Editor's Note: In 1988, a teacher most commonly had 15 years of experience. In recent years, that number is closer to just three years leading a classroom. The "On Teaching" series focuses on the wisdom of veteran teachers.

# data[].attributes.body
Compiled by the New York Times

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Putting the demonstrations into a larger context, with help from The Times and other news and educational organizations.

Protests over the killing of George Floyd in New York City on June 1. Related Opinion Credit... Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Updated, June 8
"The anger is different this time. After years of Americans being killed by the police - more than 1,000 per year, for as long as statistics exist - something has changed over the past week," begins the June 2 "Morning" newsletter. It continues:

The gruesome video of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on George Floyd's neck plays a role. So does a pandemic that's disproportionately killing African-Americans. And so do the angry, racialized politics that President Trump encourages.

Here are some of the voices from the protests, which have included many people who say they've never protested before:

"In every city, there's a George Floyd," said Michael Sampson II, 30, of Jacksonville, Fla.

"It could be my father, my brother, my uncle, my cousin, my friend," said Victoria Sloan, 27, of Brooklyn. "It makes me angry."

"I'm speaking for everybody, all my kinfolk, all my brothers and sisters who've gotten beaten up by police," said Cory Thomas, 40, who said the police beat him when he was a teenager in Brooklyn. "I don't condone the violence," or the looting, he said, "but at the end of the day, no 14-year-old should be beat up by police."

Teachers know that this news and the issues around it need to be addressed. But for many, the academic year has just ended, and even those still officially in school are teaching remotely. So how do we help our students process and respond to what is going on, understand its complex causes - and strive for solutions?

We don't have any definitive answers to that difficult question, but we do have some resources we hope can help put this news, which continues to break, into a larger context. Each section below is written directly to teenagers, and we've chosen the richest, most student-friendly articles, Op-Eds, videos, photos, graphs and podcasts we could find, from The Times and elsewhere.

We also have a place for teenagers from anywhere in the world to share their thoughts: Our Student Opinion forum "What Is Your Reaction to the Days of Protest That Have Followed the Death of George Floyd?" Many have contributed to a thoughtful discussion about everything from the purpose of protests and the role of policing in our communities to how deeply ingrained racism is within us and within our society. We welcome your students to the conversation, too.

We know this is just a start, and we hope you'll add your ideas, or suggest resources we're missing. How are you addressing this news with your students and children? Why? Tell us in the comments, or write to us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com.

Sections of this Teaching and Learning Resource

In the video above, three New York Times national correspondents who have been reporting from protests around the country provide their insights in a live discussion. Learn more here.

As you follow breaking news about George Floyd, the protests happening all over the country and the world, the Trump administration's response and more, you might choose from among the resources below - some are fairly simple, others are more complex and immersive - to help understand it in a larger context.

1. The Anti-Defamation League: In a recent edition of their "Table Talk: Family Conversations about Current Events" series, the A.D.L. explores this moment in terms of systemic racism:

Racism is defined as: "the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people." Racism shows up in all aspects of our lives and society: in interpersonal communication, through discriminatory policies and practices, in biased language, and in our laws and institutions (e.g., education, media, employment, government and the criminal justice system).

Many see Floyd's death as an example of systemic racism, referring to the way race disadvantages people of color in the criminal justice system. African-American and Latinx men are disproportionately represented in all levels of the criminal justice system, from arrest to sentencing to death row. Moreover, research shows that African-American people are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white people.

2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: In a much-shared Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times, " Don't understand the protests? What you're seeing is people pushed to the edge," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explains:

The black community is used to the institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system and jobs. And even though we do all the conventional things to raise public and political awareness - write articulate and insightful pieces in the Atlantic, explain the continued devastation on CNN, support candidates who promise change - the needle hardly budges.

But COVID-19 has been slamming the consequences of all that home as we die at a significantly higher rate than whites, are the first to lose our jobs, and watch helplessly as Republicans try to keep us from voting. Just as the slimy underbelly of institutional racism is being exposed, it feels like hunting season is open on blacks. If there was any doubt, President Trump's recent tweets confirm the national zeitgeist as he calls protesters "thugs" and looters fair game to be shot.

3. Trevor Noah: If you learn better by listening than by reading, Trevor Noah talks about the "dominoes" of racial injustice and police brutality, and how the contract between society and black Americans has been broken time and time again. Listen to his "Daily Social Distancing Show" entitled " George Floyd, Minneapolis Protests, Ahmaud Arbery & Amy Cooper. "

4. Times Photos and Interviews: "A protest is an act of desperation and defiance. But why do it if not for the belief, however modest, that the voices in the street will be heard?" writes John Branch in the collection of images and interviews headlined "In Every City There's a George Floyd: Portraits of Protest." In this piece you can hear from everyday people about why they are protesting now.

5. The 1619 Project: To make much deeper connections between this moment and American history, The New York Times 1619 Project offers a series of articles, poetry, fiction and multimedia created to observe the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. To go with it, the Pulitzer Center has created a free curriculum that shows teachers how to use a project that "aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are."

Think About the Protests and Yourself: We know there is a lot to think about here - yet at the same time these resources only scratch the surface. It might be helpful to step back at this point and think, talk or write about how this topic connects with your own life, your family, the communities you are part of, and the people you care about. What experiences with race or racism have you had? How has systemic racism been a part of your family's experience?

If you'd like some examples, check out " First Encounters With Racism," a piece for which the Times Race/Related team partnered with Youth Radio to ask teenagers across the country, "What is your earliest experience dealing with race?" We also have a related lesson plan that suggests additional questions and activities.

Reflect on any of what you've read or seen via a journal entry, a conversation with a friend, classmate or family member or even a work of visual art. Another idea? Create a "found poem" by remixing the words in any of the articles in this post, or in coverage of all related news. This guide can teach you how, step by step, but you can also look at how winners of our long-running Found Poem Student Contest have done it in the past. For instance, Ryan Nguyen's " Nothing Less than Heroic" or Bridget Smith's " When You Were 15 Years Old."

And, of course, you are always invited to contribute your thoughts to our forum for teenagers, where a discussion of all these issues is in progress.

Video

Back

transcript

A Conversation With My Black Son

In this short documentary, parents reveal their struggles with telling their black sons that they may be targets of racial profiling by the police.

My father's conversation with me was daily. My grandfather talked to me as a black man from Augusta, Georgia growing up in the Deep South. It's probably Rob, my older brother, had this conversation. But then it's more of like, you know... "Wear a condom. Do this." It's like man - it's like little man lessons. When a cop pulls you over - When you get pulled over, not if you get pulled over. At some point you will get pulled over, and here is how you act. As a young black man growing up in New York, I've had a few run ins with the police and being completely innocent. So people to pull us out of the car, throw us on the floor - it's in February, so it's like snow and slush and stuff on the ground - put their knees in our back, put the guns to our head. As I'm putting my hands on the steering wheel so I don't make the police nervous, I realize how nervous I was. And then I realized my children were nervous. The thing that people say is you have to talk to him before he experiences racism himself. But when is that? He is going to turn into a large, scary black man. And that is - that's not who he is, but that's how he will be perceived. I know what this kid is going to be. He's going to look like him. I know what he's going to look like when he's - I'm a large, scary, black man? You are a large, scary, black man. O.K.? That's a problem. That's a problem. I am not large, nor scary. I can't do anything with that. I'm short. Anyway, go ahead. It's frightening. And I'm being very light when I use the word frightening. If something goes wrong, your first line of defense - your parents not being there - is to go to the police. If you're Caucasian. So I mean, still - That's what you teach your children. Unfortunately, it can't work for black children, right? It doesn't mean that every police officer is inherently a bad person. But what it does mean is that the police force, that institution, does not look out for your best interests. There's this unspoken code of white race - of racism and white supremacy that says that my life does not matter. You can put your hands up and say - and cooperate and say that I'm choking and still be killed. And then there's no repercussions. It's maddening. I get so frustrated and angry about having to prepare my kids for something that they're not responsible for. These are conversations that people of other races do not have to have with their children. The conversation with him was really just, look, you're a beautiful young boy. Being an African-American is a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful blessing. You have come from great people, but it's also a hard thing. In America, because of your skin color, as a black boy and as a black man, we are going to be dealing with a lot of danger. Under no circumstance are you to talk to the police if you're arrested until I get there. Do what they say. Don't get into any arguments. Make sure your hands are out of your pockets so they can see. These are the questions you can ask. This is who to call. This is what happens if this bad thing - it's not like, please, master, don't whip me. No. It's like, excuse me, sir, what is your badge number? I'm going to film this. If you want police brutality to stop, if you want police to treat you like a human being, then you have to see yourself as a human being. You have every right in this world that anyone else does. What I love about you, as my son, is I remember when we thought about having you and knowing that we wanted you, and watching you grow. You are the Mohammad Ali. You are the Malcolm X. You are the Martin Luther King. You are an amazing young man, and the future is yours. And I will do my best to make sure you're safe. That's it. I love you. [music]

In this short documentary, parents reveal their struggles with telling their black sons that they may be targets of racial profiling by the police.

George Floyd's death is only the most recent case of a long history of black Americans being brutalized or killed by law enforcement officers, who rarely if ever face consequences for their actions. Before Mr. Floyd it was Breonna Taylor, Laquan McDonald, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice - the list goes on.

Bryan Stevenson writes in an essay for The 1619 Project that central to this pattern is the legacy of slavery.

After emancipation, black people, once seen as less than fully human "slaves," were seen as less than fully human "criminals." The provisional governor of South Carolina declared in 1865 that they had to be "restrained from theft, idleness, vagrancy and crime." Laws governing slavery were replaced with Black Codes governing free black people - making the criminal-justice system central to new strategies of racial control.

Today, Mr. Stevenson argues, the racial nature of policing persists:

Hundreds of years after the arrival of enslaved Africans, a presumption of danger and criminality still follows black people everywhere. New language has emerged for the noncrimes that have replaced the Black Codes: driving while black, sleeping while black, sitting in a coffee shop while black. All reflect incidents in which African-Americans were mistreated, assaulted or arrested for conduct that would be ignored if they were white. In schools, black kids are suspended and expelled at rates that vastly exceed the punishment of white children for the same behavior.

Read the rest of Mr. Stevenson's essay, then choose one or more of the following activities to think about the role of police in our society.

Analyze Graphics: These charts from 2017 show what happened to officers involved in 13 cases of police-involved deaths of African-Americans. Study the charts then respond to the following questions:

1. What do you notice?
2. What do you wonder?
3. What is going on in this chart? What does it tell you about police accountability in the United States?
4. What are some possible explanations for this data?

Video

Back

transcript

'It's Unbelievable That We Have to Keep Doing This': Protesters March to the White House

Thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to protest George Floyd's death, racism and police brutality. From speeches to line dances, here's what we saw and whom we met.

"What do you want?" "Justice!" "When do you want it?" "Now!" "What do you want?" "Justice!" "When do you want it?" "Now!" "No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace! No racist police!" "For the mothers! For the mothers! For the mothers." "My son wasn't given a chance to live. I have a chance to live, so I will risk whatever it takes to say his name. Marquis Brown! Say my son's name: Marquis Brown! Say my son's name: Marquis Brown! I don't know all of their names, but what I do tell you is, I stand for all the mothers out here who lost their sons to police brutality." "How do you spell racist? How do you spell racist?" "Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter!" "Justice! Now! Justice! Now! Justice! It's unbelievable that we have to keep doing this. It's embarrassing for our nation. And if we have to be violent, we have to be violent, but I definitely roll with peace. Because they say a Covid virus, you know, is supposed to keep us in the house - that's not going to keep anyone in the house when people are being killed, when people are being slaughtered." "Don't shoot!" "Don't shoot!" "We appreciate you all, man. We appreciate you all. Get us some water. DJ [unclear], back to action!" "Take your knee off our necks!" "Take your knee off our necks!" "Take your knee off our necks!" "Take your knee off our necks!" "Take your knee off our necks!" "Justice. Systemic racism is really like a knee on the back of your neck." "Hands up!" "Don't shoot!" "Hands up!" "Don't shoot!" "Somebody could steal my car, take my money - I won't be calling the police. I never have, I never will. Even with my son as a police officer, I need to fix my problems. And my biggest problem now is racism in this country, so that's why I'm out here trying to fix it." "Does your son know that you're here today?" "Umm - I think he does. As a father and a black man, I know that when he's driving in a car and he's not in uniform, he will be treated as a black man before he's treated as the police. Pulling out his badge could be the end of his life because they think it's a gun, so - and I think he's aware of that, but I hope he knows. It's so good to see so many white people here. I'm glad I came." "If we don't get it -" "Shut it down!" "If we don't get it -" "Shut it down!" "If you don't get it -" "Shut it down!" "Veterans for -" "Black lives matter!" "Veterans for -" "Black lives matter!" "As a group of veterans, we served our country - we will not stop serving our country even after our duties are done. I did serve in the Air Force, and I feel that the world needs to know that veterans are here to support black lives as well. It doesn't matter to me what else is going on in my life. This is what's going on in my life." "Me and my best friend were walking after protesting and then I heard drums. I'm from Zambia. I'm African. I'm a dancer. So once I hear drums, that's my call. It's an outlet for me. I still have to hold it together in the workplace and pretend like - not pretend, but not be able to show it, that it's hurting me and affecting me and my family and those around me." "Hands up!" "Don't shoot!" "Don't shoot!" "Hands up! Don't shoot! Hands up! Don't shoot! Hands up! Don't shoot!"

Thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to protest George Floyd's death, racism and police brutality. From speeches to line dances, here's what we saw and whom we met. Credit Credit... Emily Rhyne/The New York Times

At the core of the First Amendment is our right to assemble and protest. However, not all Americans view this right the same way: some argue that peaceful protests are the only way to create social change, while others do not believe protesting is an effective means of change at all. In the midst of the protests following George Floyd's death, some have criticized protesters for creating chaos, others say the violence is instigated by outside extremist groups, and many see police initiating violence at the protests.

In response to our Student Opinion question, " What Is Your Reaction to the Days of Protest That Have Followed the Death of George Floyd?" several students expressed confusion and uncertainty about violence at some protests. One student commented:

Scrolling through Instagram, all I can see is people either defending or against the use of violence. I understand both of their points, the ones defending the violence are sick and tired with all the police brutality against African Americans ... The one against it are sick and tired about the looting, the riots, the fires, and how it hurt small business owners.

In " Destructive Power of Despair," Charles M. Blow focuses specifically on the history of violence in the United States and its connection to the protests today:

We can bemoan the violence that has attended some of these protests, but we must also recognize that to have to live in a world, in a society, in which you feel that your very life is constantly under threat because of the color of your skin is also a form of violence.

It is a daily, ambient, gnawing violence. It is the kind that makes a grown man's shoulder draw up and his jaws clench whenever officers approach, even when there has been no offense or infraction.

It is the kind that forces mothers down to pray whenever a child is out late, pleading to the gods for his or her safe return.

It is the kind that makes a child think to write a parent's phone number on their skin when they sense trouble brewing, just in case.

This is also violence.

Read the rest of Mr. Blow's essay, then choose one or more of the activities below to consider what role protesting has in our society.

React to the George Floyd Protests: Scroll through this collection of photos of the protests from across the country, or this series of photos headlined " Bird's Eye View of Protests Across the U.S. and Around the World. " What do you notice? What do you wonder? Which photos stand out to you most and why? Taken together, what do these images say about the United States at this moment? What images from your own camera roll could you add to this collection right now? Might they tell a piece of the story that mainstream media has missed?

Remember Your Own Experiences: Think about your own participation in specific protests past or present. What was your experience like? Do you think that protest helped to bring about meaningful change? What lessons did you take away from it? Why?

Analyze Protests in History: Make a list of protests from throughout history, whether in the United States or around the world. For each one, identify what led to the protest, what actions were taken, and what the outcomes were. (For a few ideas, see our lesson plan on moments in history when students have turned to activism and affected change.)

Then reflect: Do you think protests can effect change? What role have young people played in these movements? Do you believe the current protests will make a difference? Why or why not?

Consider the Role of the Police: Countless videos have shown police officers using batons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets on protesters, bystanders and journalists, often without warning or seemingly unprovoked. A few others have shown officers marching and kneeling alongside protesters. In " For Police Officers, Demonstrations Take a Toll and Test Duty," The Times quotes a supervisor in a police department in St. Louis who says, "We feel like we're pawns in a game right now. It's almost like there's an agenda and we're being used on both sides, the left and the right, to further that agenda." What is your reaction to the police's use of violence? What role do you think the police themselves should play in protests against police brutality? What responsibility do they have to citizens in this moment?

Reflect: Is It "Different This Time"?: We began this piece with a quote from The Times, "The anger is different this time. After years of Americans being killed by the police - more than 1,000 per year, for as long as statistics exist - something has changed over the past week." A week later, on June 7, The Times published a piece headlined " Other Protests Flare and Fade. Why This Movement Already Seems Different," that reports that "the massive gatherings for racial justice across the country and now the world have achieved a scale and level of momentum not seen in decades" and analyzes why.

Yet in " Allies, Don't Fail Us Again," Times Op-Ed columnist Charles Blow points out that many white people have been moved by the current movement - as they were by the civil rights movement in the 1960's -but wonders, how will they respond when true equality threatens their privilege?

Do you think things are different this time? Why or why not? Do you think these protests will bring about meaningful change? What do you hope will happen as a result? And, to pose the two questions Mr. Blow asks at the end of his column, "How will they respond when civil rights gets personal and it's about them and not just punishing the white man who pressed his knee into George Floyd's neck? How will they respond when true equality threatens their privilege, when it actually starts to cost them something?"

Image

When a nation's people are reeling with grief and rage, our government representatives - from City Council members up to the president of the United States - have a role to play. What should leadership look like during a crisis like this one?

In " Past Presidents Faced Police Brutality and Protests. They Handled It Differently," Maggie Astor and Zach Montague compare how four past presidents handled similar situations with President Trump's response:

It is a bleak reality of American history that each of the past four presidents faced the same crisis President Trump is facing now: The police just killed or seriously injured a black man, and the city where it happened is reeling with grief and rage.

They did not all respond the same way. They did not all respond "effectively," either, if that is measured by whether they calmed the unrest. But none responded the way Mr. Trump has: by issuing an overtly violent ultimatum to protesters.

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Mr. Trump tweeted just before 1 a.m. on Friday, threatening to deploy the National Guard to Minneapolis after explosive protests in response to the death of George Floyd, whom a white police officer pinned to the ground, knee on neck, for more than eight minutes.

Consider the Role of the President: What role would you want the president of the United States to play during this crisis? Do you think President Trump is currently fulfilling this role? Why, or why not? What would you want him to say or do in this moment? Collect images, quotes, tweets or other evidence to help support your position.

In my opinion, I think that a great leader should always be helpful and try to help their community. Firstly, they must have clarity which means that they are clear and concise at all times there is no question of their vision and what needs to be accomplished. Next, they must have courage to help others and to maintain that pose to being a great leader to others. Having passion is also a key to being a great leader, not just to show others but to also inspire others. Lastly, you must have humility to being a loyal person and giving back to our world today.

Do you agree? Make a list of the qualities of leadership you value most. Then submit your own comment.

Recognize Great Leaders: What actions or words from other leaders, like governors, mayors and community activists, have you admired? Select an excerpt from a speech, a video clip or an image featuring one of these leaders and explain why it resonated with you.

A free press is central to democracy. Indeed, freedom of the press - the ability to report the news without censorship from the government - is enshrined in our Constitution, protected under the First Amendment.

However, while reporting on the protests in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the United States, journalists have found themselves under threat.

In " Police Target Journalists as Trump Blames 'Lamestream Media' for Protests," Marc Tracy and Rachel Abrams write:

Many reporters, photographers and press advocates said the treatment of journalists by police officers in recent days reflected an erosion of trust in the news media that has seeped into law enforcement under President Trump, who has deemed critical coverage of his administration "fake news" and has frequently labeled some news organizations and journalists with variants of the phrase " enemies of the people. "

"This story, in particular, it seems journalists are really being targeted by the police," Ms. Davidson said. "That's not something I have experienced before to this degree."

It is common in autocratic countries for journalists to be arrested during demonstrations and riots, but rare in the United States, where freedom of the press is guaranteed by the First Amendment. In a sign that police officers would not follow the customary hands-off approach, Minnesota State Patrol officers arrested a CNN reporting team live on the air on Friday. That same day, a TV reporter in Louisville, Ky., was hit by a pepper ball by an officer who appeared to be aiming at her while she covered the protest on live television.

In " To Be Black and a Journalist at This Moment," a piece from The Associated Press, Amanda Barrett writes:

Part of me wants to go off and join the fight. To put aside my journalistic reserve and give full voice to my anger, my disappointment that my country doesn't always live up to its lofty ideals of equality and justice. To build a brighter future like it seemed on "Star Trek," where races, nationalities and even species lived together in mutual respect and Lt. Uhura's presence as a respected, competent black officer assured little Amanda of her place among them.

But I'm doing my part right where I am. I'm telling stories that help readers understand the world around them. I'm sharing the voices of the unheard and holding those in power accountable. Just as important, I am working to make our newsrooms more accurately reflect the communities we cover and to make our storytelling and our decision-making more inclusive.

My voice is the voice of facts and context. My voice is the hope that they can bring the understanding and, eventually, the equality that my country's founding documents promise.

Read one or both of these articles. Then, reflect on the media's role in this moment with the activities below.

Define the Role of Journalism Now: If you've never thought much about the role journalism plays in society in general, consider it now, via one or more of these questions: Do we still need journalists if every citizen with a phone can report the news as it breaks? What is different about the job professional reporters do? To what extent do you think it's important for the press to be able to freely report what is happening? What role can journalism play in this moment - and what responsibilities come with that role? What influence does the media have on the way the public understands what is happening in these protests?

As you consider any or all of these, collect examples of reporting that you think is doing an excellent job of capturing the news right now, but also collect reporting you find problematic or lacking for any reason.

Compare TikTok and The Times: In a call-in to a live interview with the young adult author Jason Reynolds, 17-year-old Cameron noted that in the media the protests looked very violent, but on his TikTok feed, they appeared largely peaceful. Have you had this experience?

Compare what you see on social media to what you've seen from mainstream news sources. How are they similar? How are they different? What do you think could account for these differences? Consider whose experiences are included and whose are left out. What does this activity tell you about the values and limitations of each kind of media?

Question Media Choices: What bias or stereotyping have you witnessed in media coverage, whether in choices of words, images, headlines, interviews or anything else? How do you think that may have affected perception of the events and their meaning? Examine the language and images different news outlets are using to describe what is happening. What message does this language send about the protesters, police and others?

For example, many took issue with The New York Times front-page headline in the first edition published on June 2. Many felt that "As Chaos Spread, Trump Vows to 'End It Now' did not "come close" to accurately reporting the news that night, as President Trump first made a speech threatening to send the military to bring the protests under control - then walked to a church and posed for photos after the police used smoke, flash grenades and some kind of chemical spray to clear the area of peaceful protesters.

In addition, readers challenged passive-voice grammatical constructions on that same front page like "Protests in 140 cities bring five deaths." The Poynter Institute asks, "Does the passive voice downplay police aggression?" in its piece " The New York Times was accused of siding with police because of ill-placed passive voice." What do you think?

Finally, just after this resource was originally published on June 3, an Op-Ed piece by a United States senator, Tom Cotton, went online. Headlined " Send in the Troops," it called for a military response to civic unrest in American cities, and infuriated many both outside and inside the Times. By the end of the week, James Bennet, the editor of the Times Opinion section (which is separate from the newsroom), had resigned. Though there is not the space here to fully examine what happened and why, you might scan the 2,000-plus reader comments on the Op-Ed itself to better understand the debate, then read " Inside the Revolts Erupting in America's Big Newsrooms" to learn more about the context, which asks, What is the role of journalism today? As the column puts it: "Now, as America is wrestling with the surging of a moment that began [with Ferguson] in August 2014, its biggest newsrooms are trying to find common ground between a tradition that aims to persuade the widest possible audience that its reporting is neutral and journalists who believe that fairness on issues from race to Donald Trump requires clear moral calls."

Report the News Yourself: What kind of piece could you report about an aspect of these protests or the issues it raises for you or your community? What form would your reporting take? Where might you post or send this piece based on the audience you'd like to reach? Here are some student journalist resources for covering protests safely and sensitively from The Poynter Institute to help. And if you would like some inspiration, check out " A High School Journalist Dug Into Suspensions of Black Students. What She Found Won an Award. "

What do you know - or think you know - about the death of George Floyd and the protests that have followed? From what sources are you getting your information - social media, cable news, newspapers, your friends or family? Have you heard any conspiracy theories or fallen for any hoaxes? What are the dangers of doing so?

In " Misinformation About George Floyd Protests Surges on Social Media," Davey Alba explains why this moment is ripe for disinformation:

"The combination of evolving events, sustained attention and, most of all, deep existing divisions make this moment a perfect storm for disinformation," said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. "All of it is toxic, and make our very real challenges and divisions harder to address."

The collision of racial tensions and political polarization during the coronavirus pandemic has supersized the misinformation, researchers said. Much of it is being shared by the conspiracy group QAnon and far-right commentators as well as by those on the left, Mr. Brookie said.

President Trump himself has stoked the divisive information. Over the past few days, he posted on Twitter that antifa was a "Terrorist Organization" and urged the public to show up for a "MAGA Night" counterprotest at the White House.

Along with that, people are experiencing high levels of fear, uncertainty and anger, said Claire Wardle, executive director of First Draft, an organization that fights online disinformation. That creates "the worst possible context for a healthy information environment," she said.

Practice Media Literacy: Whenever you encounter something that seems dubious, read laterally to evaluate the source of the information you're viewing. Then you might fact-check the message's claims using a fact checker like FactCheck.org or Snopes.com.

Get a Healthier News Diet: Don't just read The New York Times or your social media feed. Assess the reliability of your sources using tools like Media Bias/Fact Check or the Interactive Media Bias Chart. Here's what teenagers told us about what happened when they did exercises like this to create their own healthy "media diets."

1. Who created this message?
2. What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
3. How might different people understand this message differently than me?
4. What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?
5. Why is this message being sent?

By this point, you've likely explored some of the many resources about racism, policing, protesting and the media we've posted above, and you might be left with questions about what this all means for you. Where do you stand? What can you do? What is your role in making positive change?

Madeleine from Californiashared some ideas in response to our Student Opinion question about the George Floyd protests:

The death of George Floyd has forced the American people to look systemic racism in the eye. We are the next generation and it is our duty to not only educate ourselves but each other and our parents...It all starts with education, the power of knowledge takes you places and soon many of our generation will gain the power to vote. If we want change, we need to get educated first. That also means as a generation we need to wake up and look privilege in the eye. It's not just about white privilege anymore. As an Asian American I can recognize that I do not face the same type of struggles that my fellow POC face. Asian Americans have fought hard to get where we are today, and it is our duty to help bring every POC up with us.

Some refer to this work as practicing "antiracism." In " Being Antiracist,"the National Museum of African-American History and Culture explains that "being racist or antiracist is not about who you are; it is about what you do."

When we choose to be antiracist, we become actively conscious about race and racism and take actions to end racial inequities in our daily lives. Being antiracist is believing that racism is everyone's problem, and we all have a role to play in stopping it.

You might read the rest of the article to learn more about antiracism and what it might look like for you. Then, try one of the activities below to put what you've learned into action.

For Teachers, From Around the Web

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching Ideas and Resources to Help Students Make Sense of the George Floyd Protests

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Putting the demonstrations into a larger context, with help from The Times and other news and educational organizations. Updated, June 8 "The anger is different this time. After years of Americans being killed by the police - more than 1,000 per year, for as long as statistics exist - something has changed over the past week," begins the June 2 "Morning" newsletter.

# data[].attributes.headline
Companion Curriculum on History of Minneapolis Police

# data[].attributes.subject
Companion Curriculum on History of Minneapolis Police

# data[].attributes.body
by Educator Akeia Gross

# data[].attributes.body
This is a great resource for educators, with videos and a curriculum guide, with an emphasis on connecting history with events happening today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today, we have the opportunity to change the way that African-American history is taught in schools across the country. Stories of grit, resilience and determination should remind us all that it is as important as ever to understand and learn from the past. Through digital education we can provide an immersive learning environment that brings the real world into the classroom. Partners have the opportunity to:

Provide a digital education resource in African-American History directly to schools

Private-label 306 to inspire, amplify, and uplift the student voice

Build future leaders by uncovering past movements and role models

Showcase commitment by supporting skills and proficiencies in the Common Core State Standards

Magnify exposure among teachers, students, and select communities

Engage your community and inspire today's youth to become tomorrow's leaders.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today, we have the opportunity to change the way that African-American history is taught in schools across the country. Stories of grit, resilience and determination should remind us all that it is as important as ever to understand and learn from the past.

# data[].attributes.headline
Institute of the Black World 21st Century

# data[].attributes.subject
Institute of the Black World 21st Century

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Institute of the Black World 21st Century

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW, IBW21)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Institute of the Black World 21st Century is an organization committed to enhancing the capacity of Black communities globally to achieve cultural, social, economic and political equality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Our collection of educator resources includes a wide range of flexible materials. You will find resources that support teaching a complex moment in history or addressing today's breaking news.

Facing History students are 94% more likely than other students to report that their class motivated them to learn.

93% of Facing History students agreed that it is important to work for positive social change.

Current Events in the Classroom

Our current events resources help teachers lead effective and engaging discussions on today's news.
Learn More

"I can trust the materials to be easy to access, implement, and provide a way to engage students on sensitive topics."

Teaching Strategies

Our student-centered teaching strategies improve literacy skills, nurture critical thinking, and create a respectful classroom climate. You can implement these strategies with any academic content.
Learn More

Collections, Units, & Toolkits

Our collections, units, and toolkits provide you with a range of options to introduce students to themes that are relevant to their lives.
Learn More
Lessons & Mini-Lessons

Our lessons and mini-lessons include primary sources and news sources to support their head, heart, and conscience.
Learn More

- Facing History Educator Reflecting on Our Reconstruction Unit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Classroom Resources | Black History and Culture | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Let PBS LearningMedia connect you to a special collection of educational resources spotlighting Black artists, educators, and innovators that have shaped our nation. Get started now with the featured resources below.

Looking for more? Create your FREE account on pbslearningmedia.org and get instant-access to over 100,000 PreK-12 videos, lesson plans, games, and more!

Download the Free App

Your purchase supports PBS and helps make our programming possible.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Classroom Resources | Black History and Culture | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Let PBS LearningMedia connect you to a special collection of educational resources spotlighting Black artists, educators, and innovators that have shaped our nation. Get started now with the featured resources below. Looking for more? Create your FREE account on pbslearningmedia.org and get instant-access to over 100,000 PreK-12 videos, lesson plans, games, and more!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Students don't enter our classrooms as blank slates. When it comes to the civil rights movement, we often have to help our students unlearn what they think they know while we're teaching them what actually happened. The people were more complex, the strategies more complicated and the stakes more dangerous than we like to remember. In this episode, historian Nishani Frazier and social studies teacher Adam Sanchez demonstrate the value of teaching the movement from the grassroots up.

Teaching the civil rights movement accurately and effectively requires deconstructing the myths and misconceptions around it. Most people are familiar with a very specific version of the movement that exaggerates government support and denies the existence and persistence of racism outside the South. Julian Bond called this the "Master Narrative." It celebrates sanitized icons and downplays grassroots organizing. And it overhypes nonviolence while disparaging self-defense and Black Power. In this episode, we talk with historian Nishani Frazier and social studies teacher Adam Sanchez about how to separate fact from fiction in your civil rights teaching.

The systems that enabled and perpetuated African and Indigenous enslavement in what is now the U.S. have much in common, and their histories tell us a great deal about the present. Professors Bethany Jay and Steven Oliver join us to talk about connections between the first two seasons and how to teach them, and we preview what's to come in season three.

In this special call-in episode, listeners share their stories and questions from throughout season 2-including teaching remotely, working with families and stakeholders, and incorporating social justice into subjects like math and science. As educators, we're strongest when we support each other. And you'll hear great suggestions from fellow teachers, like these resources we discuss from Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia.

It's time for our first call-in show! We know things are chaotic for you and every other educator right now. We feel it too, so this seems like the perfect time to talk. Pick up the phone and dial 888-59-STORY (888-597-8679). Our lines are open until Sunday night, April 19. Teaching hard history is even harder right now, so let's talk about resources you can use if you're teaching virtually. Ask us your questions; tell us your stories. And let us know how you're doing.

Indian Removal was a brutal and complicated effort that textbooks often simplify. It is also inseparably related to slavery. Enslavers seeking profit drove demand for Indigenous lands, displacing hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people. Some of these Indigenous people participated in chattel slavery. Focusing on the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations, this episode pulls the lens back to show how Removal and enslavement must be taught together. This story must be told if we're going to understand the full hard history of American enslavement.

The Americas were built on the lands, labor and lives of Indigenous peoples. Despite being erased from history textbooks after the so-called first Thanksgiving, Indigenous peoples did not disappear. Colonial settlers relied on the cooperation, exploitation and forced labor of their Native neighbors to survive and thrive in what became North America. Focusing on New England, historian Margaret Newell introduces us to the Charter Generation of systematically enslaved people across this continent.

From 1936 to 1938, the Federal Writers' Project collected stories from people who had been enslaved. The WPA Slave Narrative Collection at the Library of Congress is a valuable resource; these oral histories are also problematic. Interpreting these narratives within literary and historical context, students can develop primary source literacy. Historian Cynthia Lynn Lyerly outlines unique insights these texts can add to your curriculum.

To better understand the United States' past and present, we need to better understand Indigenous identities-and classrooms play a huge role. This starts with examining what's missing from our social studies, history, civics and government curricula. Throughout this episode, we reference the K-5 Framework for Teaching Hard History as we shed light on key topics like sovereignty, land and erasure.

Educators can no longer ignore our country's history of Indigenous enslavement. Our students need a fuller understanding of the pivotal history of slavery to comprehend the present and develop a vision for our nation's future. In this mid-season recap, we highlight key lessons about this consequential part of American history-along with teaching strategies and resources-through the voices of leading scholars and educators featured so far.

Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the forced labor and bondage of Indigenous peoples was integral to the economic and political history of what became the Southwestern United States. Historian and author Andrés Reséndez outlines the significance of silver mining, Indigenous enslavement and resistance in the history of New Mexico and Latin America. We examine how, as white settlers moved west, so-called "free soil" states like California continued to institutionalize coerced labor.
Listen Now

A hundred years before the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, Europeans introduced the commercial practice of enslavement in "The New World." And for the next 400 years, millions of Indigenous people throughout the Americas were enslaved through several forms of forced labor and bondage. Historian and author Andrés Reséndez calls this "The Other Slavery," and his work is changing our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade.
Listen Now

Andrés Reséndez is the author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. His work has changed conventional wisdom about the institution of slavery in the Atlantic world. Over the next two episodes, host Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Reséndez will discuss key turning points in this history-exploring how it expands our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade and the lasting legacy of colonialism, which continues to reverberate in our communities. Be sure to join us.
Listen Now

Each autumn, Thanksgiving brings a disturbing amount of inaccurate information and troubling myths into classrooms across the United States. Most students don't learn much about the history of Native nations-and even less about Indigenous peoples today. Dr. Debbie Reese explains what to look for and what to avoid (or teach with a critical lens) when selecting children's books by and about Indigenous people. She also recommends specific books to counter common misconceptions in your classroom.
Listen Now

Children's books are often the primary way young students are exposed to the history of American slavery. But many books about slavery sugarcoat oppression. Professor Ebony Elizabeth Thomas examines what we should consider when it comes to how children's books portray African Americans and Indigenous people, their cultures and the effects of enslavement. She also explains why it's crucial to create "a balance of narratives" when selecting books about marginalized and underrepresented communities.
Listen Now

For elementary teachers approaching the topic of slavery, it can be tempting to focus only on heroes and avoid explaining oppression. But teachers' omissions speak as loudly as what they choose to include. And what children learn in the early grades has broad consequences for the rest of their education. Dr. Kate Shuster guides us through the new Teaching Hard History K-5 framework from Teaching Tolerance. We also learn how four elementary teachers are beginning to use it in their classrooms.
Listen Now

Understanding Indigenous enslavement expands our conception of slavery in what is now the United States. It spread across the entire continent and affected millions of people of different backgrounds. If we define slavery too narrowly, we can fail to see its persistence over time and even its modern-day permutations. Historian Christina Snyder examines the Civil War, Lincoln and emancipation with Indigenous people in mind.
Listen Now

Millions of Indigenous people lived in North America before European colonial powers invaded. Along with an insatiable desire for free labor, Europeans brought a system of slavery that significantly differed from the historical practices of enslavement among Native nations. Historian Christina Snyder tells the story of what happened when these worlds collided. European concepts of bondage transformed the way Native nations interacted with each other, resulted in the enslavement and death of millions of Indigenous people, and sparked widespread resistance by Native nations.
Listen Now

The Smithsonian's Eduardo Díaz and Renée Gokey discuss the importance of learning about Indigenous enslavement. And Teaching Tolerance Director Maureen Costello explains all of the program's classroom resources available for teaching this history, including a first-of-its-kind K-5 framework.
Listen Now

We're turning our attention to the enslavement of Indigenous people, spending more time with teachers in the classroom and adding support for K-5 educators. Tune in next week for more advice about teaching the history and long legacy of American slavery.
Listen Now

Historian Bethany Jay returns - answering questions from educators across the country. Host Hasan Kwame Jeffries and the co-editor of Understanding and Teaching American Slavery confront teacher anxieties and counter misconceptions in our season finale.
Listen Now

From elementary to high school, YA literature can introduce fundamental themes and information about slavery, especially when paired with primary sources. John H. Bickford shows how to capitalize on the strengths and weaknesses of trade books about slavery.
Listen Now

Using the present to explore the past. Tamara Spears and Jordan Lanfair suggest a Social Studies unit about Resistance & Kanye West, and a set of English Language Arts lessons examining holidays to understand the legacy of American slavery.
Listen Now

How it's done. Tamara Spears teaches middle school Social Studies in New York and Jordan Lanfair is a high school English Language Arts teacher in Chicago. Each has been developing additional lessons about slavery for years. They share their experiences.
Listen Now

Over the next few episodes, we're bringing Season One to a close. Tune in for stories from the classroom, guidance for elementary teachers and language arts classes. And answers to questions from listeners like you.
Listen Now

Enslavement didn't end with Emancipation. Historian James Brewer Stewart discusses modern-day slavery happening across the world-and right here in the U.S.-showing educators how to connect the past with the present.
Listen Now

A listener's question leads to a meaningful moment. And now we want more! Take a listen, then email podcast@tolerance.org to tell us your story about teaching hard history for an upcoming, special episode.
Listen Now

At James Madison's Montpelier, the legacy of enslaved people isn't silenced-and their descendants have a voice. Christian Cotz, Price Thomas and Dr. Patrice Preston Grimes explain how that happened, and why it's important.
Listen Now

In the United States, justice was never blind. Historian Paul Finkelman goes beyond legal jargon to illustrate how slavery was entangled with the opinions of the Court-and encoded into the Constitution itself.
Listen Now

Constitutional historian Paul Finkelman explains the deeply racist bargains the founding fathers struck in order to unify the country under one document and discusses what students need to know about how slavery defined America after the Revolution.
Listen Now

Film historian Ron Briley returns with more documentary, feature film and miniseries suggestions for history and English instructors. From Ken Burns to Black Panther, this episode offers background and strategies for incorporating pop culture into classroom lessons.
Listen Now

Film has long shaped our nation's historical memory, for good and bad. Film historian Ron Briley offers ways to responsibly use films in the classroom to reframe the typical narrative of American slavery and Reconstruction.
Listen Now

Most students leave school thinking enslaved people lived like characters in Gone With the Wind. Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens reveals the remarkable diversity of lived experiences within slavery and explains the gap between what scholars and students know.
Listen Now

To see a more complete picture of the experience of enslaved people, you have to redefine resistance. Dr. Kenneth S. Greenberg offers teachers a lens to help students see the ways in which enslaved people fought back against the brutality of slavery.
Listen Now

Students learning about slavery often ask, "Why didn't enslaved people just run away or revolt?" Lindsay Anne Randall offers a lesson in "Process Drama"-a method teachers can use to answer this question, build empathy and offer perspective.
Listen Now

In many ways, the U.S. has fallen short of its ideals. How can we explain this to students-particularly in the context of discussing slavery? Professor Steven Thurston Oliver has this advice for teachers: Face your fears.
Listen Now

Follow the money. Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara explains why American slavery couldn't have existed without a national commercial infrastructure that supported and benefited from the labor of enslaved people.
Listen Now

Dr. Bethany Jay is back to talk about teaching the end of the Civil War, and how enslaved people's participation in the war helped subvert the institution of slavery.
Listen Now

What really caused the Civil War? In this episode, Salem State University Professor Bethany Jay offers tips for teaching lesser-known history that clarifies this question and cuts through our cloudy national understanding of the Confederacy.
Listen Now

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What we don't know about American history hurts us all. Teaching Hard History begins with the long and brutal legacy of chattel slavery and reaches through the victories of and violent responses to the civil rights movement to the present day.

# data[].attributes.body
Interactive by Critical Resistance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex 1998 Conference

# data[].attributes.body
Great for understanding how Ella Baker's role and style has influenced today's movement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In recent years, groups in many different parts of the country-from North Carolina to Virginia to Maryland to New York-have lobbied local governments to commemorate a woman who was almost universally revered within the civil rights movement, but is less familiar to most Americans today: Ella Baker.

While well-known figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. deserve to be honored, the life of Ella Baker highlights a different model of leadership and gives insight into the long and patient work of building social movements. While King is justly remembered as a powerful preacher and rousing orator, a political strategist and practitioner of nonviolent direct action, Baker calls attention to a more specific role: that of the organizer.

Baker had a hand in building many of the most important organizations of the civil rights movement. She defied traditional gender roles of the time and elevated the often-unseen work of women to advance efforts for change. She believed in deprioritizing charismatic leadership from above and instead empowering local participants to take charge of their own struggles for freedom.

This lesson consists of two readings that shed light on the life and legacy of Ella Baker. The first offers a brief biography, starting with Baker's early life in North Carolina and ending with an overview of her work in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The second reading discusses Baker's views on leadership, highlighting her commitment to honoring the contributions of women in the movement. Questions for discussion follow each reading. (See pdf versions of both readings )

Black Lives Matter's "leaderful" and feminist organizing style reflects the legacy of Ella Baker. Photo by Johnny Silvercloud.

Introduction

Ask students: Have you ever heard of Ella Josephine Baker? What do you know of her?

Elicit or explain that Ella Baker was an organizer at the center of the civil rights movement, as well as movements that followed. She had a very different style of leadership that is affecting social movements today.

Today we'll learn about and discuss Ella Baker and her "group centered" leadership style.

Reading One
Ella Josephine Baker: A Brief Biography

In recent years, groups in many different parts of the country-from North Carolina to Virginia to Maryland to New York-have lobbied local governments to commemorate a woman who was almost universally revered within the civil rights movement, but is less familiar to most Americans today: Ella Baker.

While well-known figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. deserve to be honored, the life of Ella Baker highlights a different model of leadership and gives insight into the long and patient work of building social movements. While King is justly remembered as a powerful preacher and rousing orator, a political strategist and practitioner of nonviolent direct action, Baker calls attention to a more specific role: that of the organizer.

Baker had a hand in building many of the most important organizations of the civil rights movement. She defied traditional gender roles of the time and elevated the contributions of women. She believed in deprioritizing charismatic leadership from above and instead empowering local participants to take charge of their own struggles for freedom.

To understand Ella Baker's life and work, it is important to understand her origins. Peter Dreier, a distinguished professor of political science at Occidental College, related the beginning of Baker's story in an article for the Huffington Post:

Born in 1903, Baker grew up in rural North Carolina not far from where her grandparents had been slaves. As a girl, Baker listened to her grandmother tell stories about slave revolts. Her mother, a former teacher and deeply religious, tutored Ella at home and coached her in public speaking. As a child, Ella was part of a supportive and tightly knit black community, where friends, relatives, and neighbors helped each other out. Her grandfather mortgaged the family farm to help feed families in need. For high school, Baker's parents sent her to the boarding school affiliated with Shaw University. She remained at Shaw for college, edited the student newspaper, and graduated as class valedictorian in 1927.

Then she moved to Harlem. Financial hardship forced Baker to set aside her dream of getting a graduate degree in sociology. Despite her college education, her race and gender limited her job prospects, and she wound up waiting on tables and working in a factory. She began to write articles for the American West Indian News and in 1932 found a job as an editorial assistant and office manager for the Negro National News.

The suffering brought on by the Depression troubled her deeply. Harlem was a hotbed of radical activism, and Baker soon got involved in local groups working on behalf of tenants and consumers. In 1931 she organized the Young Negroes' Cooperative League and became its national director. The group sponsored cooperative buying clubs and grocery stores both to reduce prices and to bring people together for collective action. In her next job, paid for by the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, she organized consumer cooperatives among housing project residents. She taught adult literacy and consumer education, often with a focus on young women and housewives.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ella-baker-ferguson-and-b_b_6368394

In a January 20 article for the New York Times, Barbara Ransby, historian and author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, continued Baker's story. Ransby wrote:

Baker was a field secretary and director of branches for the NAACP in the 1940s, and she traveled throughout the Jim Crow South, organizing against discrimination and recruiting people to the Civil Rights Movement. She worked alongside King and others in the Southern Christian Leadership Council in the 1950s and was a mentor to the young activists who founded the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in 1960. SNCC went on to lead the "Freedom Rides," in which participants risked life and limb to desegregate interstate transportation....

Baker was a strategist, organizer and mother to the movement whose political acumen, humble leadership style and razor sharp political insights were legendary. It's a reflection of our selective amnesia that few people know her name.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/20/opinion/martin-luther-king-ella-baker.html

Baker lived into the 1980s and contributed steadily to social movements for more than five decades. But perhaps one of her most significant contributions came in the spring of 1960.

That fall, young African American students had begun placing orders at segregated lunch counters and refusing to leave when they were denied service, creating a crisis for the Jim Crow order. The tactic quickly spread. Soon the sit-ins were producing hundreds of arrests, drawing national attention, and sometimes sparking enraged responses from racist onlookers.

Baker recognized the importance of absorbing the energy generated by this wave of civil disobedience. As the website Civil Rights Women Leaders of the Carolinas explains:

Ella organized a meeting for student activists to congregate at Shaw University, her alma mater, in the summer of 1960. She aimed to bring student groups from throughout the South together and have them accomplish more than disjointed efforts, and over 300 students attended the first meeting. From this meeting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born.

The creation of SNCC exemplified Ella's desire to not just lead a movement, but to create group-based leadership. As she noted, "I had always considered that my role was to facilitate" and SNCC allowed her to do just that. She trained students to fight for social activism themselves, and to travel the rural South spreading these messages of change. She acquired the nickname Fundi from her leadership at SNCC; a Swahili word meaning a person who masters a craft with the help of the community, practices it, then teaches it to the next generation....

SNCC continued to meet and grow.... In 1964, SNCC held the Freedom Summer, which was an effort to focus national attention on the racism in Mississippi, and to register black voters in the state.

https://ncwomenofcivilrights.wordpress.com/ella-baker/the-sclc-and-the-birth-of-sncc/

Also in 1964, SNCC and Baker helped organize the appearance of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic Party Convention in Atlantic City, where the group challenged the legitimacy of its state's all-white official delegation.

Ella Baker continued to mentor and directly influence dozens of activists throughout her life, especially young people. By the time of her death in 1986, she was a beloved figure, renowned for her dedication to justice and her belief in the power of everyday working people to create change.

How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? Do you have any questions about what you read?

What about Ella Baker's early life do you think had an impact on her future political activism?

Baker had an important role in mentoring young people. According to the reading, what were some examples of this focus? Why do you think she might have made this a priority?

SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was a student-led organization that had a profound impact on the civil rights movement as a whole. In what ways have you seen student groups in recent years take the lead on highlighting issues of public concern?

1. What questions might you ask Ella Baker if you had the chance to talk to her? Is there more you'd like to know about her experiences?

2. What type of insights do you think Baker might have offered into today's politics?

Reading Two
Ella Baker's Legacy: A Different Model of Leadership

As a community organizer, Ella Baker brought a different style of leadership to the civil rights movement-one that contrasted with the traditional model that celebrated a few charismatic individuals. Baker believed in deemphasizing top organizational figureheads and instead cultivating the abilities of everyday people to collectively join together and take action. She upheld the idea that organizations should be run by those most impacted by the problems the organization is trying to solve.

In a June 12, 2015 article in Colorlines, Barbara Ransby discussed Baker's approach to leadership:

Although she objected to the top-down, predominately male leadership structures that were typical of groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) and the NAACP in the 1950s and '60s, she realized the necessity for grounded, community-based leader-organizers such as sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer and Cleveland, Mississippi-based local organizer Amzie Moore. Baker was not against leadership. She was opposed to hierarchical leadership that disempowered the masses and further privileged the already privileged.

When Oprah Winfrey complained that recent protests against police violence lack leadership, she was describing [Martin Luther King's] style of leading, or at least the way in which the King legacy has been most widely branded: the reverend as the strong, all-knowing, slightly imperfect but still not-like-us type of leader.

Baker represented a different leadership tradition altogether. She combined the generic concept of leadership- "a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task"-and a confidence in the wisdom of ordinary people to define their problems and imagine solutions. Baker helped everyday people channel and congeal their collective power to resist oppression and fight for sustainable, transformative change....

That collective effort required leaders who were accountable to one another and were not singular. There were many organizers in groups such as SNCC who modeled Baker's brand of what sociologist Charles Payne has called "group-centered leadership."

Rather than someone with a fancy title standing at a podium speaking for or to the people, group-centered leaders are at the center of many concentric circles. They strengthen the group, forge consensus and negotiate a way forward. That kind of leadership is impactful, democratic, and, I would argue, more radical and sustainable, than the alternatives.
https://www.colorlines.com/articles/ella-taught-me-shattering-myth-leaderless-movement

Another way in which Baker's leadership style contrasted with the norm within many civil rights organizations was her emphasis on valuing the contributions of women. Baker was opinionated and outspoken, even when social norms held that women should be quiet and deferential. At both the SCLC and NAACP, she protested the fact that formal power rested in the hands of men, who almost exclusively were given top offices, while women were relegated to support roles.

Congressperson John Lewis, himself a prominent civil rights activist, wrote in his memoir Walking with the Wind: "Long before people began using the term 'male chauvinism,' Ella Baker was describing it and denouncing it in the civil rights movement, and she was right. There were very, very few women getting credit for their work, and even fewer emerged into leadership positions."

In a January 16, 2017 article for Time magazine, journalist Julie Scelfo notes that the prevalence of sexism, even within the movement, may be one reason that Baker is less well-known today than she might be otherwise:

Despite her level of experience and proven track record, [Martin Luther King, Jr.] had difficulty allowing a woman's decisions to trump his own, and her idea was that the organization should devote its resources more to promoting and enabling its overall mission rather than celebrating a charismatic leader. Wyatt Tee Walker, an early SCLC board member, told the filmmaker Joanne Grant that the ministers' refusal to follow Baker's advice was in practice with the era's norms. "This was before the days of women's liberation," he says in the 1981 film Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker ....

Despite Baker's gifts for leadership and oratory, the SCLC pastors, intent on preserving their patriarchal hierarchy, refused to allow her to share in their prestige.
https://time.com/4633460/mlk-day-ella-baker/

Scelfo goes on to discuss another reason why Ella Baker may be less well-known and widely celebrated today than some other civil rights activists:

Baker spent years of her life performing the essential-but far from glamorous-act of listening, a crucial first step in helping beleaguered Blacks develop enough self-worth to demand being treated with dignity in an environment where they had every reason to fear brutality and economic reprisal from their white neighbors. She also understood group dynamics and how to empower people to join forces, a delicate task that involves responding to a wide array of human feelings.

A narrative about this kind of work is inherently less dramatic and far more complicated than, say, the tale of a discreet act of bravery on a bus. But great leaders have recognized for centuries that high emotional intelligence, or the ability to recognize and respond to other people's feelings, is central to successfully influencing them.
https://time.com/4633460/mlk-day-ella-baker/

Baker possessed this type of intelligence and infused it into her approach to organizing. In doing so, she paved the way for many young people and women to grow in their own leadership.

Today, her legacy can be seen in organizations like Black Lives Matter, which promote a "leaderful" and feminist style of organizing. Because of this, Baker not only helped change the world, she changed how people went about changing the world.

How much of the material in this reading was new to you, and how much was already familiar? Do you have any questions about what you read?

Did your perspective of the civil right movement change due to this reading? If so, how?

In what ways has sexism affected how we remember the civil rights movement? What were some ways that Ella Baker tried to intervene to highlight the work contributed by women?

What do you think about Ella Baker's style of leadership? What positives do you see? Are there any potential negatives you can think of? Explain your position.

1. Ella Baker believed that everyday people should be empowered to lead their own struggles against issues that directly affect them. Do you think this idea is relevant today? If so, how?

2. Think about the changes you think we need to see in this society. Do you think this change will be brought about only if great leaders emerge to make it happen?

3. Do you share some of Ella Baker's qualities, such as the ability to listen to others closely? Understand group dynamics? Encourage people to join forces? How might your talents be put to use to make positive change in the world?

Research assistance provided by Akin Olla.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Celebrating Ella Baker and Her "Group-Centered Leadership"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In recent years, groups in many different parts of the country-from North Carolina to Virginia to Maryland to New York-have lobbied local governments to commemorate a woman who was almost universally revered within the civil rights movement, but is less familiar to most Americans today: Ella Baker.

# data[].attributes.headline
Early Childhood and Elementary Resources 

# data[].attributes.subject
Early Childhood and Elementary Resources 

# data[].attributes.body
Collected for BLM at School Week of Action by DC Area Educators for Social Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talks

Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talk is part anti-bias training, part book review. Each short segment explores anti-bias books for home and the classroom with the goal to strengthen parents' and teachers' anti-bias, anti-racism lens and their ability to critically analyze children's media.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Black Lives Matter - Early Childhood and Elementary Resources - D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Freedom Reads: Anti-Bias Book Talk is part anti-bias training, part book review. Each short segment explores anti-bias books for home and the classroom with the goal to strengthen parents' and teachers' anti-bias, anti-racism lens and their ability to critically analyze children's media.

# data[].attributes.headline
InterAction's virtual Counter-Narrative Workshops for young BIPOC 

# data[].attributes.subject
InterAction's virtual Counter-Narrative Workshops for young BIPOC 

# data[].attributes.body
Please feel free to e-mail  me directly if you're interested in any of our racial justice workshops iliana@interactioninc.org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We understand that young people of color are inundated with negative stereotypes, images and myths. Not only can these have harmful impacts on their social and emotional health, but when we allow them to continue, it perpetuates racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression within our communities.
We need to support our young people of color (YPOC) to build up the strength to resist the misrepresentations about who they are and who they will become.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We understand that young people of color are inundated with negative stereotypes, images and myths. Not only can these have harmful impacts on their social and emotional health, but when we allow them to continue, it perpetuates racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression within our communities.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a great resource for primary source learning. Lessons for all history subjects and lessons to introduce primary source learning. Easily differentiated for students who need more support or a challenge.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History Lessons | Stanford History Education Group

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence.

# data[].attributes.body
Use this document to help bring intentionality/focus in the coming school year around the 7 practices we discussed.

# data[].attributes.headline
"Forty Acres and a Mule" by Oscar Brown, Jr.

# data[].attributes.subject
"Forty Acres and a Mule" by Oscar Brown, Jr.

# data[].attributes.body
Great song for helping to frame discussions around Special Field Order 15 and the current call for reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans in America

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Discover and share books you love on Goodreads.

# data[].attributes.body
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of hig...

# data[].attributes.headline
Brother, Sister, Leader: The Official Curriculum of The Brotherhood/Sister Sol

# data[].attributes.subject
Brother, Sister, Leader: The Official Curriculum of The Brotherhood/Sister Sol

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brother, Sister, Leader: The Official Curriculum of The Brotherhood/Sister Sol

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
🎥 Watch: "Legacy" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sCNHUze6Eak @BroSis512's short film with youth organizers fighting for change in #Harlem these past 25 years & their #Legacy. Shout out to @YaraMej on the beautiful photography 📸 & @PeaceLumi on the editing👨🏻‍💻 Please watch & share 🙏🏽♥️ #BroSis25 https://twitter.com/brosis512/status/1291481340936966154

# data[].attributes.headline
Culture, Literacy, and Learning: Taking Bloom in the Midst of the Whirlwind by Carol D. Lee

# data[].attributes.subject
Culture, Literacy, and Learning: Taking Bloom in the Midst of the Whirlwind by Carol D. Lee

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Finally - a book on urban literature education that puts its own theories into practice. I've never read of a pedagogical approach that I would agree with in its entirety, but Lee comes fairly close. Particularly useful is that she provides readers with transcripts and classroom examples that illustrate her approach & allow us to track student growth throughout her project. ...more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Finally - a book on urban literature education that puts its own theories into practice. I've never read of a pedagogical approach that I would agree with in its entirety, but Lee comes fairly close. Particularly useful is that she provides readers with transcripts and classroom examples that illustrate her approach & allow us to track student growth throughout her project.

# data[].attributes.headline
Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap by A. Wade Boykin & Pedro Noguera

# data[].attributes.subject
Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap by A. Wade Boykin & Pedro Noguera

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A. Wade Boykin & Pedro Noguera Table of Contents

Reviews | Video | About the Authors

About This Book
"Unless we believe that those who have more are inherently superior to those who have less, we should be troubled by the fact that patterns of achievement are often fairly predictable, particularly with respect to students' race and class."
In Creating the Opportunity to Learn, Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera help navigate the turbid waters of evidence-based methodologies and chart a course toward closing (and eliminating) the academic achievement gap. Turning a critical eye to current and recent research, the authors present a comprehensive view of the achievement gap and advocate for strategies that contribute to the success of all children.

Boykin and Noguera maintain that it is possible to close the achievement gap by abandoning failed strategies, learning from successful schools, and simply doing more of what the research shows is most effective. Success is founded on equity, but equity involves more than simply ensuring students have equal access to education; equity also entails a focus on outcomes and results.

If we want to bring about significant improvements in those outcomes, we have to do more to address the context in which learning takes place. In short, we must create schools where a child's race or class is no longer a predictor for how well he or she might perform.
See the book's table of contents and read excerpts
Reviewsand Testimonials
"Unlike some researchers who only speak in professorial language when bringing up suggestions about their work, this duo prefers to clearly define and explicate these rather complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. ...
"As education researchers well versed in speaking to communities, Boykin and Noguera's Creating the Opportunity to Learn makes for a pleasant and informative read that accurately builds the bridge between the research to educators."

-Jose Luis Vilson, Middle school math teacher,
coach, and data analyst, New York, N.Y.

Book Details

Are You a Member?

Aboutthe Authors

A. WADE BOYKIN is a professor and director of the graduate program in the Department of Psychology at Howard University. He is also the executive director of the Capstone Institute at Howard University, formally known as the Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed At Risk. Dr. Boykin has done extensive work in the area of research methodology; the interface of culture, context, motivation, and cognition; black child development; and academic achievement in the American social context. He is coeditor of Research Directions of Black Psychologists, which was a finalist for the American Psychological Association's Book of the Year.
Read more
PEDRO A. NOGUERA, Ph.D., is the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University. He holds tenured faculty appointments in the departments of Teaching and Learning and Humanities and Social Sciences at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development and in the Department of Sociology at New York University. He is also the executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education and the codirector of the Institute for the Study of Globalization and Education in Metropolitan Settings.
Read more
diversity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
ASCD Book: Creating the Opportunity to Learn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A. Wade Boykin & Pedro Noguera Table of Contents Reviews | Video | About the Authors "Unless we believe that those who have more are inherently superior to those who have less, we should be troubled by the fact that patterns of achievement are often fairly predictable, particularly with respect to students' race and class."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A growing resource for learning about anti-racism, and supporting the people & organizations doing important work for the Black Lives Matter movement.

# data[].attributes.body
A beautiful novel about the repercussions of the slave trade from the 18th century to present day. From Ghana to the United States, the reader watches the lives of two sisters and the generations that follow unfold.

# data[].attributes.body
WBEZ (Chicago's NPR station) investigation into how Chase Bank, among others, continue to inflict redlining practices on Chicago's West and South sides

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Chicago's Latino communities do not see much more lending than the city's black neighborhoods.

But some home ownership advocates working in Latino neighborhoods say they feel they're up against a bigger threat than weak lending - rising home prices and property taxes. In fact, homeownership counselors at the nonprofit LUCHA, in Humboldt Park, said if they were to see lending amounts increase in Latino neighborhoods, that might signal higher home prices and gentrification, which they say is making it harder for longtime neighborhood residents to purchase property.

At The Resurrection Project in the historically Latino Pilsen neighborhood, homeownership counselor Lizette Carretero said it can be hard to recognize lending disparities from the trenches.

"It goes unseen," said Carretero, who said advocates have lots of ideas about how banks might improve their lending record in Latino communities and "transfer those dollars over to the neighborhoods that need them." She suggests lending to DACA recipients, offering significant down payment assistance and making it easier to get rehab loans so families could purchase "as-is" properties that need fixing up.

Lenders respond

Lenders contacted by WBEZ declined to give on-the-record interviews for this story, but a number sent written statements, and some took issue with WBEZ's analysis.

"Guaranteed Rate made more loans in minority neighborhoods during the seven-year period covered by this story than any other lender," a spokesperson for the online lender wrote. "Chicago is our home, and we are serving our entire community."

A Chase home lending spokesperson did not offer a reason why the bank's black-white lending disparity is so much wider than even the industry as a whole. She said Chase has doubled its homebuyer grants on the South and West sides and is expanding access to low down payment loans. She also pointed to the bank's support for affordable housing. "Every Chicagoan should have equal access to the opportunity of homeownership, and we all have work to do for this to happen," the spokeswoman wrote.

Bank of America said the analysis failed to provide a full picture of its home mortgage lending since it excluded refinance loans, which accounted for 57% of its lending in Chicago in the years analyzed. A spokeswoman said refinances helped keep people in their homes. Bank of America's lending disparities were less when it came to refinancing, but the bank still had more disparate lending than the industry as a whole. WBEZ excluded refinance loans from our analysis to avoid double counting capital flows.

Like Chase, Bank of America also pointed to work with local nonprofits to promote homebuyer education and counseling, and highlighted grants that pay for closing costs and help with down payments.

Wells Fargo pointed out it recently received the highest possible rating from the federal government for its performance under the Community Reinvestment Act. Lenders are graded on different benchmarks under that law than what WBEZ used in its analysis.

Overall, banks pointed out that higher home prices in white areas mean there are more dollars lent there. Lenders criticized WBEZ for failing to compare demand for loans and borrower qualifications across white, black and Latino neighborhoods.

The fallout in neighborhoods

Community residents say the disparate lending has tangible and pernicious impacts on their day-to-day lives.

"First of all, you impact the number of homeowners who live here," said Asiaha Butler, executive director of the Resident Association of Greater Englewood (RAGE). And for Butler, homeowners are key to turning around the community's struggle with poverty, crime, abandoned buildings and vacant lots. "Getting people to really look at Englewood as a place to invest, and to purchase properties that are here and available - we have a lot of homes that could be renovated or owner occupied."

RAGE started a " Buy the Block " campaign to encourage residents to become property owners - and community interest has been strong; she's packed meeting rooms with potential buyers. But Butler said big banks seem disinterested.

"We have banks here. Chase is here. Bank of America is here. U.S. Bank is here," Butler said. Yet over the last seven years, across Englewood and West Englewood - communities spanning six square miles in the heart of Chicago's South Side - those three major banks collectively made just 33 home purchase loans.

"It kills me because you have a room full of 150 people willing to do what they have to do to purchase property in Englewood," Butler said. "They can't get a loan to do that, because of their ZIP code, because of their race. ... How can I promote that, if our lenders are not on the same side?"

Good income, good credit, good assets - no loan

Our findings show that stark lending disparities affect even middle-class black communities.

Sims Fears, the director of the Greater Chatham Initiative, organizes trolley tours that wind through her historic South Side community of stately brick two-flats and bungalows to highlight homes for sale. The trolleys are typically packed with people eager to buy in Chatham.

But in late 2018, Sims Fears got her own rude lesson in lending when she put in an offer to buy the former home of "Mr. Cub," Ernie Banks. The 3,500-square-foot bungalow with wraparound front windows sits on a quiet corner at 82nd and Rhodes. The living room features built-in shelves backed with red felt where the baseball great displayed his trophies.

The property needed work. The windows wouldn't open, lights didn't turn on. Sims Fears talked the seller down to $160,000.

But when she went to get a bank loan, she ran into problems, even though Sims Fears and her husband have good incomes, credit scores and assets. They planned on doing $200,000 worth of work on the house.

That's when appraisers calculated that even with all-new electricity, plumbing, windows, air conditioning, a modern kitchen and a mother-in-law suite, the remodeled house would be worth only $300,000 - shockingly low.

Sims Fears believes there's one reason for that, the same reason red lines were drawn around neighborhoods back in the late 1930s - the house is in a majority-black neighborhood. The low appraisal meant Sims Fears couldn't borrow the money she needed to do the repairs and upgrades, even though she could easily afford the loan.

Her lender told her she had one option: go back to the seller and talk them down further.

"So it's like they were saying, 'OK, so this house - this 3,500-square-foot, three-bedroom house - is only worth $100,000,'" she said.

It was a moral question for Sims Fears. Here she is, neighborhood booster, telling folks to buy into this historic black neighborhood, invest, build wealth for your family. Now, she felt like the system was telling her to steal the wealth another family had built up.

"And I said, 'Well, I'm not going to do that. I'll make up the difference.'"

So Sims Fears took $60,000 from her family's savings and put it into the house to get the loan.

"Just to close," said Sims Fears.

Studies have concluded that homes in black neighborhoods are consistently under-valued - which affects the amount of money buyers can get from lenders, and often whether they can purchase at all in a particular neighborhood. If Sims Fears hadn't put her own money into the deal, she may not have been able to get the home. It's unlikely it would have passed inspection in its original "as-is" state - another reason banks give for not lending.

Zeke Morris said what Sims Fears experienced is not unusual. "The house that Nedra lives in - put that house at 4000 north, that house is worth $1.2 million, easily - the very same house," said Morris, who oversees two dozen realtors at EXIT Strategy Realty on the South Side. He estimates that in 30% to 40% of cases where the buyer and seller come to an agreement on price on Chicago's South Side, appraisers determine the home is worth less, and the bank won't lend at the agreed-upon price.

"And a lot of times those deals - they die as a result of that," Morris said.

Sims Fears is a particularly savvy observer in all this. She served as an assistant commissioner for housing under Mayor Harold Washington in the 1980s. And she worked for Fannie Mae in the 2000s, developing loan products to fit the needs of lower-income communities across 10 states in the Midwest. She said that's what financial institutions need to do for Chicago neighborhoods: come up with loans that work better for Chicago's black and Latino neighborhoods. She'd like to see loans based on borrower qualifications, not home values - loans that require less money down, smaller loans, loans that allow for significant rehab.

She said banks need to "look at their disparities and how they can make it up."

But Sims Fears also sees a role here for the city.

She said Chicago needs to see its housing stock as part of the city's infrastructure - like sewer pipes or roads. Something that needs to be invested in.

She said Chicago needs to see its housing stock as part of the city's infrastructure - like sewer pipes or roads. Something that needs to be invested in.

That could take lots of forms, Sims Fears said. What about equity insurance in black neighborhoods so homeowners can be sure their homes won't go below a certain value? Or a pool of rehab money for people whose homes - because of depressed property values - need more repairs than the structures are supposedly worth.

Why no lending?

Discrimination in lending can take place without anyone intending to discriminate, said Lauren Nolan, who has researched mortgage lending in Chicago for the Woodstock Institute, a group founded 40 years ago in part to watchdog these very lending numbers.

"We don't have the same level, necessarily, of the overt discrimination that we saw during the redlining era. What we're seeing now is more systemic racism," she said. "It is, in some respects, a new form of redlining - de facto."

"What we're seeing now is more systemic racism. ... It is, in some respects, a new form of redlining - de facto."
Lauren Nolan, mortgage lending researcher

Nolan said the Community Reinvestment Act, the federal law meant to force banks to lend in all communities, needs to be strengthened. Currently, 98% of banks get passing grades under the act, according to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which works to end discrimination in lending. Banks are not judged by the metrics WBEZ and City Bureau examined in this analysis.

Experts say past discrimination fuels today's inequities.

"These patterns that we're seeing today are a product of that history of disinvestment," said Geoff Smith, executive director of the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University.

The fact that banks denied loans in African American neighborhoods previously means properties there need significant rehab, said Smith. That depresses home values today and makes it difficult to get a loan on properties across entire neighborhoods, even for qualified buyers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Home Loans in Chicago: One Dollar To White Neighborhoods, 12 Cents To Black

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In Chicago, lenders have invested more into a single white neighborhood than all the black neighborhoods combined. Call it modern-day redlining.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ted Talk by Beverly Daniel TatuM: Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk?   

# data[].attributes.subject
Ted Talk by Beverly Daniel TatuM: Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk?   

# data[].attributes.body
This video has really helped me begin the conversation about race with very young children.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk? | Beverly Daniel Tatum | TEDxStanford

# data[].attributes.body
Not technically a documentary, but a great film and book.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: The Lacks Family Legacy (HBO)

# data[].attributes.headline
Great Graphic Novel - I Am Alfonso Jones

# data[].attributes.subject
Great Graphic Novel - I Am Alfonso Jones

# data[].attributes.body
Also listed under recommended fiction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Tony Medina
Illustrated by Stacey Robinson, John Jennings

Alfonso Jones can't wait to play the role of Hamlet in his school's hip-hop rendition of the classic Shakespearean play. He also wants to let his best friend, Danetta, know how he really feels about her. But as he is buying his first suit, an off-duty police officer mistakes a clothes hanger for a gun, and he shoots Alfonso.

When Alfonso wakes up in the afterlife, he's on a ghost train guided by well-known victims of police shootings, who teach him what he needs to know about this subterranean spiritual world. Meanwhile, Alfonso's family and friends struggle with their grief and seek justice for Alfonso in the streets. As they confront their new realities, both Alfonso and those he loves realize the work that lies ahead in the fight for justice.

In the first graphic novel for young readers to focus on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, as in Hamlet, the dead shall speak-and the living yield even more surprises.

Foreword by Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy
Read the Foreword by Bryan Stevenson and Tony Medina's Author's Note. Book Trailer: I Am Alfonso Jones
Check out Tony Medina's article in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Journal, Language Arts, titled, "Alfonso Jones Matters." This is a personal narrative detailing Tony's construction of a protagonist for a graphic novel that captures the quest for justice at the heart of the Black Lives Matter movement.

About the Creators

Tony Medina - Author

is the author of six beloved books for young readers, as well as multiple volumes of poetry for adults. A Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and a professor of creative writing at Howard University, Dr. Medina is a two-time winner of the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People. He lives in the Washington, DC area.

Stacey Robinson

is an assistant professor of graphic design at the University of Illinois and an Arthur Schomburg Fellow with an MFA from the University at Buffalo. As part of the collaborative team "Black Kirby" with John Jennings, he creates graphic novels, gallery exhibitions, and lectures that deconstruct the work of artist Jack Kirby to re-imagine Black resistance spaces inspired by hip-hop, religion, the arts, and sciences. Robinson lives in Illinois.

John Jennings

co-edited the Eisner-nominated anthology The Blacker the Ink. He is a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California, Riverside, and the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. Jennings lives in California.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Tony MedinaIllustrated by Stacey Robinson, John Jennings Alfonso Jones can't wait to play the role of Hamlet in his school's hip-hop rendition of the classic Shakespearean play. He also wants to let his best friend, Danetta, know how he really feels about her.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Brutal History Of The Texas Rangers 

# data[].attributes.subject
The Brutal History Of The Texas Rangers 

# data[].attributes.body
Interview with Doug Swanson, author of Cult of Glory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
subscribe to Fresh Air podcast

subscribe to Fresh Air podcast

Their exploits are portrayed in countless movies and TV shows, but author Doug Swanson says the law enforcement agency has a dark history of abuse and officially-sanctioned racial oppression - including burning villages, hunting runaway slaves and murdering Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Swanson's book is 'Cult of Glory.'

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead looks at what he calls the "stock jazz-movie ending," a basic plot element subject to many variations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Brutal History Of The Texas Rangers : Fresh Air

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Their exploits are portrayed in countless movies and TV shows, but author Doug Swanson says the law enforcement agency has a dark history of abuse and officially-sanctioned racial oppression - including burning villages, hunting runaway slaves and murdering Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Swanson's book is 'Cult of Glory.'

# data[].attributes.headline
Police Used to Remove People from Land in Louisville, KY

# data[].attributes.subject
Police Used to Remove People from Land in Louisville, KY

# data[].attributes.body
A history of police being used to protect land and also remove people from land is a direct throughline to now:  Breonna Taylor's neighborhood is actively being regentrified by the city of Louisville. The police are targeting residents on her street and neighborhood, attempting to disrupt these residences and their lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We Investigated Breonna Taylor's Lawyer's Latest Allegations

# data[].attributes.body
Stories from Survivors of Historical Trauma. Trailer film that examines loss and resiliency from generations of oppression and trauma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Dodging Bullets - A Documentary Film on Historical Trauma

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dodging Bullets—A Documentary Film about  Historical Trauma — Official Trailer

# data[].attributes.headline
Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning: Master Teacher Project

# data[].attributes.subject
Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning: Master Teacher Project

# data[].attributes.body
A remarkable (and FREE) resource.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Thanks to the support of the Kauffman Foundation, BetterLesson partnered with 22 teachers and school leaders based in Kansas City and the surrounding counties who implement CRTL best practices in their classrooms to capture and share their effective practices.

While eradicating racism from our educational institutions seems like a daunting task, there is work that can be done within the walls of a school or classroom. Research has shown there are many teaching and professional development strategies that can lead teachers of all genders and races to treat students more equitably and maximize the learning of students who have historically been most underserved by our education system.

In order to help close the race- and ethnicity-based opportunity and achievement gaps in education, we are providing teachers with culturally responsive strategies, tools, and resources to ensure their classrooms maximize the learning of all students, and in particular those that have historically been most marginalized by our education system.

These culturally responsive strategies, tools, and resources are equally important for teachers who teach mostly white students. The best CRTL approaches will teach all students to be racially conscious, equity-minded, anti-bias, and anti-racist.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning: Master Teacher Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thanks to the support of the Kauffman Foundation, BetterLesson partnered with 22 teachers and school leaders based in Kansas City and the surrounding counties who implement CRTL best practices in their classrooms to capture and share their effective practices.

# data[].attributes.headline
Primary source assignment for Day 2 Breakout session

# data[].attributes.subject
Primary source assignment for Day 2 Breakout session

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Primary source Thursday evening assignment.MOV

# data[].attributes.body
“Nice White Parents” is a new podcast from Serial Productions, a New York Times Company, about the 60-year relationship between white parents and the public school down the block.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Episode One: The Book of Statuses (Published 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From Serial and The New York Times: “Nice White Parents” looks at the 60-year relationship between white parents and the public school down the block.

# data[].attributes.headline
Graphic: Diversity, Belonging, Inclusion, Equity

# data[].attributes.subject
Graphic: Diversity, Belonging, Inclusion, Equity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
DEEP exists to create space and experiences that foster conversations around equity and dismantling systemic oppression and racism in pursuit of advancing equitable outcomes for ALL.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Disruptive Equity Education Project | Intentional. Impactful. Insightful. Inspirational.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Disruptive Equity Education Project Intentional. Impactful. Insightful. Inspirational. Learn How Envisioning cultures grounded in equity where all individuals are seen, heard, respected and valued. DEEP exists to create space and experiences that foster conversations around equity and dismantling systemic oppression and racism in pursuit of advancing equitable outcomes for ALL.

# data[].attributes.headline
Witness- an activist's guide to archiving

# data[].attributes.subject
Witness- an activist's guide to archiving

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
WITNESS Program Director Sam Gregory's report and work on deepfakes has continued to get traction with mentions in CNN, The Washington Post, Fortune, and MIT Technology Review.

WITNESS and Berkeley Copwatch are excited to announce the release of a new set of tools and guidance to support community-based police accountability groups in collecting, organizing and storing documentation of police encounters.

Setting criteria for content removal is a good start, but the platform must do more to address simpler forms of media manipulation.

Top

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
WITNESS: Documenting Human Rights with Video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
WITNESS Program Director Sam Gregory's report and work on deepfakes has continued to get traction with mentions in CNN, The Washington Post, Fortune, and MIT Technology Review. WITNESS and Berkeley Copwatch are excited to announce the release of a new set of tools and guidance to support community-based police accountability groups in collecting, organizing and storing documentation of police encounters.

# data[].attributes.headline
Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice

# data[].attributes.subject
Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Students like photographs. They're visual and engaging, so they make great learning tools. Photographs are an excellent way to capture the spirit of an event or idea. However, learning how to interpret photographs can be challenging. These lessons will help students learn to think about photos more deeply. In addition, the lessons will expand students' knowledge of social justice issues. They can be used to supplement another lesson or readings, or they can stand alone.

Each lesson in the series builds background knowledge about a particular social justice issue and addresses at least one English language arts skill. The lesson objectives also promote critical thinking skills. Here are some of the issues and skills addressed in the lessons:

understand that people experience injustices

understand why and how people take action to address injustice

recognize how experiences are shaped by membership in groups defined by race, gender, socioeconomic status, culture, ethnicity, ability

recognize how the historical moment and the social context shape experience

develop empathy for people whose experiences differ from their own.

They should also help students "read" photographs by getting them to:

describe what they see in a photograph;

understand that photographs are not merely reflections of reality, but mediated images that convey many meanings;

see that photographs have both denotative meanings (those that are literal) and connotative meanings (those that are constructed through individual and collective associations);

understand the importance of the context in which a photograph was taken, and determine how specific photographs fit into the context in which they were taken;

identify the mood of a photograph and determine what elements contribute to creating that mood;

analyze color, light and shadow, and how they contribute to a photograph's meanings;

analyze the composition of photographs, including how photographers shape meaning by choosing how to crop images;

identify a photograph's point of view.

How do photographs convey meaning? How do viewers contribute to constructing that meaning?

How are photographs similar to and different from other kinds of communication?

What role can photographs play in revealing injustice? What role can they play in encouraging people to take action against injustice?

How do photographs show activism and activists?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Using Photographs to Teach Social Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

# data[].attributes.body
Free Downloadable Poster Art

# data[].attributes.body
Fertile Ground

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Is There Racial Inequality at Your School?

Based on civil rights data released by the U.S. Department of Education, ProPublica has built an interactive database to examine racial disparities in educational opportunities and school discipline. Look up more than 96,000 individual public and charter schools and 17,000 districts to see how they compare with their counterparts. | About Our Data | Related Story Local Stories

This database was last updated in October 2018, and its latest data is from the 2015-16 school year. Researchers can find more recent data at the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection site.

School districts where White students are more likely to be in an Advanced Placement class or gifted and talented program, compared with Black students.

Note: When unified school districts do not exist, we display secondary school districts. In districts where there are too few students of a specific group to calculate a measure, we omitted the result.

Nationally, White students are 1.8 times as likely as Black students to be in an Advanced Placement class.

Compare student access to opportunities and discipline on average, across states. Click on each state for full details.

State

Nonwhite Students

Students Who Get Free/Reduced-Price Lunch

High School Graduation Rate

Opportunity (White students are this number of times as likely to be in an AP class, compared with Black students)

Discipline (Black students are this number of times as likely to be suspended, compared with White students)

State

Nonwhite Students

Students Who Get Free/Reduced-Price Lunch

High School Graduation Rate

Opportunity (White students are this number of times as likely to be in an AP class, compared with Hispanic students)

Discipline (Hispanic students are this number of times as likely to be suspended, compared with White students)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Is there racial inequality at your school? Based on civil rights data released by the U.S. Department of Education, ProPublica built an interactive database to examine racial disparities in educational opportunities and school discipline. Look up more than 96,000 individual public and charter schools and 17,000 school districts to see how they compare.

# data[].attributes.body
James Baldwin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Let's begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time. Everyone in this room is in one way or another aware of that. We are in a revolutionary situation, no matter how unpopular that word has become in this country. The society in which we live is desperately menaced, not by Khrushchev, but from within. To any citizen of this country who figures himself as responsible - and particularly those of you who deal with the minds and hearts of young people - must be prepared to "go for broke." Or to put it another way, you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won't happen.

Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of education in the first place. It would seem to me that when a child is born, if I'm the child's parent, it is my obligation and my high duty to civilize that child. Man is a social animal. He cannot exist without a society. A society, in turn, depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for granted. Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it - at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change.

Now, if what I have tried to sketch has any validity, it becomes thoroughly clear, at least to me, that any Negro who is born in this country and undergoes the American educational system runs the risk of becoming schizophrenic. On the one hand he is born in the shadow of the stars and stripes and he is assured it represents a nation which has never lost a war. He pledges allegiance to that flag which guarantees "liberty and justice for all." He is part of a country in which anyone can become president, and so forth. But on the other hand he is also assured by his country and his countrymen that he has never contributed anything to civilization-that his past is nothing more than a record of humiliations gladly endured. He is assumed by the republic that he, his father, his mother, and his ancestors were happy, shiftless, watermelon-eating darkies who loved Mr. Charlie and Miss Ann, that the value he has as a black man is proven by one thing only - his devotion to white people. If you think I am exaggerating, examine the myths which proliferate in this country about Negroes.

All this enters the child's consciousness much sooner than we as adults would like to think it does. As adults, we are easily fooled because we are so anxious to be fooled. But children are very different. Children, not yet aware that it is dangerous to look too deeply at anything, look at everything, look at each other, and draw their own conclusions. They don't have the vocabulary to express what they see, and we, their elders, know how to intimidate them very easily and very soon. But a black child, looking at the world around him, though he cannot know quite what to make of it, is aware that there is a reason why his mother works so hard, why his father is always on edge. He is aware that there is some reason why, if he sits down in the front of the bus, his father or mother slaps him and drags him to the back of the bus. He is aware that there is some terrible weight on his parents' shoulders which menaces him. And it isn't long - in fact it begins when he is in school - before he discovers the shape of his oppression.

Let us say that the child is seven years old and I am his father, and I decide to take him to the zoo, or to Madison Square Garden, or to the U.N. Building, or to any of the tremendous monuments we find all over New York. We get into a bus and we go from where I live on 131st Street and Seventh Avenue downtown through the park and we get in New York City, which is not Harlem. Now, where the boy lives - even if it is a housing project - is in an undesirable neighborhood. If he lives in one of those housing projects of which everyone in New York is so proud, he has at the front door, if not closer, the pimps, the whores, the junkies - in a word, the danger of life in the ghetto. And the child knows this, though he doesn't know why.

I still remember my first sight of New York. It was really another city when I was born - where I was born. We looked down over the Park Avenue streetcar tracks. It was Park Avenue, but I didn't know what Park Avenue meant downtown. The Park Avenue I grew up on, which is still standing, is dark and dirty. No one would dream of opening a Tiffany's on that Park Avenue, and when you go downtown you discover that you are literally in the white world. It is rich - or at least it looks rich. It is clean - because they collect garbage downtown. There are doormen. People walk about as though they owned where they are - and indeed they do. And it's a great shock. It's very hard to relate yourself to this. You don't know what it means. You know - you know instinctively - that none of this is for you. You know this before you are told. And who is it for and who is paying for it? And why isn't it for you?

Later on when you become a grocery boy or messenger and you try to enter one of those buildings a man says, "Go to the back door." Still later, if you happen by some odd chance to have a friend in one of those buildings, the man says, "Where's your package?" Now this by no means is the core of the matter. What I'm trying to get at is that by the time the Negro child has had, effectively, almost all the doors of opportunity slammed in his face, and there are very few things he can do about it. He can more or less accept it with an absolutely inarticulate and dangerous rage inside - all the more dangerous because it is never expressed. It is precisely those silent people whom white people see every day of their lives - I mean your porter and your maid, who never say anything more than "Yes Sir" and "No, Ma'am." They will tell you it's raining if that is what you want to hear, and they will tell you the sun is shining if that is what you want to hear. They really hate you-really hate you because in their eyes (and they're right) you stand between them and life. I want to come back to that in a moment. It is the most sinister of the facts, I think, which we now face.

There is something else the Negro child can do, to. Every street boy - and I was a street boy, so I know - looking at the society which has produced him, looking at the standards of that society which are not honored by anybody, looking at your churches and the government and the politicians, understand that this structure is operated for someone else's benefit - not for his. And there's no reason in it for him. If he is really cunning, really ruthless, really strong - and many of us are - he becomes a kind of criminal. He becomes a kind of criminal because that's the only way he can live. Harlem and every ghetto in this city - every ghetto in this country - is full of people who live outside the law. They wouldn't dream of calling a policeman. They wouldn't, for a moment, listen to any of those professions of which we are so proud on the Fourth of July. They have turned away from this country forever and totally. They live by their wits and really long to see the day when the entire structure comes down.

The point of all this is that black men were brought here as a source of cheap labor. They were indispensable to the economy. In order to justify the fact that men were treated as though they were animals, the white republic had to brainwash itself into believing that they were, indeed, animals and deserved to be treated like animals. Therefor it is almost impossible for any Negro child to discover anything about his actual history. The reason is that this "animal," once he suspects his own worth, once he starts believing that he is a man, has begun to attack the entire power structure. This is why America has spent such a long time keeping the Negro in his place. What I am trying to suggest to you is that it was not an accident, it was not an act of God, it was not done by well-meaning people muddling into something which they didn't understand. It was a deliberate policy hammered into place in order to make money from black flesh. And now, in 1963, because we have never faced this fact, we are in intolerable trouble.

The Reconstruction, as I read the evidence, was a bargain between the North and South to this effect: "We've liberated them from the land - and delivered them to the bosses." When we left Mississippi to come North we did not come to freedom. We came to the bottom of the labor market, and we are still there. Even the Depression of the 1930s failed to make a dent in Negroes' relationship to white workers in the labor unions. Even today, so brainwashed is this republic that people seriously ask in what they suppose to be good faith, "What does the Negro want?" I've heard a great many asinine questions in my life, but that is perhaps the most asinine and perhaps the most insulting. But the point here is that people who ask that question, thinking that they ask it in good faith, are really the victims of this conspiracy to make Negroes believe they are less than human.

In order for me to live, I decided very early that some mistake had been made somewhere. I was not a "nigger" even though you called me one. But if I was a "nigger" in your eyes, there was something about you - there was something you needed. I had to realize when I was very young that I was none of those things I was told I was. I was not, for example, happy. I never touched a watermelon for all kinds of reasons that had been invented by white people, and I knew enough about life by this time to understand that whatever you invent, whatever you project, is you! So where we are now is that a whole country of people believe I'm a "nigger," and I don't, and the battle's on! Because if I am not what I've been told I am, then it means that you're not what you thought you were either! And that is the crisis.

It is not really a "Negro revolution" that is upsetting the country. What is upsetting the country is a sense of its own identity. If, for example, one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you'd be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history. And the reason is that if you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody's history, you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my real role here, if you have to pretend that I hoed all that cotton just because I loved you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad.

Now let's go back a minute. I talked earlier about those silent people - the porter and the maid - who, as I said, don't look up at the sky if you ask them if it is raining, but look into your face. My ancestors and I were very well-trained. We understood very early that this was not a Christian nation. It didn't matter what you said or how often you went to church. My father and my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother knew that Christians didn't act this way. It was a simple as that. And if that was so there was no point in dealing with white people in terms of their own moral professions, for they were not going to honor them. What one did was to turn away, smiling all the time, and tell white people what they wanted to hear. But people always accuse you of reckless talk when you say this.

All this means that there are in this country tremendous reservoirs of bitterness which have never been able to find an outlet, but may find an outlet soon. It means that well-meaning white liberals place themselves in great danger when they try to deal with Negroes as though they were missionaries. It means, in brief, that a great price is demanded to liberate all those silent people so that they can breathe for the first time and tell you what they think of you. And a price is demanded to liberate all those white children - some of them near forty - who have never grown up, and who never will grow up, because they have no sense of their identity.

What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn't stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. That's all. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts. Those who were making it in England, for example, did not get on the Mayflower. That's how the country was settled. Not by Gary Cooper. Yet we have a whole race of people, a whole republic, who believe the myths to the point where even today they select political representatives, as far as I can tell, by how closely they resemble Gary Cooper. Now this is dangerously infantile, and it shows in every level of national life. When I was living in Europe, for example, one of the worst revelations to me was the way Americans walked around Europe buying this and buying that and insulting everybody - not even out of malice, just because they didn't know any better. Well, that is the way they have always treated me. They weren't cruel; they just didn't know you were alive. They didn't know you had any feelings.

What I am trying to suggest here is that in the doing of all this for 100 years or more, it is the American white man who has long since lost his grip on reality. In some peculiar way, having created this myth about Negroes, and the myth about his own history, he created myths about the world so that, for example, he was astounded that some people could prefer Castro, astounded that there are people in the world who don't go into hiding when they hear the word "Communism," astounded that Communism is one of the realities of the twentieth century which we will not overcome by pretending that it does not exist. The political level in this country now, on the part of people who should know better, is abysmal.

The Bible says somewhere that where there is no vision the people perish. I don't think anyone can doubt that in this country today we are menaced - intolerably menaced - by a lack of vision.

It is inconceivable that a sovereign people should continue, as we do so abjectly, to say, "I can't do anything about it. It's the government." The government is the creation of the people. It is responsible to the people. And the people are responsible for it. No American has the right to allow the present government to say, when Negro children are being bombed and hosed and shot and beaten all over the Deep South, that there is nothing we can do about it. There must have been a day in this country's life when the bombing of the children in Sunday School would have created a public uproar and endangered the life of a Governor Wallace. It happened here and there was no public uproar.

I began by saying that one of the paradoxes of education was that precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person. And on the basis of the evidence - the moral and political evidence - one is compelled to say that this is a backward society. Now if I were a teacher in this school, or any Negro school, and I was dealing with Negro children, who were in my care only a few hours of every day and would then return to their homes and to the streets, children who have an apprehension of their future which with every hour grows grimmer and darker, I would try to teach them - I would try to make them know - that those streets, those houses, those dangers, those agonies by which they are surrounded, are criminal. I would try to make each child know that these things are the result of a criminal conspiracy to destroy him. I would teach him that if he intends to get to be a man, he must at once decide that his is stronger than this conspiracy and they he must never make his peace with it. And that one of his weapons for refusing to make his peace with it and for destroying it depends on what he decides he is worth. I would teach him that there are currently very few standards in this country which are worth a man's respect. That it is up to him to change these standards for the sake of the life and the health of the country. I would suggest to him that the popular culture - as represented, for example, on television and in comic books and in movies - is based on fantasies created by very ill people, and he must be aware that these are fantasies that have nothing to do with reality. I would teach him that the press he reads is not as free as it says it is - and that he can do something about that, too. I would try to make him know that just as American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it, so is the world larger, more daring, more beautiful and more terrible, but principally larger - and that it belongs to him. I would teach him that he doesn't have to be bound by the expediencies of any given administration, any given policy, any given morality; that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything. I would try to show him that one has not learned anything about Castro when one says, "He is a Communist." This is a way of his not learning something about Castro, something about Cuba, something, in time, about the world. I would suggest to him that his is living, at the moment, in an enormous province. America is not the world and if America is going to become a nation, she must find a way - and this child must help her to find a way to use the tremendous potential and tremendous energy which this child represents. If this country does not find a way to use that energy, it will be destroyed by that energy.

Delivered on October 16, 1963, as "The Negro Child-His Self-Image ", published in The Saturday Review, December 21, 1963, reprinted in The Price of the Ticket, Collected Non-Fiction 1948-1985, Saint Martins 1985.

James Baldwin (Aug. 2, 1924 - Dec. 1, 1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.

Born in Harlem, Baldwin was a "witness to the truth" about racism and homophobia through his novels, plays, essays, and poetry including Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), Notes of a Native Son (1955), Giovanni's Room (1956), Nobody Knows My Name (1961), Another Country (1962), The Fire Next Time (1963), If Beale Street Could Talk (1974), and The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1985). Baldwin was active as a writer, speaker, and ally of the southern Civil Rights Movement. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Freedom Day in Selma in 1963, and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Talk to Teachers - Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Article. By James Baldwin. October 16, 1963. Baldwin addresses the challenges of education to prepare children to grapple with the myths and realities of U.S. history.

# data[].attributes.headline
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of Stamped from the Beginning

# data[].attributes.subject
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of Stamped from the Beginning

# data[].attributes.body
Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-Winning Stamped from the Beginning a book by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This crucial, empowering, #1 New York Times bestselling exploration of racism--and antiracism--in America makes critical ideas accessible for teen readers, adapted from Ibram X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning. This is NOT a history book. This is a book about the here…

# data[].attributes.body
Carol Anderson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
One Person, No Vote (YA Edition) — Carol Anderson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Official Website for Historian, Educator, and Author Carol Anderson

# data[].attributes.headline
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers’ Edition

# data[].attributes.subject
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers’ Edition

# data[].attributes.body
James Loewen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Young Readers’ Edition | The New Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the most important—and successful—history books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship. Now Rebecca Stefoff, the acclaimed nonfiction childre…

# data[].attributes.headline
An Indigenous People's History of the United States for Young People

# data[].attributes.subject
An Indigenous People's History of the United States for Young People

# data[].attributes.body
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz,Debbie Reese,Jean Mendoza

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
2019 Best-Of Lists: Best YA Nonfiction of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) · Best Nonfiction of 2019 (School Library Journal) · Best Books for Teens (New York Public Library) · Best Informational Books for Older Readers (Chicago Public Library)

Spanning more than 400 years, this classic bottom-up history examines the legacy of Indigenous peoples' resistance, resilience, and steadfast fight against imperialism.

Going beyond the story of America as a country "discovered" by a few brave men in the "New World," Indigenous human rights advocate Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the roles that settler colonialism and policies of American Indian genocide played in forming our national identity.

The original academic text is fully adapted by renowned curriculum experts Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include discussion topics, archival images, original maps, recommendations for further reading, and other materials to encourage students, teachers, and general readers to think critically about their own place in history.

About the Series

The ReVisioning History for Young People series offers fresh perspectives on familiar narratives told from the viewpoint of marginalized communities with middle-grade and young adults in mind. Consisting of accessibly written history books written by notable scholars and adapted by education experts, the series reconstructs and reinterprets America's past from pre-1492 to the present for a new generation of readers.

"An important corrective to conventional narratives of our nation's history . . . . An accessible, engaging, and necessary addition to school libraries and classrooms. An excellent read, dismantling American mythologies and fostering critical reasoning about history and current events."
- Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"This adaptation of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (2014) should be required reading for all middle and high schoolers-and their teachers . . . . There is much to commend here: the lack of sugar-coating, the debunking of origin stories, the linking between ideology and actions, the well-placed connections between events past and present, the quotes from British colonizers and American presidents that leave no doubt as to their violent intentions . . . . The resistance continues, and this book urges all readers to consider their own roles, whether as bystanders or upstanders."
- Booklist, Starred Review

"Dunbar-Ortiz's narrative history is clear, and the adapters give readers ample evidence and perspective to help them to engage with the text. A highly informative book for libraries serving high school students."
- School Library Journal, Starred Review

"Gripping, tightly written, and packed with facts traditional textbooks and historical accounts neglect to cover."
- Shelf Awareness

"Wide-ranging and politically engaged . . . a valuable resource."
- The Horn Book

"This is a desperately needed corrective to existing histories for young people, and its combination of breadth and passion will spur both reflection and emotion."
- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"This is the book I wish I'd had when I started teaching. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People represents a fundamental challenge to the textbooks that celebrate 'liberty,' 'freedom,' and the 'rise of the American nation' but fail to recognize the humanity-or often even the existence-of the Indigenous peoples who were here first, and are still here. Our students will see the history of this country much more clearly when we put Indigenous people's lives at the center."
-Bill Bigelow, curriculum editor, Rethinking Schools, and codirector, Zinn Education Project

A Note to Readers

INTRODUCTION
This Land

CHAPTER ONE
Follow the Corn

CHAPTER TWO
Culture of Conquest

CHAPTER THREE
Cult of the Covenant

CHAPTER FOUR
Bloody Footprints

CHAPTER FIVE
The Birth of a Nation

CHAPTER SIX
Jefferson, Jackson, and the Pursuit of Indigenous Homelands

CHAPTER SEVEN
Sea to Shining Sea

CHAPTER EIGHT
Indigenous Lands Become "Indian Country"

CHAPTER NINE
The Persistence of Sovereignty

CHAPTER TEN
Indigenous Action, Indigenous Rights

CONCLUSION
"Water Is Life": Indigenous Resistance in the Twenty-First Century

For Further Reading
Some Books We Recommend
Notes
Image Credits
Index

"Go 4th and read," Albany Times-Union, recommended the book for Independence Day reading

"What Teachers Should Learn From the Murder of George Floyd," Education Week, book referenced in blog piece

"History Remixed: How Young Adult Authors Are Revisioning History," School Library Journal, book mentioned and authors quoted in piece

"Awards List," In the Margins, selected for the "ITM 2020 Top Ten List" and the "Nonfiction Recommendation List"

"Serving Up the 2020 Youth Media Awards," KidLit These Days/BookRiot, book included in 2020 Youth Media Awards episode

"AILA announces 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Awards," American Indian Library Association, book selected as a 2020 Honor Title for the Youth Award in the Young Adult category

"Children's Publishers Choose Their Favorite Reads of 2019," Publishers Weekly, included in feature

"The Best Books for Young Readers of 2019," The Educator's Playbook (UPenn Graduate School of Education), listed in "Best Books for Young Readers in 2019" roundup

"Best YA Nonfiction of 2019," Kirkus Reviews, listed in best of YA nonfiction roundup

"6 Things Every Non-Native Should Do On Thanksgiving," HuffPost, book referenced in piece

"'I Was Teaching a Lot of Misconceptions.' The Way American Kids Are Learning About the 'First Thanksgiving' Is Changing," TIME, book mentioned in piece about teaching the history of Thanksgiving

"Best Books for Teens," New York Public Library, listed in 2019 outstanding young adult titles

"Best Informational Books Older Readers of 2019," Chicago Public Library, listed in best-of reading roundup for older readers

"3 More Must-Read YA Books by Indigenous Authors," BookRiot, included in YA books by Indigenous authors reading roundup

"12 Books by Indigenous Writers to Read this Indigenous Peoples Day," Literary Hub, listed in Indigenous Peoples' Day reading roundup

"Indigenous Peoples' Day, Scientific Knowledge, & the Teachings of Plants," Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Progressivism (a Patheos blog), quoted and mentioned in piece

"Rethinking US History through an Indigenous Lens," School Library Journal, review and analysis

"An Indigenous Peoples' History of the U.S. - THS - 09/11/19," KODX (Seattle), recorded and livestreamed Seattle Town Hall event

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People," The Stranger (Seattle), announcement about Town Hall event

"Look Ahead: The hottest Seattle events for September 2019," Seattle Times, Third Place Books event announcement

"Diversity-Focused Publishing," Kidlit These Days (a BookRiot podcast), book discussed in podcast episode

"Dismantling the Historical Frameworks that Fuel Hate: One Example," Nonprofit Quarterly, write-up on the book

"Rewriting the Indigenous stories for children," Indian Country Today, interview with the adapters

"Book of the Week: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People," Cooperative Center for Children's Books (blog), listed as Book of the Week

"Why We Need Better Children's History Books," History News Network, op-ed

"#ColorlinesReads: 6 Books That Complicate the Idea of 'Independence,'" Colorlines, included in reading roundup

"For Further Reading: New Native Histories of North America," Beyond the Spectacle (University of Kent blog), included in reading roundup

"Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of Summer," Literary Hub, listed in reading roundup

"Appendix D. 2019 YA Forecast Part 2," Hazel&Katniss&Harry&Starr, podcast interview highlights book

"Beacon Press Set to Publish Radical Histories for Teens," Publishers Weekly, feature

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
this classic bottom-up history examines the legacy of indigenous peoples' resistance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
and steadfast fight against imperialism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
2019 Best-Of Lists: Best YA Nonfiction of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) · Best Nonfiction of 2019 (School Library Journal) · Best Books for Teens (New York Public Library) · Best Informational Books for Older Readers (Chicago Public Library) Spanning more than 400 years, this classic bottom-up history examines the legacy of Indigenous peoples' resistance, resilience, and steadfast fight against imperialism.

# data[].attributes.body
by Bryan Stevenson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Just Mercy (Adapted for Young Adults): A True Story of the Fight for Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The young adult adaptation of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. Winner of Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction, the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction, and a Books for a Better Life Award. A No. 1 New York Times bestseller.

# data[].attributes.headline
Black Lives Matter: From Hashtag to Movement

# data[].attributes.subject
Black Lives Matter: From Hashtag to Movement

# data[].attributes.body
Anti-Defamation League (ADL)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Updated June 2, 2020

Black Lives Matter: An Activist Movement

Black Lives Matter is an activist movement which began as a hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager killed in Florida in July 2013. The movement became more widely known and popularized after two high-profile deaths in 2014 of unarmed African-American men (Eric Garner in Staten Island, NY and Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO). Neither of the police officers involved in their deaths were indicted (i.e., formally charged with a crime).

Violence against African Americans

There is a larger context and history of African American men and boys who were killed at the hands of the police, many of whom, like George Floyd (2020), were unarmed. Since 2014, other high-profile deaths include Tamir Rice (2014), Laquan McDonald (2014), John Crawford (2014) Freddie Gray (2015), Walter Scott (2015), Alton Sterling (2016), Philando Castile (2016), Terence Crutcher (2016), Antwon Rose (2018) and others. Black women and girls are also targets of police violence, a reality that sparked the "Say Her Name" movement to highlight how this violence often goes unnoticed. Women who have died as a result of police interactions include Sandra Bland (2015), Deborah Danner (2016), Atatiana Jefferson (2019) and Breonna Taylor (2020).

From Protests to Policy Solutions

Ongoing local and national protests and other actions-often sparked by the deaths of other unarmed African Americans-have brought the Black Lives Matter movement to the public consciousness and conversation. Black Lives activists released "Campaign Zero," which includes ten policy solutions developed in conjunction with activists, protestors and researchers across the country, integrating community demands, input from research organizations and the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

On March 4, 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the findings in two separate investigations related to Ferguson. One report found a pattern of civil rights violations on the part of the Ferguson Police Department. A second report determined that "the evidence examined in its independent, federal investigation into the fatal shooting of Michael Brown does not support federal civil rights charges against Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson." Two weeks later, on March 17, the Department and the city of Ferguson formally announced an agreement "aiming to remedy the unconstitutional law enforcement conduct that the Justice Department found during its civil pattern-or-practice investigation." The announcement resolved a pending federal lawsuit against Ferguson, and addressed a range of issues including bias-free police and court practices, protecting all individuals' First Amendment rights, and reorienting Ferguson's use of force policies.

Black Lives Matter continues to pursue policy solutions beyond the events of Ferguson.

About the Lesson Plan

This high school lesson provides an opportunity for students to learn more about Black Lives Matter and the activists involved, explore the controversy about using the term "All lives matter," and posit their point of view in writing to a person of their choice.
Learning Objectives:

Students will learn about the history of the Black Lives Matter movement and how it evolved.

Students will analyze the controversy around politicians and other people using the term "All lives matter" instead of or in addition to "Black lives matter."

Students will reflect on their perspective of Black Lives Matter and write a letter to a person of their choice which reflects their new knowledge and point of view.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Black Lives Matter: From Hashtag to Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Updated June 2, 2020 Black Lives Matter is an activist movement which began as a hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager killed in Florida in July 2013.

# data[].attributes.body
Curriculum Guide

# data[].attributes.headline
Lesson Plans for Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

# data[].attributes.subject
Lesson Plans for Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

# data[].attributes.body
By Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We are thrilled that teachers across the country are meeting, collaborating, and building curriculum based on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. This YA book is based on Kendi's 2016 Stamped from the Beginning.

Both books center the lives of key individuals to help readers sort out both the origins of racist ideas and to differentiate between segregationist, assimilationist, and antiracist positions. These individuals - Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Angela Davis - offer examples that we're happy students will encounter in the project of antiracist education.

We hope educators supplement these texts with an equally rich people's history of racism and antiracism. Toward that effort, we have suggested lessons that complement key chapters and moments in Reynolds' and Kendi's Stamped. In most cases, we'd recommend doing these lessons before having students listen or read the chapter, since many of our activities leave the "what really happened" unanswered until the end.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
People's History Lessons for Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You - Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are thrilled that teachers across the country are meeting, collaborating, and building curriculum based on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You , by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. This YA book is based on Kendi's 2016 Stamped from the Beginning .

# data[].attributes.body
A message from your facilitator, Elizabeth!

# data[].attributes.body
Seminar Coordinator
shawn@freedomlifted.com

# data[].attributes.headline
Standing Up by Sitting Down: Student Sit Ins 1960

# data[].attributes.subject
Standing Up by Sitting Down: Student Sit Ins 1960

# data[].attributes.body
Designed for younger students, this lesson is created by and based on an exhibit at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Standing Up by Sitting Down a learning adventure created by the National Civil Rights Museum and sponsored by Verizon

# data[].attributes.headline
Teaching the Legacy of Lynching in the US

# data[].attributes.subject
Teaching the Legacy of Lynching in the US

# data[].attributes.body
Developed by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), this is a vast collection of lesson plans based on the EJI’s reports Lynching in America and Slavery in America.

# data[].attributes.body
Curated by the Zinn Education Project (ZEP), this invaluable archive of lessons and resources on social movement history can be explored by theme, time period and/or type. ZEP is a collaboration between Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Zinn Education Project is my compass in a sea of corporate textbooks, packaged common core curriculum and standardized testing. My entire curriculum is based on lessons that can be found on the Zinn Education Project.

High School Social Studies Teacher, Portland, Ore.

Your support is needed to help more students learn people's history. 100% of Zinn Education Project funding comes from individuals like you. Donate today.

By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

From voter ID laws to voter-roll purges, gerrymandering to poll closures to the deadly in-person voting conditions during a pandemic, the right to vote is under attack and the stakes are high. It is critical that students learn about the fight for voting rights, past and present.

Nov. 30, 1924: Shirley Chisholm Born...

Teaching About the Violence in Palestine and Israel...

I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith, but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for hope we don't need certainty, only POSSIBILITY.

-Howard Zinn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Zinn Education Project promotes and supports the teaching of people's history in middle and high school classrooms across the country. Based on the lens of history highlighted in Howard Zinn's best-selling book A People's History of the United States, the website offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and reading level.

# data[].attributes.body
This reading about the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike  is one of over 100 resources developed by Facing History and Ourselves on the Civil Rights Movement.  Out of all of their collection, we think the readings are easiest for anyone to complete at home. Also recommended in their resource readings is Why MLK Encouraged 225,000 Chicago Kids to Cut Class in 1963.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By the 1960s, the walls of segregation were coming down in cities and towns across the nation. Many white and black Americans in Memphis took pride in the way their community had avoided the violence that accompanied integration in other places. Then on February 12, 1968, about 1000 of the city's 1100 sanitation workers went on strike. That strike soon revealed deep divisions within Memphis.

"The white community," writes journalist Joan Turner Beifuss, "saw 'issues,' either because it chose to or because it could not, in fact, see in any other way." One "issue" was whether government workers ought be unionized. Another was financial. Where would the city get the money to pay the raises? Still another focused on whether the workers were being "manipulated" by "outside agitators." To most African Americans, the strike had little to do with balanced budgets, union organizing, or interference from outsiders. In their eyes, the strike was about dignity and respect. That is why the strikers wore signs reading "I AM A MAN." The pay for a sanitation worker in 1968 was $1.80 per hour. Even those who worked full time were eligible for food stamps. Yet the jobs the workers performed were not only essential to the community but also dangerous. Not long before the strikes began, two men were crushed to death in a garbage packer on one of the trucks.

The Ministers Association, a group of black and white religious leaders in Memphis, tried and failed to bring the two sides together. When the talks broke down, African Americans organized daily marches up and down Main Street. On February 23, violence erupted in the city for the first time. Who was responsible? The police claimed marchers rocked a police car. The strikers insisted that the car crossed into their lane and brushed against a marcher. No one knows what really sparked the incident. What is known is that the police responded by spraying Mace into the faces of the marchers, including a number of ministers. As a result, tension mounted in an already tense city.

By early March, the police were arresting strikers and their supporters for sitting in at City Hall and keeping replacement workers from moving garbage trucks. On March 18, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in the city to show his support for the workers. At a rally, he told the workers, "Our society must come to respect the sanitation worker. He is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, disease is rampant." On March 28, King returned to Memphis to lead over 5000 people on a march through the city. Twenty minutes after it began, a group of young African Americans began breaking windows and looting stores. The police immediately moved in with tear gas and nightsticks. The marchers scattered, running for shelter. As a result of the violence, a curfew was imposed on the city and over 3,800 National Guardsmen arrived in Memphis to keep order.

King and two Memphis ministers, James M. Lawson and H. Ralph Jackson, held a press conference later that day. They expressed sorrow that a small group had disrupted the march. They also vowed that the protests would continue until a settlement was reached. The next day National Guardsmen escorted the marchers as they walked up and down Main Street. One later recalled, "I wore that ['I AM A MAN'] sign front and back. We had to go through all that just to be treated half-way fair. Somebody has to suffer for some good for somebody else. Anything good, there's somebody who suffered for it."

On April 3, as the strike dragged on, King came back to Memphis to lead yet another march. But before it could take place, a white assassin shot and killed the civil rights leader. The next day, April 5, 300 black and white members of the Ministers Association and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance marched from St. Mary's Cathedral to City Hall. Rabbi James A. Wax spoke to the mayor on behalf of the two groups:

What we come here for this morning, sir, is to appeal to you out of the fervor of our hearts that this city shall be ruled with justice, and justice for all. I realize we live in a society of law and order. We must have laws. But I would remind you most respectfully, sir, that there are laws that are greater than the laws of Memphis and Tennessee--the laws of God.

The following day the President of the United States sent a federal negotiator to help settle the strike. This time, the two sides reached agreement on every issue but one. The last obstacle to a settlement was the demand for an immediate pay raise. Negotiators recommended a raise of ten cents an hour effective May 1, 1968 with an additional five cents per hour on September 1. The union accepted the proposal. City leaders were willing to go along with it but claimed they did not have enough money in the current budget to pay the raises. They were short by about $558,000. As negotiations once again came to a standstill, a private citizen offered a solution. Abe Plough, a Jewish philanthropist and businessman, offered to contribute the money for the raises provided that his name not be made public. The people involved agreed, but in time his identity became common knowledge.

While the two sides worked out the final details of a settlement, a number of people in Memphis decided that it was time for them to speak out. They formed a citizens group called "Memphis Cares" and sponsored an assembly on April 7 at Crump Stadium. About 7000 people applauded as black and white Americans voiced their concerns and expressed their support for the following statement:

We live in Memphis. It has been a good city, but far from perfect--much less perfect than many of us realized. Something happened here which laid bare a side of our common life to which all too many of us had been blind. We . . . solemnly, in the presence of God and of one another, pledge Ourselves . . . to the building of a city where people can trust one another, respect one another and respond to the needs of one another.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By the 1960s, the walls of segregation were coming down in cities and towns across the nation. Many white and black Americans in Memphis took pride in the way their community had avoided the violence that accompanied integration in other places. Then on February 12, 1968, about 1000 of the city's 1100 sanitation workers went on strike.

# data[].attributes.headline
Meet Medgar Evers: An Introduction to the Southern Freedom Movemet

# data[].attributes.subject
Meet Medgar Evers: An Introduction to the Southern Freedom Movemet

# data[].attributes.body
This interactive lesson created by Teaching for Change introduces us to Medgar Evers’ work as field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP. This lesson is a part of a larger collection from Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching. Teaching for Change will release the newest version of this incredible resource  in 2020. In the meantime, check out selected lessons online right now!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Medgar Wiley Evers was one of Mississippi's most impassioned activists, orators, and visionaries for equality and against brutality.

Teaching for Change prepared an interactive lesson to introduce students to his work and inspire them to learn more. The lesson is also designed as a pre-reading activity, providing an overview for students of the people, places, and issues in Evers' life.

Brief Background

Born July 2, 1925, in Decatur, Mississippi, Evers was one of four children born to James and Jesse Evers. Evers spent the most time with older brother Charles, whom he idolized because Charles protected him, taught him to fish, swim, hunt, box, wrestle, and to think about the world and their segregated schooling. In addition, Evers saw and witnessed acts of raw violence against Blacks; his parents and brother could not shield him from the realities of a society built on racial discrimination.

Evers was inducted into the United States Army in 1942. Though typical at the time, racial segregation in the military only served to anger Evers. By the end of the war, Evers was among a generation of Black veterans committed "to return [home] fighting" for change. The initial "fight" for Evers was to register to vote as an affirmation of citizenship. In the summer of 1946, along with his brother, Charles, and several other Black veterans, Evers registered to vote at the Decatur city hall. But on Election Day, the veterans were prevented by angry whites from casting their ballots.

The experience only deepened Evers's conviction that the status quo in Mississippi had to change. By 1954, Evers began an 8-year career as the Mississippi state field secretary for the NAACP, including the creating of youth councils. His organizing and murder investigations doubled the number of NAACP members who boycotted and agitated for justice in Mississippi. Murdered in the driveway to his house in 1963, his murderer was not brought to justice until 1994. Thanks to Medgar Evers, the groundwork was laid for the Mississippi freedom and voting rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s. Read more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet Medgar Evers: Introduction to the Southern Freedom Movement - Civil Rights Teaching

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Medgar Wiley Evers was one of Mississippi's most impassioned activists, orators, and visionaries for equality and against brutality. Teaching for Change prepared an interactive lesson to introduce students to his work and inspire them to learn more. The lesson is also designed as a pre-reading activity, providing an overview for students of the people, places, and issues in Evers' life.

# data[].attributes.body
This project provides information and lesson plans for high school and college classes that the expanse of Rosa Parks’ political work and commitments and the breadth of the Black struggle for justice across the 20th century. This was developed by historian Say Burgin, renowned Parks biographer Jeanne Theoharis, and the Center for Humanities, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This interactive visualization shows the spread of racially-restrictive deeds across Hennepin County during the first half of the twentieth century.

Click on a racially covenanted lot to learn more about the property. Use the search button at the bottom of the map to look for a specific address.

** If you are having issues with any of the features on our map, try clearing your browser's cache and reloading the window **

Racial covenants were tools used by real estate developers to prevent people of color from buying or occupying property. Often just a few lines of text, these covenants were inserted into warranty deeds across the country. These real estate contracts were powerful tools for segregationists. Real estate developers and public officials used private property transactions to build a hidden system of American apartheid during the twentieth century.

Inspired by the idea that we cannot address the inequities of the present without an understanding of the past, Mapping Prejudice was created to expose the racist practices that reshaped the landscape of Minneapolis. People of color see how discriminatory practices cascade through their lives, erecting barriers that limit access to housing, credit, education, and wealth. But the resulting physical, emotional, and financial baggage has been harder to recognize for people who have not personally experienced racism. Mapping Prejudice seeks to make these burdens visible by locating them on a digital, interactive map. The project team was inspired by a desire to create the first-ever comprehensive map of racial covenants for an American community.

The project started in Minneapolis, where research revealed that the city was not always segregated. Covenants helped remake the racial landscape of the city. As racially-restrictive deeds spread, African Americans were pushed into small and increasingly circumscribed neighborhoods. Even as the number of black residents continued to climb, ever-larger swaths of the city became entirely white.

The project is based at the John Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota. From this base, our interdisciplinary team of community activists, students and scholars has mobilized community members to identify discriminatory deeds. Thanks to the enthusiastic support of the community, the Hennepin County map was finished early in 2020.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This interactive visualization shows the spread of racially-restrictive deeds across Hennepin County during the first half of the twentieth century. Click on a racially covenanted lot to learn more about the property. Use the search button at the bottom of the map to look for a specific address.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We waited a long time for those folks to do something to improve our schools, but they let us down and so we have decided to do the job ourselves. - Jefferson High School student, 1968

The quote above opens Jeanne Theoharis' chapter in A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History on young people in the Civil Rights Movement. That chapter also formed the basis for her People's Historians Online conversation with Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian on April 10, 2020.

This was the second in our series on the Black Freedom Struggle: From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement.

About 150 people joined the discussion, including teachers, parents, students, historians, and community activists. Jeanne talked about the role of teenagers, including Barbara Johns, Claudette Colvin, and the students in the high school walkouts. She noted that many of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee activists were teenagers when they took on organizing in places that everyone else deemed impossible.

Contemporary Youth Activists

To highlight the ongoing role of young people, Jeanne and Jesse welcomed two contemporary high school activists: climate justice and educational equity activist Karma Selsey of New York City's Teens Take Charge and Jaeden Thomas, a member of Seattle's NAACP youth council. Selsey talked about a campaign to pressure the mayor to provide students access to enrichment opportunities over the summer. The petition was posted in the chat box and signatures poured in from the session participants. Thomas talked about the fight for ethnic studies in Seattle Public Schools and suggested people follow @Wastatenaacpyouth on Instagram.

Session Highlights in a Tweet Thread

This tweet thread by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca provides highlights and quotes from the session.

So lucky & excited to be learning abt the role of teenagers in the Civil Rights Movement from @JeanneTheoharis, historian & author & editor of many books, in conversation w/ my friend, fellow-teacher, activist, & @RethinkSchools editor, @JessedHagopian. https://t.co/0rDXD4qDs7

- Ursula Wolfe-Rocca (@LadyOfSardines) April 10, 2020

Reflections and Lessons Learned

Participants shared what they learned and appreciated about the session in their closing evaluation. Here are some examples:

I had no idea how much of an impact youth have had on the Civil Rights Movement. It was shocking since at school we only focus on big figures like Martin Luther King Jr.

Leaving the contributions of young people out of the narrative of history helps reinforce the idea that the youth of today are powerless against the injustices they experience and observe in the world.

I love all of the examples - both historical and contemporary - that were given to tell the story of how young people are leaders. It is also a very good reminder that teaching a full story is always better than teaching a moment.

I need to look for youth activists in the struggles I already cover. After hearing this, I'm sure that they are there. Then I need to pull those struggles through to today, even if briefly.

The most important thing I took away was actually knowing that there are so many other educators working towards the same goal with what resources we have!

This highlighted the need to make sure I am including ways for students to feel empowered even within my own classroom. It makes me want to push my own practice further and make sure students can have the space to advocate for themselves daily rather than at the end of the semester. Therefore, they know they can have their voices heard and they do have power.

It was so helpful to be reminded that struggle is a struggle and that young people have so often been leaders of change. Would be great to talk more with folks about how grown-ups can both support and get out of the way.

Two things: The first is Dr. Theoharris' point that many adults were in fact NOT on board with student activism or their methods during the Civil Rights era, and that despite this, students and young people organized and worked for change. This makes me really re-think how educators and adults guide/support youth activism today. The second takeaway was the way that CORE and SNCC had to collaborate to make the freedom rides successful - that adults would start out this project, but when faced with incredible violence, students would pick up the baton despite the known dangers is such a powerful story. Also, Jesse Hagopian facilitated the conversation masterfully, and I LOVED hearing from not just Jeanne Theoharris, but also Karma and Jaedon. Seamless transition from whole group to/from breakouts. Fantastic online session!

I think it worked really, really well. The balance of this critical history and hearing the voices of youth in the struggle today was perfect. Dr. Theoharris and Mr. Hagopian do such an amazing job of making history come alive and help us see how to share these important stories with our students. I also appreciated the opportunity to connect in the breakout, especially as I was lucky enough to be placed in a breakout with three young people and learn from them. (Shout out to Miles, Jessica, and Quinn!)

One of the most interesting things that I learned about today was how Northern and Western cities fed into the myth that Black and Latino students were inferior in school. They used this myth to perpetuate the inequities that existed between minority schools and white schools.

The entire conversation was a great reminder to include young people's actions as part of the CRM and not as something separate or only briefly touched on. Their history is our history and should be included in the movement at large not as a side note.

One important thing I learned today was how voices of youth have been historically silenced, even within the activist community. However, these same youth have ignored this critique and brought about meaningful change anyways. I plan to share this idea and the example of youth activism with my middle school students over the course of the next two weeks. I will do this as a way to provide historical examples of youth activism as they begin choosing independent projects to work on in our PBL classroom. This is exactly what I needed and the timing could not have been more relevant. I look forward to the next mini-course!

I loved the breakout sessions, it was a great way to require connections in a time when we are craving them. I liked the author's speaking session in the beginning which provided a good overview and enriched the later sessions. My favorite part was hearing from today's youth, both in the panel and breakout sessions. I didn't expect to see students in the chat and it was a great surprise! I will recommend that my students join the next mini-class.

This was an incredible session. It was informative and invigorating. I am looking forward to many more. Thank you for making this accessible.

I appreciate you all! Thank you for doing such important work! I hope that even after physical distancing is over, you will still offer these opportunities. It was really great to be in a breakout group with people with such different experiences and from all over the world.

Resources

Here are some of the resources shared by the presenters and also by participants in the chat box.

The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement by Teri Kanefield.

Illustrated book about teenager Barbara Rose Johns, who led a student walk out to protest substandard conditions at a Virginia high school in 1951.

Mighty Times: The Children's March

This student friendly documentary from Teaching Tolerance tells the story of how the young people of Birmingham braved arrest, fire hoses, and police dogs in 1963 to end segregation.

And the Youth Shall Lead Us: Stories about Young People on the Frontlines of Social Movements Throughout U.S. History.

A compilation of stories by Teaching for Change of young activists from throughout U.S. history.

SNCC Digital Gateway

An online collection of historical materials, profiles, a timeline, a map, and stories on SNCC's voting rights organizing. Many of the profiles feature stories about teen activists.

Renee Gokey from the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) participated in the session and shared a story in the chat box of a young Native American activist who challenged school segregation before Brown v. Board. She was Alice Piper (June 7, 1908 - August 22, 1985), a Paiute (Nüümü) girl residing in Big Pine, California, who petitioned to attend the newly built Big Pine High School in 1923 and was denied entry due to her race. At that time, California educational law prohibited Native American children from attending a public school if a separate government run Indian school was established within three miles of the public school. Piper, along with six other Indian children, sued the district for the right to attend. [Renee Gokey also shared the key resource, Native Knowledge 360. Another child who, along with her family, challenged school segregation is Syliva Mendez.]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
People's Historians Online: Teenagers in the Civil Rights Movement - Zinn Education Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We waited a long time for those folks to do something to improve our schools, but they let us down and so we have decided to do the job ourselves. - Jefferson High School student, 1968 The quote above opens Jeanne Theoharis' chapter in A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History on young people in the Civil Rights Movement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When Leigh Ann Erickson taught in Chicago and New York, she witnessed the effects of social injustice every day.

But the view from small town Iowa can be very different. That's why Erickson founded a social justice course, an African American literature course, and the CARE Conference at Mount Vernon High School. Through this curriculum, Erickson hopes to broaden her students' perspectives about income inequality, race, and the criminal justice system.

"Our system of oppression is just continually pushing down young people. Coming to Mount Vernon, I felt a great responsibility to do something with that knowledge," Erickson says. "My goal was to provide students with experiences that would help them build relationships with people who were different from them."

On this edition of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with Erickson about the social justice course she designed for Mount Vernon students, what she's learned from teaching it, and how the course has changed over time. She's joined by Mount Vernon High School students Sam White and Alanah Malone, who share how the course has impacted them beyond the classroom.

"The course is based on Bryan Stevenson, who wrote Just Mercy," Erickson says. "He says that to achieve social justice there are four things that we must do: get close to whatever problem it is that we're trying to understand better, change the current narrative that surrounds that problem, give and receive hope, and be willing to be uncomfortable."

Her students, White and Malone, say the course has made it easier to speak up about the issues they care about.

"Knowledge is my defense, my weapon, when I'm speaking to people about my beliefs and what I think is right," Malone says. "I feel so much more comfortable getting in a conversation about capital punishment after reading Just Mercy."

This hour, Nebbe also talks with Jessica Welburn Paige, an assistant professor of sociology and African American studies at the University of Iowa. She says that students at the collegiate level often come to the classroom without ever having had conversations about injustice and oppression.

"When I get students from Iowa City and from other places around the state, a lot of students just haven't had the classroom experiences like we've heard about in Mount Vernon," she says. "While it's great that they've signed up for the classes that they're taking in college, these conversations need to be initiated before students make it to this level."

Erickson encourages other high school teachers to fill this gap by designing similar curriculum for their schools.

"The resources are there. I just think we need to boldly step into these spaces that feel uncomfortable and be willing to take risks and be willing to fail and learn from that," says Erickson.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Classroom Conversations on Injustice and Oppression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When Leigh Ann Erickson taught in Chicago and New York, she witnessed the effects of social injustice every day. But the view from small town Iowa can be very different. That's why Erickson founded a social justice course, an African American literature course, and the CARE Conference at Mount Vernon High School.

# data[].attributes.body
Facilitator for Part 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
About | Undone Consulting | United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Undone Consulting provides support with curriculum development that fosters equity in education.

# data[].attributes.body
Seminar host mia@freedomlifted.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
she | her | hers | they | them | theirs

I am an educator, facilitator, and activist born and raised in the U.S. Deep South by a loving family. My people were entrepreneurs, Black church leaders, NAACP + SCLC members, mass meeting attendees, HBCU graduates, sharecroppers, and, five generations ago, enslaved people. My mother was trained in Project C and desegregated her junior high school at the age of 14. I grew up learning about the history of the Black Freedom Struggle in the US not in school, but from my parents and extended family in Alabama who shared their personal stories, and from the books they told me to read.

I believe my purpose is to help people learn history and use that knowledge to grow as social justice leaders. I thrive in spaces dedicated to sharing the stories of those who have actively resisted colonization and oppression, and whose movement-building efforts provide blueprints for a path forward, towards a more just world.

In my previous work as a public school teacher, founding director of the Chicago Freedom School and executive director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College, I've been able to spend time with youth and adults working in various sectors on developing activist leadership with a historical lens. Inspired by these relationships and my family, I started Freedom Lifted in 2011 to provide social movement history education, primarily through travel experiences to Civil Rights sites in Alabama and Mississippi and trainings on power, identity, oppression and liberation.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 uprising for racial justice, the scope of my work has expanded. I am now excited to focus my energy on launching Freedom Lifted Learning Labs, online courses for youth and adults that offer a historical context to today's most pressing social justice issues.

I am indebted to my ancestors and elders in my blood and chosen family who resisted and insisted on living with dignity and respect. All of my classes, facilitation work, and tours are dedicated to them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
she | her | hers | they | them | theirs I am an educator, facilitator, and activist born and raised in the U.S. Deep South by a loving family. My people were entrepreneurs, Black church leaders, NAACP + SCLC members, mass meeting attendees, HBCU graduates, sharecroppers, and, five generations ago, enslaved people.

# data[].attributes.body
Facilitator for Part 3
Elizabeth@raymondwhittaker.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Elizabeth is a thought-leader, innovator, strategist and coach who believes in people and our power to build a just and equitable world. She is the founder of Raymond Whittaker Design, LLC a consulting firm committed to equity-leadership and organizational development.

With over 15 years of experience, she is known internationally for her warm, strategic and principled approach to leadership, coaching, institutional design and facilitation. Having trained and coached policy leaders, organizers, school and district leaders, philanthropists, non- profit professionals, political candidates and more, she centers her practice on deep listening, principled accountability, equity, integrity, empathy and impact.

Elizabeth has designed and implemented hundreds of programs, workshops, and trainings across the nation. Her work has spanned the globe, as she's lead social justice and diplomacy projects in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Europe. She is a skilled facilitator with a unique ability to both meet participants where they are and inspire them to reach well beyond.

Elizabeth began her career in education as a teacher, curriculum designer, and later school principal. Being well-acquainted with the challenges schools faced, she thought it important to lend her voice to the policy landscape to help inform the practices that directly impacted school communities. That work led her to Leadership for Educational Equity, were she lead a national team dedicated to advancing the leadership of historically underrepresented communities in policy, advocacy, organizing and elected leadership. Elizabeth later journeyed to the Council of Michigan Foundations, where she lead the organization's state-driven public policy strategy development, supporting collaborative philanthropic responses to Michigan's most critical needs.

Recognized for her outstanding work in the education sector, in 2017 Elizabeth was named a Pahara NextGen Fellow, joining a cohort of 24 leaders across the nation recognized for their exemplary contributions and commitment to advancing equity in public education. In 2012 she was named a Leadership for Educational Equity Emerging Political Leaders fellow. Before returning to Detroit in 2009 to help lead one of the nation's oldest culturally responsive learning institutions, she worked in curriculum development at schools on Chicago's Southside, partnering with other scholars, activists, and teachers to train educators to teach issues of social justice with integrity.

Elizabeth is a trusted advocate and ally, and sits on several boards dedicated to advancing social justice. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, and is a Teach for America St. Louis alum. She is devoted mother, wife, writer, and bookworm who values love, honesty, justice, deep laughter and soulful vegetarian cooking.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet Elizabeth - Raymond Whittaker Design, LLC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Elizabeth is a thought-leader, innovator, strategist and coach who believes in people and our power to build a just and equitable world. She is the founder of Raymond Whittaker Design, LLC a consulting firm committed to equity-leadership and organizational development.

# data[].attributes.body
Podcast with our Guest Speaker, Dr. Lisa Brock

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In this special Black Lives Matter mini series, we brought back one of our favorite radical intellectuals, activists and the acting Executive Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College, Dr. Lisa Brock to help us decipher the following questions/comments:

1. What's currently happening on the ground in Chicago?
2. Discuss current brutal killings Black people like George Floyd, Ahmad Arbury, Breonna Taylor, and countless others.
3. Shed light on the current ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Movements & Master Narratives with Lisa Brock. BLM Series #1 - The Radical Zone Podcast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this special Black Lives Matter mini series, we brought back one of our favorite radical intellectuals, activists and the acting Executive Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College, Dr. Lisa Brock to help us decipher the following questions/comments: 1. What's currently happening on the ground in Chicago?

# data[].attributes.body
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Adam Shatz

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Adam Shatz: Our guest today on the LRB podcast is Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Taylor is a professor of African American studies at Princeton and the author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. As a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and a columnist for thenewyorker.com she has emerged in the last few years as one of our most important commentators on the political economy of race, class, and gender in America. She's an activist intellectual, an academic who hasn't forgotten her background as an organiser, which gives her work not only its analytic power, but a rare urgency. When I see her byline, I put everything down because I want to know what she's thinking. Keeanga has been kind enough to take time out of her very packed schedule to discuss the extraordinary events in America and the world of the last few weeks, the uprising against police brutality and other forms of injustice that erupted after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. We're also going to talk about the history that preceded this moment, a history to which her own work has been an acutely illuminating guide. Keeanga, welcome to the LRB podcast. Thanks so much for joining us.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Thank you. Very glad to be here.

AS: You're in Philadelphia. And I just read that Daniel Outlaw, the police commissioner in the city where you live, has announced a moratorium on the use of tear gas and apologised for its use in a protest in early June.

KYT: That's Danielle Outlaw, and she is the new police chief. I think she just got here in January. She and the mayor, Jim Kenney had a press conference yesterday. It was a very curious affair because they essentially admitted to lying weeks earlier. The police in Philadelphia shot tear gas at a peaceful demonstration that had taken over a highway, but it was an act of civil disobedience. And the police lied and said that people threw rocks at them and were threatening officers. And not only were there witnesses, also members of the clergy, also reporters who denied this, but there was also, as has been the case across the country, videotape - lots of visual evidence that this wasn't the case. And so the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer today is that Outlaw - which is, of course, a brilliant last name for a police chief - says that it was unjustifiable to use tear gas, even though one would think that she and the mayor were involved in the decision-making process to decide to use tear gas, but that there also is a legacy of that kind of deflection in Philadelphia politics as well. Mayor Wilson Goode in 1985 was the first black mayor of Philadelphia when a bombing device was dropped on a house of an organisation called Move, which was a black counter-cultural group based in West Philadelphia. And the bombing killed 11 members of Move, including several children, and it destroyed four city blocks, and Wilson Goode also says he was not involved in the decision to drop a bomb there.

AS: I remember when the Move bombing took place because my mother is originally from Philadelphia, and Wilson Goode like Danielle Outlaw is African American, and this was of course held up as a sign that America was making enormous progress. There were all these black mayors who'd been elected starting in the 1970s, and yet the same kinds of brutality took place under their watch.

KYT: Absolutely. But Goode recently came out in an op-ed published in the Guardian and apologised yet again for this act that he also says he had nothing to do with. So in Philly people in charge apparently have nothing to do with the police acting in an outrageous, illegal and brutal fashion, but they have been forced to account publicly for that, I think because of the ferocity of the movement right now.

AS: Of the protests, yes, absolutely. And actually, when you mentioned this incident of tear gassing it reminds me of a quote from From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by the social psychologist Kenneth Clark, when he writes of urban revolts and says that we have to understand that the supposed lawlessness of these events is a response in fact to the lawlessness of the police.

KYT: Well, it's the lawlessness of the police, it's the dysfunction in effectiveness, unwillingness, or inability of the state in general to respond in meaningful ways to the sense of desperation, of hopelessness, of loss. And I think what is interesting about these uprisings and protests is that it's not confined just to African Americans, but it actually is representative of the feeling and the mood of a much broader and wider swath of the population, which makes it so dangerous to the political status quo.

AS: And we're going to talk about this, about the broad multi-racial dimension of the protest movement. But I want to start by quoting from a piece that you published in the New York Times on April 13th, a month into the Covid-19 crisis. And the piece appeared under the headline 'Do we need a new protest movement?' And you wrote:

Tens of millions of citizens sit at home awaiting meagre checks that may reach them by August. Countless people under the bewilderment of navigating call centres that often fail to connect them to unemployment benefits. Donations to food banks have fallen while need rises. The inept federal response slows the arrival of aid, forcing people to defy the social distancing necessary to keep the virus at bay. Under normal circumstances, such wanton disregard from the government might prompt protests, but these are far from normal circumstances. Instead, public demonstrations are almost impossible. So what can we do when it seems there is nothing we can do?

Now six weeks later, of course, everything changes. And the idea that mass demonstrations were obsolete because of Covid, which was an idea, actually, that was encouraged and promulgated by people like Bill Gates, was shattered. And so here you are. You've written extensively on questions of racism, class oppression, injustice for years, but it's not every day that anger over oppression explodes into a mass upheaval, particularly in the midst of a pandemic where people are afraid to be physically proximate to one another. So suddenly we're looking at the prospect of Trump unravelling, the racist-in-chief whose entire presidency was inspired by his hatred of the black president Barack Obama. So I'm wondering, this is a month before, this is in April. We were all wondering, will we ever be in the streets again? Were you surprised? Did the scale take you by surprise?

KYT: Oh, I was shocked. I'm still shocked. There was a march of hundreds of people in Philadelphia two days ago, to protest this racist Columbus discovering America. A statue in South Philly has become a flashpoint because the police, while they were tear gassing and attacking Black Lives Matter protesters, have coddled and supported these white thugs in South Philly armed with baseball bats, hammers and golf clubs who were poised to attack Black Lives Matter protesters. And so hundreds of people organised themselves to march on this statue to denounce racist vigilantism. And so, yes, I continue to be stunned by the longevity of the protest. This has been going on for a month now, and it is a welcome development. And I think that in some ways it's driven by the kind of ineptitude that I was describing in April. And I've heard several times now from young people who are at the centre of these protests that if we're going to die anyway from this pandemic, then I'd rather die fighting than die in my apartment alone. And I think the ineptitude from the state on the one hand, and then the brutality of the state on the other has left people feeling that there actually is no other alternative. There's nothing that we can really do, because even in some of the local elections we've seen people who identify with the movement, progressives challenging establishment Democrats, at least on the democratic side of these races.

AS: Look at Eliot Engel being defeated.

KYT: Oh, god,I know.

AS: Or my state senator Jabari Brisport, who is black, gay and a democratic socialist.

KYT: So there's that, but on the national level Joe Biden's response to the uprising was $300 million for the cops to do diversity training, cameras. And if that's the response at the top of the Democratic Party ticket, then of course you have to keep protesting! The political establishment has yet to catch up or fully comprehend the mood that is in the streets, so it still lags behind. The movement is talking about defund the police, right? It's not talking about train the police. And part of that is because 2015 is so recent, so the same people have lived through the piecemeal reforms. They've lived through body cameras as some breakthrough innovation that would compel the police to stop brutalising people. They've lived through policing commissions. They've lived through all of the reforms that the Democratic Party tries to now uphold as somehow original, innovative, as the solution to the problems with policing. And it's not good enough.

AS: And for them, it's too little too late.

KYT: Absolutely.

AS: And in a way, it's a reminder of what we saw in the 1960s with the Kerner Commission and how little follow-up there was.

KYT: It's the same solutions they've been recycling for fifty years, and no one's interested in that.

AS: I spoke recently to the poet and novelist Thulani Davis, who's herself a veteran of the movement of the sixties and seventies. And she told me that what had moved her about the protests was the intensity of the sorrow and the rage.
And she said that it made people of her generation able to cry again, that they'd somehow almost forgotten. They could no longer do it. And to see these young people responding, not just with horror, but with action was tremendously inspiring for people of her generation. Is that part of what you're feeling? You have a background as an organiser. You've been involved in politics for some time. Is that something that really impresses you?

KYT: Oh, I get asked all the time, do you have hope? Because it feels like we're just repeating the same things over and over again. And the rebellion is the most hopeful thing that... it was pretty hopeful in 2014.

AS: With the emergence of Black Lives Matter?

KYT: Yeah. But it didn't break out, you know? There were revolts in Ferguson and Baltimore, and then elsewhere there were solidarity protests, but the protests weren't centred at or focused on what was happening in that particular locality. And so I think the breadth of this emergent movement or the reemergence of this movement is absolutely inspiring. And the maturity of the politics because of the experiences in 2014 and 2015 is also hopeful, because the dynamics were different then because you had a politically skilled White House that understood that part of politics is creating the illusion of progress. And so you can put together a commission, you can put activists on the commission, you can do all these things that look busy, and create the appearance that something is happening, when not much really is happening. But it makes people feel like they're being effective. And the White House essentially then had an open door policy for activists, you know? And so none of that exists now, so the methods of co-optation are much more convoluted and difficult.

AS: Would you say also that when Black Lives Matter first emerged, you had in the White House a man who was perceived at least to be sympathetic to its demands, the nation's first black president, and so on? And so Obama, in part by virtue of just who he was, in part by virtue of his tremendous oratorical skills, had what you might call soft power. But people might have been disappointed with him. They might have felt betrayed. They might have felt abandoned. They might have thought, why can't he address our concerns? Why does he retreat from engaging with questions of anti-black oppression? And yet, because he had that soft power, it was enough perhaps to if not neutralise the movement, but to contain its spread and contain its force. Now you have someone in the office who is perceived, rightly, not just as someone who isn't sympathetic, but as an enemy.

KYT: Well, he's a white supremacist who has described Black Lives Matter, the movement, as terrorism.

AS: Exactly. So doesn't the fact that he's in power also partly explain why we see this eruptive force, and why it's spread and why it's acquired such momentum?

KYT: Oh, for certain, I think that Trump has been a provocateur in this sense. And also the actions of the Justice Department. I think some of the first decisions that were made initially under Jeff Sessions were to tear up all of the consent decrees that have been made between Eric Holder's Justice Department and police departments across the country. And so we can debate as to whether consent decrees actually lead to the reformation of the police. But to essentially say that you won't engage even in the fiction of trying to respond to this overwhelming desire to stop police brutality, and in several cases where Trump has either joked about the police beating up people or suggested that the police beat up people, then you've really been left with no other means except to protest. And so obviously the demonstrations that we saw at the end of May and the beginning of June were something more than just typical protests against police brutality. I think that it was an expression of a kind of pent-up rage at the way that almost... the George Floyd video, of course, is so disturbing because of the casualness with which Derek Chauvin just kills George Floyd as if he were killing a cockroach. It barely seems to be apparent.

AS: He's got his hand in his pocket.

KYT: He's just kind of hanging out on this guy's neck as he's begging for his life. And so there's something about the casualness, the white supremacist in the White House, within the context of this overwhelming black death because of Covid and the federal government's casual...well, you could call it inept, and part of it has been inept.

AS: A kind of a combination of ineptitude and callousness.

KYT: Yeah. And so between the two of those, I think that it was fuelling not only the sense that, well, if we don't do something ourselves, nothing will happen, but it literally feels like black lives actually do not matter in this country, and that's infuriating! And I think that's what people have reacted to.

AS: One of the really extraordinary things about the movement is the expansion of the sense of the possible, the imaginative aspect of the movement. You've written that no movement begins with the sense of what is possible, right? You begin with a vision of the impossible, in a sense, and this movement is no exception. So what yesterday would have seemed laughable, today is on the table. Defunding the police, abolition of prisons. Some of the demands are structural and others are more symbolic, like the tearing down of statues or the call for 'black' to be capitalised, or various other symbolic measures.
What do you see as really at the core, though, of the movement? I understand that it's a protest wave that's still gaining a sense of cohesion as a political and intellectual movement, but what to you are really the central demands, aside from an end to police brutality and so on? What do you think defines this movement?

KYT: I think people are trying to build out what it would mean for black lives to matter. And that is a combination of the structural and the symbolic. And so structurally - and this is what black movements always do - it obliterates the prevailing consensus that black deprivation is just natural and a part of our landscape, and is inexplicable and confusing and ultimately the product of black communities and black families themselves.

AS: The kind of culture of poverty argument that you've critiqued.

KYT: Yeah. That was just as prevalent in the Obama administration as it has ignored the condition of black people in the Trump administration. So when Obama chastises black families for whether or not they read to their children, or eating junk food and watching too much television, all of that worked to preserve the space for this discussion, that black people bear responsibility for the conditions and black neighbourhoods in the movement, as it did in the 1960s when the same kind of discussion was happening. And as it does every time it explodes, it forces a reckoning with the forces of racism, of discrimination, of exclusion and inequality in American society. And it forces the US to look at what it has done to African Americans historically and in this moment, in ways that outside of moments of extreme crisis are just ignored. And so people now are saying this is what structural inequality looks like. And this is what must be done to repair the damage that has been done to African American communities. And it's spelling that out.

AS: Well, this is actually one of the striking aspects of not just the movement, but of the American political conversation, if you will, that the idea of structural racism, which not only conservatives, but so-called liberals had for a long time dismissed, is back. It's widely accepted. Obviously it's not accepted by all Americans, but it's increasingly accepted. I was struck reading your book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by the juxtaposition of two quotations. One is from Lyndon B Johnson, and the other is from Obama. Now Johnson, of course, was notoriously a Southern racist, and yet he presided over the civil rights and voting rights acts. And his quote is a very powerful statement about structural racism rooted in slavery and Jim Crow. And the Obama quote reflects a kind of culture of poverty analysis, which places the blame on black people themselves. How did we get from Johnson to Obama in your view?

KYT: Well, I think that part of what Johnson's comments reflect... it's from his commencement address at Howard university in 1965. And so by June of 1965, the US has already had a taste of its first hot summer...

AS: Watts...

KYT: No, Watts would come later, in August of 1965. But the previous summer, in 1964 in Harlem and Cleveland, Philadelphia, Rochester, New York and other smaller skirmishes, I think also the year prior, Birmingham in 1963, some see as really the first urban rebellion of the 1960s. But more importantly, it was a march on Washington that people forget. It was the march on Washington for freedom and jobs that the civil rights movement more than any was making the connection between racism and discrimination and inequality experienced by African Americans. But it was explaining to the American public why black people were disproportionately poor, why black people lived in disproportionately substandard housing. You couldn't understand that without understanding the centrality of racism, not just in the South, but as an American phenomenon.

AS: And at the time the movement had strong links to the labour movement as well.

KYT: Absolutely. Which was one of the organising forces for the 1963 march on Washington. And so Lyndon Johnson understood this and was responding to this, and was forced because of the movement to grapple with the structural aspects of black inequality in a way that Barack Obama had not been forced to deal with. And in fact, as a black elected official he was able to really articulate this idea of black domestic dysfunction and the perceptions of the broken black family or a broken black culture, in ways that in the 21st century no white politician would really think about doing in the stark terms that Obama did.

AS: Wasn't that almost a price of admission for Obama too? He had to, for example, dissociate himself from Jeremiah Wright.

KYT: Yeah. I think yes and no. I think that this has become such an ingrained, almost knee jerk response in politics that they perhaps convince themselves that this is what they must do. But I think that Sanders in particular points to the reality that there's a different way. I think some of the success of the socialists running on Democratic Party tickets says that there is a different way, that you don't actually have to run on racism to be successful, especially in the Democratic Party.

AS: I wanted to actually ask you a question about Sanders, because Sanders came under some criticism for not placing racism at the centre of his analysis of American society.

KYT: A lot of criticism.

AS: Right, a fair amount of criticism, and he tried to address that. But Sanders was the subject of a piece that ran a couple of days ago by the conservative columnist for the Times Ross Douthat. And Douthat argued that Sanders had suffered his second defeat with the emergence of the protests, and essentially Douthat argued that these protests reflect the victory of anti-racist politics over politics organised around social class that Bernie had promoted. My sense from the demonstrations that I attended, and from what I've been hearing from people, is that the lines between these politics are actually as fluid as they were at the 1963 march on Washington. And that Sanders in fact is about the only candidate who's routinely invoked at these demonstrations. So I'm rather sceptical. I wonder what you think, do you think Bernie still speaks to this moment?

KYT: Oh, more now than ever. I wrote a piece for the New Yorker that said reality had endorsed Bernie Sanders. And I think that that still holds true. I think in some ways the protests have gone beyond Sanders as well, particularly on the question of defunding the police. But I think that all of what are perceived as the strange divisions between race and class, these are the key questions that are facing ordinary people, black people in particular. The question about healthcare, the idea that we live in a country where healthcare is largely based on employment status, is absurd. And the absurdity is even more apparent now. And black people have been the biggest proponents for Medicare for all, across all other demographics. So the idea that African Americans are only interested in 'anti-racist' politics and not 'class' politics is functionally illiterate. It means that you don't actually understand that the vast majority of black people are working class. And so these issues about raising the minimum wage, about healthcare, about redistributing - defunding the police is about the redistribution of wealth in our society, we should throw defund the military into that mix as well - these are class issues that intersect with race in this country, because black people are disproportionately poor and working class.

AS: I read in the Times the other day that the income disparity between black and white men hasn't changed since 1950. And you recently published a chart having to do with income disparities. Everyone in principle can get behind the idea that the police have to stop killing black people, but addressing the roots of oppression, addressing unemployment, substandard housing, poor healthcare, the things that you were mentioning just a moment ago, attacking what you've called racial capitalism, this is another matter. This is not something that the corporations piggybacking on Black Lives Matter or states declaring Juneteenth a holiday can necessarily get behind. So do you think there's also a danger that the movement's energies could be co-opted by groups that have a much more truncated understanding of what this movement is about?

KYT: Well, this is how Martin Luther King went from being admired and respected in the United States to hated and despised by the time he was assassinated because, as he pointed out, ending Jim Crow didn't really cost anything. Taking the signs down and saying that black people were free to come and go as they pleased in public didn't cost anything. But when the focus of the movement shifts to the North, this is when you have to talk about the redistribution of hundreds of billions of dollars. Because if you're serious about ending housing discrimination, if you're serious about ending job discrimination, because job discrimination is not just 'we don't like black people, so we're going to hold them down,' it's about that wage disparity. It is about getting work for cheap for certain groups of people while still charging them the full amount to live in our society. And so if you're going to change that dynamic, then you're talking about a massive redistribution of wealth and resources in this country, and that's when the discussion usually comes to a screeching halt. And so Amazon can put Black Lives Matter on a masthead on its website, but unless that is actually matched by paid time off, by robust health insurance and other benefits, and by an actual living wage of $25 or $30 an hour, then it's all just window dressing. And you can say that to every corporation that is talking about Black Lives Matter, people taking knees and all of this kind of empty hollow, symbolic bullshit that doesn't actually cost them anything. But when it comes to changing the institutional practice that constitutes this systemic racism that everyone is talking about now, then that's where we see whether this is a serious effort or whether this is a photo op at a press conference. And that is also what is so important about where this movement is right now. It's that at the centre of it are these kinds of demands around redistribution that are trying to, as I said earlier, build out what it would mean for black lives to matter in this country.

AS: Keeanga, in the mid sixties, late sixties, early seventies, there were important figures, leaders who were articulating the kind of vision that you're describing, this expansive vision of political change, economic redistribution, a different non-imperialist foreign policy, and so on - MLK, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, numerous people. I'm not saying that there are no leaders in the protest wave that we're seeing, but I would say that it's a much more horizontal movement. There are not as many charismatic leaders, the kind who once defined the civil rights movement or the black power movement for that matter.
In what ways is this a strength? In what ways is it a potential liability as it was in the Arab spring, for example?

KYT: I think that the strength of this is that it really is beginning to have a kind of mass character in which I think people will be challenged about how to democratically proceed. Like how do we figure out, once the obstacles become clear, once we start to move beyond saying black lives matter and kneeling in the street with protesters, how do we actually change things? Then it becomes clearer what type of organising and organisations that we need. And so it seems now, I think, without having the 'charismatic leaders', that this is a movement that anyone can involve themselves in and figure out how to plug in. And I think that's good. And there are a lot of organisations that have been building over the last several years. I think that is why these types of demands have been advanced so easily. I don't know that there's a particular drawback about having a figurehead. I can't think of a particular drawback. I know that those types of individuals and organisations that became seen as the leadership of the movement, the contributions that they made were being able to synthesise a lot of different kinds of information to really help narrate publicly what was happening to African Americans, to help narrate a list of demands and to really be able to articulate that publicly, which I think was important within the movement itself, but became attractive and helped to pull people into organising, into being a part of a social movement. And I think that doesn't have to be wrapped up in a single individual. And I think over the last several weeks that we've seen that same kind of articulation happening across the United States, where people who have been given platforms in writing, who've been given platforms in visual media, have helped to articulate to a larger American public what this is actually about and why it is happening now. And we can measure its impactfulness by the rapid shift in polling. Seventy-one percent of Americans think that racism is a problem in the US. That's a huge breakthrough. But it's not only because of the demonstrations themselves, it's also because of people who have been in this work for several years now being given a platform in several different kinds of media, to be able to explain what is happening.

AS: That actually brings me to my next question, because I wanted to talk to you about the cutting edge of critique, the intellectual work that has been done, that in a sense has prefigured some of the themes of this movement. I'm thinking about work that has focused on policing and mass incarceration, including your work. Now, obviously the question of police brutality, of over-policing, has always been a great concern, along with - and we can talk about this later, perhaps - a more complicated and troubled question of under-policing, because a lot of black people have felt their lives aren't even protected, that the police are just there to protect white lives. Du Bois once said that there's nothing easier than to accuse a black man of crime. This concern has been there for a long time, and as you've pointed out, the origins of the police can be partly traced to slave patrols. Still I think it's hard to ignore the conceptual revolution that's been brought about by works like Michelle Alexander's New Jim Crow or Khalil Gibran Muhammad's Condemnation of Blackness, and the abolitionist work of Angela Davis and Ruthie Wilson Gilmore. It's often sneeringly said that the millennials only have attitudes, not ideas, but it seems to me that we're seeing a movement that's inspired by scholarship much as the sixties' new left was inspired by William Appleman Williams, C. Wright Mills, Marcuse. Do you see these works as critical to the thinking and imagination of this movement?

KYT: Oh, absolutely. And I think that this work has helped to inform a generation of activists and organisers, many of whom were ex-students who were immersed in this kind of scholarship that had always conceived of itself in a certain respect as public, and not just scholarship for the sake of scholarship, particularly in the field of abolition. Ruth Wilson Gilmore was an organiser and went from organising into graduate school, and took those ideas that were shaped from her experiences in organising as a member of a community, and developed them further in graduate school, but never with the intention of it staying there in the Academy.

AS: This is your story too, isn't it?

KYT: Yeah, I was an organiser. I went to grad school. But also for me was to learn more about the issues that I was most interested in, as a way to be even more effective and trying to understand, explain, learn from what was happening in this country, as a way to challenge the status quo. Angela Davis, obviously, was an academic, then put in prison and continued, but I have always seen her scholarship as part of a larger liberation struggle for the freedom of black people, but really Angela Davis exemplifies a kind of internationalist political ethos that is important in training a new generation of organisers and activists and concerned people in the world. And so I think that the immersion in those kinds of politics has helped again shape the people who have been organising around these issues, and has meant that very quickly, within this particular iteration of these struggles, very well defined articulated demands around defunding, introducing the idea of abolition, over the last several years, has meant that these are no longer just strange abstract marginalised ideas that are seen as fringe, but are actually becoming part of a mainstream discussion about what we do. And that's a tremendous breakthrough.

AS: It is. And I want to ask you about... every movement looks for a kind of usable past. And as you've just pointed out, this is a movement that has a rich sense of its own history and of its ancestors. And you edited a beautiful book about some of them called How We Get Free. So I'm wondering, can you tell me a bit about this group, the Combahee River Collective, and why they matter today, why their concerns resonate with what we're seeing in the streets.

KYT: The Combahee River Collective was actually a small group of black feminists that formed in the early 1970s. The way that they describe it is that there was no space for them in the left, as it was constituted then. Within black led organisations, nationalism organised around strong male personalities was the prevailing organisational model. And then feminist organisations were dominated by liberals and white women who did not see the particularities of the experiences of black women. And so black feminism develops as its own current with its own organisations, its own politics. Combahee, I think, is most known because it so clearly and decisively defined why black feminism was important in a statement that three of the members drafted for a publication in 1977. And what's interesting about the drafting of this publication is that it was solicited by...

AS: Zillah Eisenstein, right?

KYT: Yeah. Who was putting together a reader on socialist feminism, and so it spoke to the kind of relationship that the women of Combahee had developed. And I think part of what is interesting is that they certainly saw themselves as part of the left, and not as just a feminist organisation out in the world, but they saw themselves as part of the left. And I think the power of the Combahee statement is still quite apparent. This was a statement that coined the term 'identity politics', and what they meant by that was the process by which black women became political, that living as people who suffered all sorts of oppression, that this was fundamental to the development of their politics. And so when they talked about the personal being political, that wasn't a retreat from political life into the internal, that was saying that because of the racism and sexism experienced by black women in their personal lives, that is what lay at the foundation of their radical politics.

AS: It's a remarkable statement. And I think that what I also found striking about the formulation of identity politics is that it hardly rules out - and in fact advocates - alliances, coalition building, solidarity. It was not the kind of identity politics that today's critics...

KYT: It's not exclusive.

AS: No.

KYT: It's not exclusionary. It is a bridge into other people's struggles, but on their own terms. It's saying, don't say we can build alliances as long as we don't talk about the difficult things or the hard things. The strength of these alliances is based on solidarity that you accept our agenda that we have set.

AS: The definition of identity politics seems almost like an epistemological stance. In other words, if we're going to understand oppression, we have to start from where we are, from our experiences. But the point isn't to end there, it's to branch out from there. And I was struck by something that Barbara Smith, one of the founders, one of the authors of the statement, and I believe she was one of the founders of black women's studies as well...

KYT: Absolutely.

AS: She says that we didn't mean that if you're not the same as us, you're nothing. We were not saying that we didn't care about anybody who wasn't exactly like us. One of the things I used to say is that it would be really boring only to do political work with people who are exactly like me. People of different backgrounds in different places, in a social structure actually at times come together. And I think that in this movement today, it seems to me - and I think this really began or became more visible with Black Lives Matter - is that we're seeing a kind of intersectional anti-racism in which women, and also queer people, are acquiring more prominence. Without hiding, concealing, repudiating their identities, they're foregrounding those identities. And so it's an interesting shift, too, from what we saw in the past with Bayard Rustin, for example, or Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer, who in a sense are the godfathers, the godmothers, rather, of this movement. Would you say that this is also a kind of distinguishing feature of this new politics? The fact that black women and queer black people have been taking such a prominent role?

KYT: I think two things. One, at the height of the movement in the sixties, it was still before really the gay liberation movement had exploded through certain aspects of institutional homophobia in the United States, which really hasn't been realised in significant ways until the 21st century. And so I think that is part of what has happened here. But I also think that the more immediate foremothers of this movement come out of the Incite conference of 1999/2000, where this kind of politics was put forward, a politics that embraced a radical feminism that was anticapitalist, that was queer unto itself, and that had abolition politics at its centre. And I think that we have underestimated the centrality of that gathering and of Incite as a place where these politics were developed, contemplated, debated and nurtured.

AS: So this was kind of an incubator, and now we're seeing the results.

KYT: Absolutely. And the historian Barbara Ransby is one of the few people to write about this kind of earlier history in her book Making All Black Lives Matter, which I think is important. Those gatherings really helped to develop a cadre of organisers who had these kinds of politics at their core. And I think that development, along with the kind of...I wrote about this in my book, how in Ferguson, for example, one out of, I think, every six black men had simply disappeared out of the census, and most of that disappearance had been attributed to premature death. And I do think that the particular obliteration of black men, either through death or imprisonment, had necessarily opened a space which black women could politically occupy and not be forced to defer to male leadership. And I think we continue to see that dynamic. In addition to adept organising skills and developing political authority, I think that it also has some roots in this kind of demographic or sociological factors as well.

AS: You've been a very powerful champion of political solidarity and of developing coalitions. And along with this emergence of anti-racist consciousness that we've seen among young whites and in a different way among Asians, there's also been, among some, a questioning of the meaning of solidarity. To some extent it's informed by Afro pessimism in its white liberal version. I want to read you a passage from an interview that Ruthie Gilmore, the abolitionist advocate, gave with Paul Gilroy recently. She said,

There's a bit of a divergence these last few weeks between what you just described, a different future for human beings, as against a path, that worries me very much. Which is that in recapitulating a certain kind of apartheid thinking in the name of undoing the effects of apartheid in the world scale. And by that, I mean, the tendency that's got me worried is one in which people are insisting that only certain demographics of people are authorised to speak about, speak from, or speak against certain kinds of horrors. And other people have already existing assignable jobs based on their demographic, let's call it a caste system, that they're supposed to do. So white people are supposed to fix white supremacy, and so on and so forth. This path, which is actually a pretty strong path, doesn't excite me. I'm seventy years old. I'm done with it. I've been done with it for a long time. The path, however, which some of the young Black Lives Matter people named five years ago in that year of uprising in the US after the death of Mike Brown and Freddie Gray, the one in which they said quite simply "when black lives matter, everybody lives better," that's the path that's of interest to me.

KYT: Absolutely. We can't win with the idea that only black people can fight for black people, white people should fight for working class white people, Latinos should only fight for themselves. We can't win that way. And we have a lifetime of experience over the previous century that is proof of that. And I like to think of myself as an Afro optimist. I think that the black struggle in this country has been a source of inspiration for people around the world, because this is the most exploitative, the most oppressive country, just simply because it has the resources to be different. You know, this is not a struggling republic that has no money and resorts to brute force in order to eke out an existence. This is the richest country in the history of the world, where its ruling class deliberately sets poor and working class people in opposition to each other, to maintain wealth at the top of our society. And we acquiesce to that politically by reinforcing the lines of division that they have drawn in the first place. And so we have to think about solidarity as not an exercise in finding the least contentious issue around which to organise, so that's not what we're arguing for. We're arguing for an informed solidarity based on an understanding of the oppression of black people and a rejection of it, an understanding of the oppression and exploitation of immigrant labour in the United States and a rejection of it. And that's hard. It is hard. But there's no other way. There's no shortcut. There's no way to circumvent the need for what Combahee talked about as coalition-building and the need for what is actually playing out in the streets right now, which is a multiracial rebellion against capitalism and the excesses of it. And so people want to be in a movement. People want to be a part of an effort to transform this country. And no one should be told that you can't be a part of it, you know? And so to me, that's part of what it means to democratise our movements, to open them up and to struggle. You know, we have to struggle with each other. And we can't have this kind of sacrosanct approach to politics where you don't get to say the wrong thing. You don't get to make a mistake. And if you do, then you're banished from organising. Because the reality is if that is the standard that we are creating, then we'll never have a mass movement of ordinary people who'd make those mistakes and say those things all the time. And so if it's you and your 12 friends who had your American studies seminar and your women's studies seminar, and you figured out what all the language is, then that's great, and good luck. But if we're actually going to build a movement of the masses who are affected by this, then we have to have some grace, then we have to listen to people. We have to understand what their struggles are. And we have to find a way to knit ourselves together into a force that can actually fight for the world that we want. And that's hard. And it's much harder than just saying 'you people go to the back because you haven't experienced what it's like to be called the N word'. We're not going to get anywhere with that. And we have to have a different vision of politics to fight for the kind of world that we want.

AS: Keeanga, that was really eloquently put, and I think it's a good place for us to stop. And I hope that we'll be able to talk again. This has been such a pleasure and an honour. Thank you for joining us on the LRB podcast.

KYT: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Podcast: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Adam Shatz · How do you change things? · LRB 30 June 2020

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Adam Shatz: Our guest today on the LRB podcast is Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Taylor is a professor of African American studies at Princeton and the author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective.

# data[].attributes.headline
Policing is an Avatar of American Racism

# data[].attributes.subject
Policing is an Avatar of American Racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of police, protesters across the country are demanding systemic changes in the way American police forces operate and are funded.

Journalist Jamiles Lartey says the discussion about policing feels different now than it has in the past. "You're hearing so much less of the 'few bad apples' argument and so much more of the, 'What is wrong with this system?' [argument]," he says.

Lartey is a staff writer for The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the U.S. criminal justice system. He previously reported on criminal justice, race and policing for The Guardian, where he was part of a team that created an online database tracking police violence in 2015 and 2016.

Lartey notes that America's model of policing is a relatively recent phenomenon: "Policing wasn't always this way. It wasn't always this big. It wasn't always this bureaucratic," he says. "Modern policing - the policing that you and I and listeners recognize today - is really a product of the 20th century."

He says that Floyd's death - and the deaths of other black people in police custody - highlight the need to change a broken system.

"There's so many things that we currently ask our police to respond to - whether it's a noise complaint or a car accident - that don't necessarily fit into a reason why someone would need to show up with a deadly weapon," Lartey says. "Sometimes as a society, you need to rethink institutions, especially when they're relatively new, especially when they've changed a lot over the last 20, 30 or 40 years."

Interview highlights
On destructive acts of protest, like looting and arson
I think it is important to keep in mind that to the extent that there has been destructive acts of protests, looting, that there's a range of causes: Are there passionate, angry people who were lashing out in grief and frustration? Yes. Are there anti-capitalists who see looting and destruction as a form of revolutionary praxis and are using this as an opportunity? Yes. Are there pure opportunists who want to get free stuff and are taking advantage of the chaos? Definitely. Are there chaos agents who are trying to give the protesters a bad name and potentially see violence against them? It appears that that was the case as well. So I think it's really important that when we are trying to analyze these moments that we're not reductive about the socio-economic phenomena, like destructive protests or looting. ...

I think there's an important distinction between measuring the efficacy of violent protests or destructive protests versus the morality of it. The morality of it is going to be personal and subjective. Most of us can think of moments and places where we find violence or destruction useful and justified, and moments where we don't. Now, the efficacy of it is something that we can probably wrap our heads around. But again, it's complicated. If the point is to get attention, then destruction works. If the point is to win hearts and minds and the political center, then it probably doesn't. And if holding public officials hostage and forcing them to appease your demands is the point, it might depend on the public official.

I think something that you'll hear a lot ... is that, "Two wrongs don't make a right," which is an ethical and spiritual intuition in many traditions, but it's not a particularly American one. Our whole criminal justice system is based on the premise that two wrongs make a right. Caging humans and fining poor people money they don't have are morally wrong, but it's how we define justice in most cases in this country.
On a model of protest used in the '80s and '90s, where protest organizers met with police beforehand - and why that model is less common now
The negotiated management model of protest is this idea that community thought leaders would be meeting with police. Ahead of a protest, they'd say, "Here's what we're going to protest. Here's when and where and how. This is how we expect it all to go down." And they'd come up with a plan to essentially let people exercise their First Amendment rights in the fullest way possible. And there would be this expectation on both sides that the police would stick to the plan that they agreed to, that the protesters would stick to the plan that they agreed to. This took a lot of the uncertainty and mistrust out of the calculation and allowed people to express themselves. ...

That was in a moment where it was always very clear who community thought leaders were, and in many respects, they were folks who are connected to the establishment ... church leaders, people in the church, the spiritual religious leaders. Now, that's not necessarily the folks who are leading Black Lives Matter protests today. Some of them are. Some of them aren't. So I think there's a lot of reasons why that model has fallen out of favor. I think it largely has to do with the militarization of U.S. police. It largely has to do with just a changing cultural attitude about how police approach their job. But it also has to do with the fact that I think, ideologically and structurally, in many ways, the police and the folks who are protesting are further away from one another within the society, whereas before they were both members of an establishment and a community.
On a softer way of policing protests known as the "Madison model"
I spoke to [former Madison, Wis., Police Chief] David Cooper, who I see is in many ways the forefather of this kind of softer approach to policing protests. ... And what he described to me is you show up in regular uniforms, people can see your face. (This was obviously outside the context of a pandemic.) You listen, you relate. You talk to people about their grievance. And in exchange for asking officers to make themselves fairly vulnerable in this way, you have these more well-equipped cops waiting somewhere close by in case things go bad.

But David Cooper, when I talked to him, he said ... "You never, never, never, never start with the show of force and power because it ratchets up everyone's expectations for violence and ... generate[s] it." And again, just when we think about escalation and de-escalation, that makes sense. You show up with the most aggressive version of how you can respond to something, and it ratchets up the perception of everyone who's there of where this is going to go. ...

Law enforcement officials and former police chiefs told me over and over again [that] just showing up in soft uniforms to a protest full of angry people does not in and of itself guarantee a peaceful, satisfactory resolution. The work starts before that. There needs to be some baseline level of trust between police and between a community that they're going to do what they said they were going to do. If you're talking about one of these pre-negotiated plans for a protest, that they're going to abide by that. There's this metaphorical bank of trust between police and a community, and too often it's overdrawn in both directions, and there's no way to really approach it as anything but a war. As one of the retired law enforcement folks I spoke to said, "The time to make friends is before you need them."
On why reforms within the Minneapolis police department didn't prevent George Floyd's death
Malcolm X once said, "You can't legislate goodwill." And I think it's maybe one of the most astute political observations of our time. And if I can take the liberty of elaborating on it, I'd say you can't regulate goodwill or implement it with a consent decree or a strategic policy initiative either. So, yes, we can outline specific line-level reforms that were promised and not implemented or implemented unevenly or ineffectively.

Let's take neck restraints, for example. Many departments have chosen to ban those outright. But when the Minneapolis police department addressed them in 2014, they chose to leave this carve out where if deadly force was permissible, then so too was this kind of restraint. It maybe makes sense that if you're legally justified to pull out your gun and shoot someone, you're also justified to choke them. That's the argument that's typically made, and a lot of use of force policies make it. But by leaving that carve out, there's a significant ambiguity there in the policy. You're asking officers, in the heat of the moment, or in the heat of several moments, to make a distinction about whether or not this particular situation merits or makes it reasonable to restrain someone's neck in that way.

But putting aside that specific example, a lot of changes were made. The Minneapolis department adopted a slew of changes after this voluntary review in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Justice. And they automated their system for flagging problem officers as the Department of Justice recommended. They rewrote their use of force policy with a focus on the "sanctity of life." They required officers to intervene when a fellow cop became abusive in front of them. And all of those would seem to be measures that would have lessened the possibility that an incident like what happened to George Floyd would happen. But they didn't. And so I think that's going to beg some really tough questions moving forward for reformers about why not.

And I kind of think it comes back to the words of Malcolm X: If there is a culture in an organization whereby the application of force to black bodies is the norm, that's the expectation. It's the M.O. You can't really policy change that away. The news that the city plans to disband its police department and kind of functionally start over again seems to be a recognition of that fact, as does this newfound popularity broadly of defund and abolition movements.

On why screening for racist officers is not going to fix the problem of racism in police departments

I've always found it instructive to think of the police and policing as this kind of avatar of American racism. The police are racism representatives.

I've always found it instructive to think of the police and policing as this kind of avatar of American racism. The police are racism representatives. They are the folks who we hire to actuate something that's far more distant than a person's individual biases.

I'm sure listeners will be familiar with the Central Park incident involving Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper [no relation] a few weeks back: A white woman was walking her dog off leash. This black man, Christian Cooper, asked her to put her dog on the leash, per the park rules. And she instantly seemed to feel very threatened and started calling the police and telling them that she was being physically threatened by a black man. This went viral just before George Floyd was killed.

And part of the reason that the Amy Coopers of the world feel so comfortable using the police as their own kind of personal racism valet is because that's in line with how they've operated in our society. Which is to say, even if you or I or we have never called the police on a black person for some deeply unserious reason, as a society we outsource the keeping of the racial order to police every day. ... And this is so important: Officers themselves do not have to be ideologically white supremacist to be performing that function.

So we spend a lot of time on this surface level question of how do we get police officers as individuals or as departments to treat black people better. But in sum, the way police treat black people in America is symptomatic of how America feels about black people, which is this state of conditional citizenship steeped in mistrust and in fear.
Amy Salit and Seth Kelley produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the Web.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Policing Is An 'Avatar Of American Racism,' Marshall Project Journalist Says

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of police, protesters across the country are demanding systemic changes in the way American police forces operate and are funded. Journalist Jamiles Lartey says the discussion about policing feels different now than it has in the past.

# data[].attributes.headline
(At least) 10 Things Educators Can Do to End the Prison Industrial Complex

# data[].attributes.subject
(At least) 10 Things Educators Can Do to End the Prison Industrial Complex

# data[].attributes.body
Developed by the Education for Liberation Network

# data[].attributes.body
New Georgia Encyclopedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Beginning in 1757 Georgia's colonial assembly required white landowners and residents to serve as slave patrols.

Asserting that slave insurrections must be prevented, the legislature stipulated in "An Act for Establishing and Regulating of Patrols" that groups "not exceeding seven" would work in districts twelve miles square. The statute, modeled on South Carolina's earlier patrol law, ordered white adults to ride the roads at night, stopping all slaves they encountered and making them prove that they were engaged in lawful activities. Patrollers required slaves to produce a pass, which stated their owner's name as well as where and when they were allowed to be away from the plantation and for how long. Patrols operated in Georgia until slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War (1861-65).

Whites could hire substitutes to patrol for them; absentees were fined. Much of the burden of patrol duty fell to nonslaveholders, who often resented what they sometimes saw as service to the planter class. The Chatham County grand jury complained in the mid-1790s about the difficulty it faced in enforcing the patrol requirement. By the early nineteenth century it became necessary to pay people to perform what had been voluntary unpaid service. In 1819 Savannah's city watch received one dollar for every evening they served and shared in any reward for the forced return of fugitive slaves.

To disperse any nighttime meetings, patrollers visited places where slaves often gathered. Owners feared such gatherings allowed slaves to trade stolen goods for liquor and other forbidden items.

River patrols were organized in Savannah and Augusta to combat "midnight depredations" and to protect cargo, crops, and other materials piled along waterfront docks from slave theft. Religious meetings were also a favorite haunt of patrollers because they provided opportunities for socializing that attracted slaves. After 1792 Georgia law protected religious assemblies from being disturbed, but slaves and African Americans could not gather "under pretence of divine worship" contrary to the regulation of patrols. Paranoia over slave unrest after the Saint Domingue (later, Haiti) slave rebellion of 1791 led to a Savannah ordinance that no slaves could meet for religious services without a white preacher present.

Slave patrols had the legal right to enter, without warrant, the plantation grounds of any Georgian; they often searched the slave quarters and inspected slave homes, looking for stolen goods, missing slaves who had turned runaway, weapons that could be used in an insurrection, or evidence of literacy and education, including books, papers, and pens (teaching a slave to read was forbidden by Georgia law in the antebellum period). Enforcement was often more lax than the letter of the law suggested. For instance, in Greene County, in the heart of the plantation Black Belt, the grand jury complained about the laxity of the patrols and their failure to provide effective vigilance over the county's vast slave populace.

In towns and growing cities like Savannah, Macon, and Augusta, slave patrollers usually did their work on foot, and the men chosen as urban patrols were not always well-to-do. The responsibilities of city patrollers occasionally merged with those associated with modern-day policemen and firemen: patrollers investigated strange circumstances (moving lights in a warehouse at night, rowdy gatheringsin drinking dens, anyone who acted suspiciously). Indeed, urban patrollers preceded the advent of city policeman and fireman forces in virtually every southern town.

With the Civil War's outbreak in 1861, white Georgians feared the possibility that slaves would rebel or that enforcing discipline among slave communities would become more difficult. As a result, patrols, often in conjunction with home militia units, intensified their vigilance. Apprehension increased after U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in 1863, and the movement and behavior of slaves were more strictly regulated. In Atlanta, for example, patrols began arresting any blacks found on the streets after nine o'clock at night, whether or not they had passes. City authorities also prevented social gatherings of African Americans unless patrollers or policemen were present.

Although slave patrols ceased to function after the Civil War, they provided the blueprint for later activities of the Ku Klux Klan -a new means by which the white community sought to control the activities of freedmen and freedwomen during Reconstruction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Beginning in 1757 Georgia's colonial assembly required white landowners and residents to serve as slave patrols. Asserting that slave insurrections must be prevented, the legislature stipulated in "An Act for Establishing and Regulating of Patrols" that groups "not exceeding seven" would work in districts twelve miles square.

# data[].attributes.body
NPR Throughline Podcast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
subscribe to Throughline podcast

subscribe to Throughline podcast

Bettmann/Bettmann Archive

Jun Fujita/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images

Black Americans being victimized and killed by the police is an epidemic. A truth many Americans are acknowledging since the murder of George Floyd, as protests have occurred in all fifty states calling for justice on his behalf. But this tension between African American communities and the police has existed for centuries. This week, the origins of American policing and how those origins put violent control of Black Americans at the heart of the system.
If you would like to read more about the topic: We love to hear from our listeners! Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an , or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Black Americans being victimized and killed by the police is an epidemic. A truth many Americans are acknowledging since the murder of George Floyd, as protests have occurred in all fifty states calling for justice on his behalf. But this tension between African American communities and the police has existed for centuries.

# data[].attributes.body
An essay by Mariame Kaba

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This essay will appear in July's "Fun" magazine issue. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox.

"Ms. K, they got me again."

Six words set up the familiar routine. A car ride to the station. An unwanted and unwelcome conversation with the officer at the desk. Rudeness, contempt and that awful perma-smirk. Waiting in anticipation; false alarms. A reprieve: An escape without ransom. More waiting. Finally, the bowed head and slumped shoulders of a young Black man walking towards me. No tears. Where are the tears? Another court date or maybe not. Another record to expunge, always. Then it starts all over again.

I dread summer. It's the season of hyper-surveillance and even more aggressive policing of young people of color in my neighborhood.

The urban summer criminalization merry-go-round; a kind of demented child's play. Quotidian terrorism in the service of law and order. Low-intensity police riots against young Black people. My anecdotal observations are supported by empirical data. The ACLU of Illinois says that last summer, based on population, Chicago police made "far more street stops than New York City police did at the height of their use of stop-and-frisk. The CPD stopped more than 250,000 innocent people." Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of those stops involved Black people who, while making up 32% of Chicago's population, were 72% of the stops.

Some studies suggest a correlation between summer and a rise in "crime." I can hear the justifications: "If crime increases in the summer, then more police aggression is justified." This fails to take into account that "routine" interactions between police and young people in my community are fraught all year long. Summer exacerbates these oppressive contacts because many more young people are out of school and usually without jobs hanging out in public spaces.

Public spaces in urban and suburban towns are contested. Residents collude with law enforcement to police and enforce boundaries. Young people of color are criminalized not only by the police but also by community residents.

Yesterday, yet another video went viral on social media. It depicts police officers in McKinney, Texas, swarming a pool party filled with teenagers and one particular officer manhandling a 14 year old Black girl wearing a bikini. The young people are cursed at, have a gun pointed at them, and are taunted for being afraid of the cops. Fifteen year old Miles Jai Thomas explains what happened:

"So a cop grabbed her arm and flipped her to the ground after she and him were arguing about him cursing at us," Thomas said.

When two teens went toward the cop to help the girl, they were accused of sneaking up on the cop to attack.

"So a cop yelled 'get those motherfuckers' and they chased [us] with guns out. That's why in the video I started running," Thomas said.

I was scared because all I could think was, 'Don't shoot me,'" he said.

Watching the video, I was struck by how the young people were denied the right to be afraid. Their fear was illegitimate. And it makes sense; only human beings are allowed to be afraid. For the cops these youth of color (mostly Black) are not human.

I dread summer.

I attended a conference recently about youth/police interactions. The familiar trope about the need for young people and the cops to get to know each other was bandied about, useless pablum offered as a solution for ending police violence which relies on a faulty definition of the problem. As a young person once told me: "I know the cops here very well and they know me. We know each other too well. That's not the problem. The problem is that they harass me daily. If they'd stop that, we'd be fine."

The young people in my community who come into contact with the police can recite their names and badge numbers. Those are unforgettable to them; the stuff of their nightmares. It's unclear to me how more conversations will change the dynamics of such oppression. For most of the public, whether liberal or conservative, it's the cops' job to arrest people, and they are incentivized to do that work. Presumably, then, what would need to change to shift the dynamics are the job descriptions and the incentives.

A persistent and seemingly endemic feature of U.S. society is the conflation of Blackness and criminality. William Patterson, a well-known Black communist, wrote in 1970 that: "A false brand of criminality is constantly stamped on the brow of Black youth by the courts and systematically kept there creating the fiction that Blacks are criminally minded people." He added that "...the lies against Blacks are propped up ideologically." I would suggest that they are also maintained and enforced through force and violence.

When the Baltimore police dressed in riot gear turned their violence on high school students at the Mondawmin Mall a few weeks ago, some people were horrified. "These are children," onlookers exclaimed on social media. I thought grimly of how the cops would see the situation: There are no children here; only targets and threats. Social science research suggests that cops see Black children as older and as less innocent than their white peers. The research confirms what most of us already know: Black children are considered to be disposable and dangerous mini-adults.

This is not new. I came across the story of 13-year-old Beverly Lee when I read the 1951 We Charge Genocide petition many years ago. Lee was shot in the back by a Detroit police officer on October 12, 1947. Here's the item that piqued my interest as it appeared in We Charge Genocide:

Beverly Lee, 13-year-old youth, was shot by Policeman Louis Begin of Detroit, Michigan. Mrs. Francis Vonbatten of 1839 Pine testified that she saw the dead youth and another walking down the street, saw the squad car approach. She heard "Stop, you little so-and-so" and then a shot. The officer was subsequently cleared by Coroner Lloyd K. Babcock.

I was particularly interested in the incident because I thought that Beverly was a girl and police violence cases involving Black girls and young women have been overlooked. In fact, I haven't found any historical incidents of police violence against Black women and girls that led to mass mobilization. Current campaigns such as #SayHerName point to the enduring erasure of state violence against Black girls and women.The incident in McKinney Texas featured physical violence against a Black girl underscoring the fact that girls (cis and trans) are consistently at risk of law enforcement abuse. On further research, I learned that Beverly Lee was actually a boy.

On the day after Beverly Lee was shot, the Detroit News reported on the incident:

Shot in the back as he tried to evade arrest, a seventh-grade schoolboy was killed by a Detroit patrolman late Sunday. The boy, Beverly Lee, 13, of 2637 Twelfth street, was shot by Patrolman Louis Begin, of the Trumbull station, when he disregarded orders to halt. Begin and his partner, Patrolman William Owens, were called to Temple and Vermont avenues where Mrs. Mabel Gee, 1930 Temple, reported her purse stolen. Approaching the intersection, they saw Lee, ordered him to halt, and Owens fired a warning shot. Begin shot him as he continued to run away from the scout car. A watch belonging to Mrs. Gee and $18, the amount she said was in her purse, were found in the boy's pockets. The purse was recovered nearby. Begin and Owens made statements to William D. Brusstar, assistant prosecutor. They said Mrs. Gee referred to her assailant as a "man" and, when they encountered him, they thought he was an adult [emphasis mine]. Lee was about five feet, six inches tall. Other victims of recent purse snatchings were being invited to view the body at the County Morgue. Lee attended Condon Intermediate School. His body was identified by his mother, Mrs. Leah Lee. [10/13/47]

The discrepancy between these two accounts is unsurprising. As we have so often seen, there is usually a variance between initial press reports and official police accounts and community narratives. Notice that the cops and the alleged robbery victim said that they thought Lee was an adult. The adultification of black children has long and deep roots that date back to chattel slavery. In fact, before the Civil War, half of all enslaved people were under 16 years old. Enslaved children were property and were expected to work. Children as young as 6 years old worked the fields.

Beverly Lee was the third black boy killed by police that year in Detroit. Community members were furious and organized protests over Lee's killing. Despite the uproar, only eight days after the shooting, the prosecutor closed the investigation into Lee's death calling it "justifiable homicide." The Detroit NAACP met with the prosecutor and called for an inquest into the facts to the case. They presented him with signed statements of witnesses who contradicted his findings. It appears that the community, led by the NAACP, continued to organize around Lee's case without any success at bringing charges against Officer Begin. Police impunity has a long history in this country. In the end, a 13 year old Black boy was shot in the back by police and died. To quote Ossie Davis, black people understand that "we live with death and it is ours."

***

Most often, it's police shootings and killings that spark urban uprisings. However, the daily indignities and more invisible harms are ever-present and are the foundation of hostilities between young people of color and police. Routine state violence carried out by the police happens outside of public view under the guise of addressing gun and other forms of violence. If past is prologue, my community can look forward to another summer of intense, relentless, and surely illegal police harassment of young people of color and specifically of young black men.

Young people riding their bikes on sidewalks, instead of being ticketed as prescribed by law, will be hauled into police lockups where they'll be accused of resisting arrest and then funneled into Cook County jail. Teenagers leaving summer programming will be followed by cop cars and asked where they are heading. One cross word will lead to being roughly thrown on car hoods in front of the whole neighborhood. Walking through alleys as a short cut to head home from work, young people will be hounded, provoked, dragged to the station - but not before being beaten in the car without any concern for health conditions like seizures. Trans and gender non-conforming youth will be bullied and verbally harassed for walking down the street. Young people will be picked up without cause and driven into rival gang territory where they will be dumped without wallets or phones only to hear the cops announcing for all to hear that they belong to the rival gang. Young women walking down the street minding their own business will be sexually harassed by those sworn to "protect and serve."

I dread summer.

Besides stops and frisks and other violations, young people in my community are also subjected to warrantless searches of their homes. One young person I know narrated his experience in the 2014 We Charge Genocide report to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT):

We're sitting in a house playing video games and we hear a banging on the door. Before we know it, the door is kicked down and there's five special-ops officers with their huge M16s drawn, pointed at us: Three 15 year olds playing video games. And they tell us get on the ground. They say if we move they are gonna kill us; "Don't look at me, we'll fucking kill you in a second!" Pointing their guns at us. Then they don't find anything. They let us all go, they laugh, try to joke with us, apologize, then leave out. And we're sitting there like, "What just happened?" They tear up the house. They stole money...

Lest you think that this is an innovation of zero tolerance militarized policing born out of the war on drugs, here's an example from 80 years ago. When the people of Harlem rioted in 1935, it was once again an incident of police violence that lit the fuse. A rumor that Lino Rivera, a 16-year-old Black Puerto Rican young man, was killed by New York City Police led to nearly 4,000 Harlemites taking to the streets. 700 police officers were dispatched to the community. When all was said and done, three people had died and over $200 million in damages were sustained from the riot. In the aftermath, Mayor LaGuardia commissioned a report to understand the causes of the uprising. In a section titled "The Police in Harlem," the report's authors maintained that cops routinely entered the homes of Black Harlemites "without a warrant and searched them at will." Instead of drugs, Harlem cops in the 1930s were searching for policy slips in an effort to crack down on illegal gambling. Reprinted in the report was a letter by a Harlem resident addressed to the Mayor. Below are a few excerpts:

On Tuesday morning, April 16, 1935, between 10 and 11 o'clock, the superintendent of the house rapped at my door. Upon opening it, I was confronted with three men (men in civilian clothes) who the superintendent said were policemen. He explained that the men were searching the house, for what he did not know.

The men entered the room, and proceeded to search without showing shields or search warrant. I asked twice of two of the men what was the reason for such action. I received no answer from any of them.

My dresser drawers were thoroughly gone into, dresser cover even being raised. My bed came in for similar search, covers were dragged off and mattress overturned. Suitcase under my bed was brought up and searched. My overcoat hanging on the door was gone over and into. My china closet was opened and glassware examined. After this startling act the men left my room, still without saying a word.

These types of violations span centuries for Black people, and are one reason for a racial disconnect in discussions about privacy and civil liberties. Black people have always been under the gaze of the state and we know that our rights are routinely violable. Civil liberties and individual rights have different meanings for different groups of people. They also have different priorities depending on social contexts. A review of Black history suggests that considerations of civil liberties are always embedded within concepts of equality and social justice. In other words, by design or necessity, Black people have focused on our collective rights over our individual liberties. This makes sense in a society where we don't just assume individual Black guilt and suspicion: We are all guilty and we are all suspicious (even if we may want to deny this reality). In that context, individual liberties and rights take a back seat to a collective struggle for emancipation and freedom. Additionally, as a people, we have always known that it is impossible for us to exercise our individual rights within a context of more generalized social, economic, and political oppression.

History offers evidence of the intractability of the problem of police violence. What should we do then? Quite simply, we must end the police. The hegemony of police is so complete that we often can't begin to imagine a world without the institution. We are too reliant on the police. In fact, the police increase their legitimacy through all of the non-police related "work" that they assume: including doing "wellness" and "mental health checks." Why should armed people be deployed to do the work of community members and social workers? Why have we become so comfortable with ceding so much power to the police? Any discussion of reform must begin with the following questions: How will we decrease the numbers of police, and how will we defund the institution?

On the way to abolition, we can take a number of intermediate steps to shrink the police force and to restructure our relationships with each other. These include:

1. Organizing for dramatic decreases of police budgets and redirecting those funds to other social goods ( Defunding the police).

2. Ending cash bail

3. Overturning police bills of rights.

4. Abolishing police unions.

5. Crowding out the police in our communities.

6. Disarming the police.

7. Creating abolitionist messages that penetrate the public consciousness to disrupt the idea that cops=safety.

8. Building community-based interventions that address harms without relying on police.

9. Evaluating any reforms based on these criteria.

10. Thinking through the end of the police and imagining alternatives.

Importantly, we must reject all talk about policing and the overall criminal punishment system being "broken" or "not working." By rhetorically constructing the criminal punishment system as "broken," reform is reaffirmed and abolition is painted as unrealistic and unworkable. Those of us who maintain that reform is actually impossible within the current context are positioned as unreasonable and naïve. Ideological formations often operate invisibly to delineate and define what is acceptable discourse. Challenges to dominant ideological formations about "justice" are met with anger, ridicule or are simply ignored. This is in the service of those who benefit from the current system and to enforce white supremacy and anti-blackness. The losers under this injustice system are the young people I know and love.

I really dread summer...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This essay will appear in July's "Fun" magazine issue. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox. "Ms. K, they got me again." Six words set up the familiar routine. A car ride to the station. An unwanted and unwelcome conversation with the officer at the desk. Rudeness, contempt and that awful perma-smirk.

# data[].attributes.body
An infographic response to #8CantWait

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The end goal of these reforms is not to create better, friendlier, or more community-oriented police or prisons. Instead, we hope to build toward a society without police or prisons, where communities are equipped to provide for their safety and wellbeing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The end goal of these reforms is not to create better, friendlier, or more community-oriented police or prisons. Instead, we hope to build toward a society without police or prisons, where communities are equipped to provide for their safety and wellbeing.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Series on What Police Abolition Could Look Like

# data[].attributes.subject
A Series on What Police Abolition Could Look Like

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If no credit feels weird to you, my name is Amber Hughson and my IG is @conflicttransformation

About the Abolition these images represent:
Ruth Wilson Gilmore explains "Abolition is about abolishing the conditions under which prisons became the solutions to problems, rather than abolishing the buildings we call prisons;" abolition is the work of building anti-oppressive culture and ways of addressing harm that center care. Abolition as a political practice is grounded in Black liberation; liberation from slavery, Jim Crow, policing, and incarceration. The term abolition as a confrontation with policing and prisons was popularized most notably by former Black Panther Party member and scholar-activist Angela Davis. Later, the work of modern abolition was shaped by the organization Critical Resistance. There are hundreds of organizations shaping this work today, including Survived and Punished, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, Black & Pink, The Red Nation, Southerners on New Ground, BYP100, and of course, Black Lives Matter. In Minneapolis where rebellions continue, central abolitionist organizations are Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective.

That's actually pretty hard to imagine.

Interesting, although the part about neighbors trained in "self defense" worries me

I wonder if they'll be easier or harder for people to accept if they realize this unemployment thing isn't going away anytime soon because companies downsized, and having people working towards their communities is probably preferable to having them languish in means-tested precarity as one of the deserving poor.

One function of the police system is making these solutions impossible to imagine.

They mostly read like they were written by idealistic 15 year olds with no real world experience.

Poster 1 - When the crisis intervention team attends and are assaulted by the drunk / coked up youths and 1 hour later are sitting in A&E or alternatively they take both parties home and one goes on to choke on their own vomit / OD / Assault their partner or whatever and the crisis team member is now responsible.

This is all well and good but that ridiculous poster near the bottom seems to be suggesting that if there is a mass shooting we are relying on "good guys with a gun"

This one is so unrealistic it kind of makes the whole thing fall apart.

"A series on what police abolition might look like"
People seem to be skipping over the word might.

pigs: but what if shootybang instead
cops are raised on hate for the poor and minorities, that sounds like a nightmare to them, they enroll to kill people first and foremost

Police system is 60 years behind, the fact that we can hardly imagine these things is telling.

Does not everyone have neighbours trained in self-defence and de-escalation willing to put their lives and safety on the line for no money?

I thought it was common all over the world? /s

At times like these it's probably good to remember that there are a whole lot of other western countries that are a whole lot more progressive than the US and none of them have ever suggested abolishing their police force. There's probably a good reason for that.

Do you also think forum moderation could be abolished if only part of the community received training in conflict deescalation techniques?

the one about neighbors in self defense training is so bad it ruins the rest IMO

"A series on what police abolition might look like"
People seem to be skipping over the word might.

No they're not, they're responding to the might that is presented.

Police system is 60 years behind, the fact that we can hardly imagine these things is telling.

Or its just dismisses how actual human being act as a species and pretends all anyone ever really needs in a wee hug and a chat ?

Written by people who live their life on the internet no doubt.

I think my neighbors already think they are self-defense experts. To me, police can be all these things if they wanted to but it seems most individuals and organizations just take the easy route of beating people up and taking them to jail as a catch-all. Police should be training to de-escalate and use a variety of responses depending on the situation.

Like in a couple of these scenarios you just have city employees on patrol looking for brake lights and people sleeping on park benches? Sounds like the police anyway. The difference would be that you want people who's goal is to not bring you to jail or punish you but to help which I think is what community policing is supposed to be.

I definitely want my armed hick neighbors trained in self-defense, sounds AWESOME.

This one suggestion out of many doesn't work so let's better arm our police officers with rocket launchers just to be on the safe side.

Did Gal Gadot write these?

A lot of that seems to be just replacing police with "crisis intervention team".

Hear me out. What if we made a system where we gave a bunch of racist idiots guns and told them to go around policing? Oh wait, that's already what we do!

These scenarios aren't any more absurd than our current reality.

-I am deleting my posts in this thread becuase on reflection they're not useful or good -

I believe the implication is that there would be programs in place to make sure people are connected with their neighbours and several people in every neighbourhood have appropriate self defence skills for such situations.

It wouldn't just be a case of hoping someone around you knows how to handle shit.

"A series on what police abolition might look like"
People seem to be skipping over the word might.

Yeah, but in cases like this I look more towards how the solution handles the worst case, not the average cases. Given that, if the idea of handling potentially dangerous situations involves "neighbors trained in self defense" aka "good guys with guns" and neighborhood watches, both of which have resulted in a lot of the problems people are protesting for today, that makes me skeptical of the idea overall

No thanks on the neighbor with a gun. We've seen that countless times before....

A few of these aren't realistic at all even with police being abolished

No thanks to some of these. Calling your neighbors trained in self-defense? LOL. But I think mental health professionals and a better understanding of mental illness in general are sorely needed.

It's a bit of a problem. Community self-defense squads are a little bit more involved than "Call up your neighbors and have them use generic techniques to fix the situation" in the places and times where it's been successfully implemented.

In places like Catalonia back in the 30's, the way this worked when they got rid of their own police is that the labor unions would volunteer people from their group to patrol and be on call. But that was based on an anarcho-syndicalist platform where unions represented the fundamental basis of societal organization-- the wartime situation also muddled things, naturally. You'd have to find an alternative rotation within your community if you weren't running something similar. It's not impossible, but it authentically requires, well... actually imagining what comes next. But it's a very concrete sort of imagining, IMO.

Because a lot of confrontations don't need armed fighters geared up with more weapons than soft skills to resolve the issue.

A pro-abolition critique that I have of this poster series is that, IMO, one of the big things that people need to imagine is a separation between criminal investigation and crime response. Because everyone understands that crimes are going to happen and investigations are therefore necessary. That's been the case since before police have been a thing. Getting people to think along those lines is one of the critical hurdles that leaves people wondering at the phrase "crisis intervention team."

You think your neighbors aren't racist? You think the people hired on these 400 different crisis intervention teams wont have some racists? You think the tail light replacement guy can't be racist?

Bunch of semantics that boils down to:

IMAGINE Police...but who do their jobs.

-I am deleting my posts in this thread becuase on reflection they're not useful or good -

This is pretty much it. Many of those could be done by what police should be

As an American, I imagine banning all guns every day.

Also as an American, I agree with you completely.

Systemic racism means cops have an incentive to be racist, attract racists, and enforce laws that disproportionately affect minorities.

Sure anyone can be racist. But in these scenarios the incentive is minimised or even not there.

-I am deleting my posts in this thread becuase on reflection they're not useful or good -

This is the kind of utopic thinking that leads to dystopias. I really don't want people calling their neighbors to deal with people they don't like, thank you very much. What everyone needs is good cops.

You talk about utopic thinking, and then you mention good cops.

Some of these are neat.

Yea pretty much. Until human nature changes, we need police. But we need to completely rethink how police are trained, equipped, who is picked, and the role police unions.

What sucks is that US obsession with guns doesn't help. Civilians armed to the teeth so the police think they need military grade weapons as well. You have wannabe soldiers wanting permission to use their fancy deadly toys. It's a mess, but it can be fixed if leaders stop being afraid of the police.

You mean LIKE THE FUCKING POLICE

some of you love the police state huh

Imagine a well trained and non-militarized police force.

So how does this work with robbers and violent criminals and/or rapists?

Yeah, as a black man living in a mostly Republican state, I wouldn't trust my neighbors like that.

How about keeping police but having actual standards for who can get in the force instead of any racist asshole, and proper training for them to handle these kinds of situations without resorting to drawing their gun?

Basically. People don't get that part of police abolition is balkanizing the fuck out of all the services police render, so that there's not a Universal Violence Machine on call regardless of the problem you're facing.

The armed guy with a truncheon shouldn't be showing up to your mental health emergency. He shouldn't be the one in charge of monitoring your tail lights. Frankly, he shouldn't be the one involved with criminal investigation beyond providing immediate security at a crime scene.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Imagine - A series on what police abolition might look like

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If no credit feels weird to you, my name is Amber Hughson and my IG is @conflicttransformation About the Abolition these images represent: Ruth Wilson Gilmore explains "Abolition is about abolishing the conditions under which prisons became the solutions to problems, rather than abolishing the...

# data[].attributes.body
Comic - This expands into prison abolition which is directly connected to police abolition. Tried to keep it to mostly policing, but this was too good to leave out.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
who's left- Mariame/Prison Abolition

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch

Follow all the topics you care about, and we'll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore

Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium - and support writers while you're at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade

Get the Medium app

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
who's left- Mariame/Prison Abolition Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch Follow all the topics you care about, and we'll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox.

# data[].attributes.headline
Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing

# data[].attributes.subject
Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing

# data[].attributes.body
Created by Critical Resistance

# data[].attributes.body
Home organization of Mariame Kaba

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
What's Happening Now

April 2019 Building Accountable Communities National Gathering

In April 2019, Mariame partnered with Barnard's Center for Research on Women to organize a panel discussion with local activists and change makers about the meaning of accountability.
Watch the video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What's Happening Now In April 2019, Mariame partnered with Barnard's Center for Research on Women to organize a panel discussion with local activists and change makers about the meaning of accountability. Watch the video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
VISION FOR BLACK LIVES

Black humanity and dignity requires Black political will and power. Despite constant exploitation and perpetual oppression, Black people have bravely and brilliantly been the driving force pushing the U.S. towards the ideals it articulates but has never achieved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Black humanity and dignity requires Black political will and power. Despite constant exploitation and perpetual oppression, Black people have bravely and brilliantly been the driving force pushing the U.S. towards the ideals it articulates but has never achieved.

# data[].attributes.body
A Strategy and Study Guide

# data[].attributes.body
Resources and Guidance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Filming Police Abuse: A Roundup of Resources and Guidance
By Jackie Zammuto
As the WITNESS Media Lab explores the impact of eyewitness videos of police abuse in the United States, we are also examining what bystanders need to know in order to document police encounters safely and effectively. Some of the most common questions we hear are:

What are my rights to film a police encounter?

What information should I record, and how?

I've just filmed police abuse. What should I do with the video? What are the most effective ways to share it?

While there is no right or wrong answer to most of these questions, the decisions an eyewitness makes before, during and after filming can determine how effective their footage can be in achieving accountability for injustice.

To address these questions, we've compiled a list of resources from groups like American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), CopWatch, People's Justice, and WITNESS, that provide guidance for those who film police encounters in the U.S. They are divided into the following categories: Know Your Rights, Filming Techniques, Livestreaming, Distribution & Reporting, and Preservation. Below are a few recommendations from each category. You can view the full list here.

Additionally, there are numerous groups across the country that take part in Copwatch, a decentralized network of groups that pro-actively document police interactions in their communities as a de-escalation tactic and a form of community self-defense. If you are interested in getting involved, we encourage you to get in touch with these groups for additional training and guidance on interacting with local police. Here are just a few suggestions: California - Ella Baker Center Justice Teams, Anti Police-Terror Project, Texas - Peaceful Streets, Missouri - WeCopwatch/St. Louis First Responders, New York - Copwatch Alliance, El Grito de Sunset Park. Let us know if there are other groups you'd recommend.

Know Your Rights

Filming Techniques

Livestreaming

Distribution & Reporting

Preservation

WITNESS - Activists Guide to Archiving Video: Archiving video is an essential, but often overlooked component of video advocacy. Learn best practices for organizing, storing, preserving, and sharing your footage. WITNESS also produced a series of short videos covering archiving basics, such as Planning to Preserve Video for Human Rights, Deconstructing Digital Video for Activists and What is Video Metadata?

We Need Your Help!

This is part of an ongoing effort to assess the needs for filming police abuse safely and effectively, and we need your help. What resources have we missed? Where would you like to see more guidance? Please share your thoughts in this form or Tweet them to @witnessorg. We look forward to hearing from you!
Featured Image: Still from New York Times video Copwatch vs. Cops: After Freddie Gray

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Filming Police Abuse: A Roundup of Resources and Guidance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Jackie Zammuto As the WITNESS Media Lab explores the impact of eyewitness videos of police abuse in the United States, we are also examining what bystanders need to know in order to document police encounters safely and effectively. Some of the most common questions we hear are: What are my rights to film a police encounter?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Interrupting Criminalization | Research In Action

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
These daunting statistics reflect a growing crisis in the United States - not of increasing violent crime, but of an ever-expanding web of criminalization in response to virtually every conflict, harm or need.

Criminalization is what fuels the violence of policing and prisons, detention and deportations, and of family separation - at the border, at the prison gate, in our schools, and by the family policing system. Criminalization is what marks women, girls, trans and gender nonconforming people as targets for sexual violence by police and other carceral actors. Criminalization is also what drives the denial of protection, distribution of trauma, and denial of opportunities to heal, and denial of care and resources - as well as the punishment of self-defense and self-managed care in response to structural exclusion and abandonment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Interrupting Criminalization | Research In Action

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
These daunting statistics reflect a growing crisis in the United States - not of increasing violent crime, but of an ever-expanding web of criminalization in response to virtually every conflict, harm or need. Criminalization is what fuels the violence of policing and prisons, detention and deportations, and of family separation - at the border, at the prison gate, in our schools, and by the family policing system.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Community Compilation on Police Abolition

# data[].attributes.subject
A Community Compilation on Police Abolition

# data[].attributes.body
By Sarah-Ji and Monica Trinidad of the For the People Artists Collective

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Created for the opening of the Gone But Not Forgotten Quilt exhibit on October 17, 2016, this zine was created by Monica Trinidad and Sarah-... See More

Created for the opening of the Gone But Not Forgotten Quilt exhibit on October 17, 2016, this zine was created by Monica Trinidad and Sarah-... See More

Connecting content to people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Community Compilation on Police Abolition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Created for the opening of the Gone But Not Forgotten Quilt exhibit on October 17, 2016, this zine was created by Monica Trinidad and Sarah-Ji of For The People Artists Collective and Rachel Wallis, the artist and curator of GBNF Quilt Project.

# data[].attributes.body
The Invisible Institute - Chicago

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Citizens Police Data Project (CPDP.co) is a tool for holding police accountable to the public they serve.

CPDP takes records of police interactions with the public - records that would otherwise be buried in internal databases - and opens them up to make the data useful to the public, creating a permanent record for every CPD police officer.

We've built CPDP with a focus on making data both accessible and useful by collaborating closely with the people who can best make use of it. If you've used CPDP and you're open to talking with us about your experience, please join our feedback community or click on the live chat bubble in the bottom-right corner to reach out at any time.

The codebase and the growing collection of underlying datasets plus data processing scripts and the original FOIA responses are available publicly here:

Originally intended to serve as a national model for transparency, the Citizens Police Data Project emerged from a decade-long collaboration with the University of Chicago Law School's Mandel Legal Aid Clinic. CPDP is now the hub of several inter-woven projects and partnerships that share the common goal of making police data more useful to the public through transparency, investigation, and accountability.

Our work on CPDP today can be organized into three key areas.

Strengthening the core frameworks by building out a modular open-source infrastructure for complaint data management, investigative data tools, and data processing pipelines. Apart from becoming more efficient at keeping the information on CPDP up-to-date for the thousands of investigative journalists, community organizers, and civil rights attorneys who rely on it every day, we are also working together with partners who are upstream and downstream in the life cycle of our data. This means helping officials in civilian oversight to improve data quality at the point of initial intake (upstream), and delivering critically useful information about police officers directly into the workflows of public defenders by integrating with their existing work tools (downstream).

Deepening the investigation by enabling theme-based NLP text analysis capabilities for a growing library of 230,000+ pages of complaint documents now being released through the Green v. Chicago lawsuit, creating tools to explore the networks dimension of misconduct data through our research partnership with the N3 Initiative at Northwestern University, and introducing a new dataset of police lawsuits (and settlements) through our partnership with the Chicago Reporter.

Expanding the impact by cultivating our network of partners/allies in other cities (New Orleans, Dallas, New York City, Oakland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C.) and working together with community stakeholders to develop strategies for deploying these public tools and implementing best practices in open data stewardship.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Citizens Police Data Project - Invisible Institute

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We've built CPDP with a focus on making data both accessible and useful by collaborating closely with the people who can best make use of it. If you've used CPDP and you're open to talking with us about your experience, please join our feedback community or click on the live chat bubble in the bottom-right corner to reach out at any time.

# data[].attributes.body
Please note that this data is being used to advocate for reform. We don't believe reforms work; however this data is useful for quantifying incidents across the US.

# data[].attributes.body
Legal scholarship on the Movement for Black Lives policy platform, “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice.”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
76 Pages Posted: 1 Nov 2017 Last revised: 25 Jul 2018

Date Written: July 25, 2018

Abstract

In this Article, I consider the contemporary law reform project of a radical social movement seeking to transform the state: specifically, the Movement for Black Lives policy platform, "A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice." The Movement for Black Lives is the leading example of a contemporary racial justice movement with an intersectional politics including feminist and anti-capitalist commitments. The visions of such radical social movements offer an alternative epistemology for understanding and addressing structural inequality and injustice. By studying not only the critiques offered by radical social movements, but also their visions for transformative change, the edges of law scholarship can be expanded, a deeper set of critiques and a longer set of histories-of colonialism and settler colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade and mass incarceration-centered, and a bolder project of transformation forwarded. These visions should push legal scholars toward a broader frame for understanding how law, the market, and the state co-produce intersectional structural inequality, and toward agendas that focus not on building the power of law and law enforcement, but on transforming the state and society and building the power of marginalized communities. This shift would invigorate the social movements literature and bring new energy to scholarship on substantive areas of law, from criminal and immigration law to property and contract law.

To illustrate the creative potential of studying radical social movements, this Article considers policing the Vision for Black Lives with the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Ferguson and Baltimore reports. The Vision and DOJ reports offer alternate conceptualizations of the problem of policing and the appropriate approach to law reform. Reflective of liberal law reform projects on police, the DOJ reports identify policing as a fundamental tool of law and order that serves the collective interests of society, and locate the problems of police in their failure to adhere to constitutional law. As a remedy, the DOJ reports advocate for investing more resources in police: more trainings, better supervision, community policing. In contrast, the Vision identifies policing as a historical and violent force in Black communities underpinning a system of racial capitalism and limiting the possibilities of Black life. Here, law is central to the shape and legitimation of racialized violence and inequality. The Vision's reimagination of policing-rooted in Black history and Black intellectual traditions-transforms mainstream approaches to reform. The Vision demands shrinking the large footprint of policing, surveillance, and incarceration, and shifting resources into other social programs in Black communities: housing, health care, jobs, and schools. It focuses on building power in Black communities, and fundamentally transforming the relationship between government, market, and society. In forwarding an abolitionist imagination, the movement offers transformative, affirmative visions for change designed to address the structures of inequality-something legal scholarship has for far too long lacked.

Keywords: law reform, social movements, policing, police violence, mass incarceration, Black Lives Matter, Movement for Black Lives, racial capitalism, abolition

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
76 Pages Posted: 1 Nov 2017 Last revised: 25 Jul 2018 Date Written: July 25, 2018 In this Article, I consider the contemporary law reform project of a radical social movement seeking to transform the state: specifically, the Movement for Black Lives policy platform, "A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice."

# data[].attributes.headline
Disband, Disempower, Disarm: Amplifying the Theory and Practice of Police Abolition

# data[].attributes.subject
Disband, Disempower, Disarm: Amplifying the Theory and Practice of Police Abolition

# data[].attributes.body
Critical Criminology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
McDowell and Fernandez - 2018 - ‘Disband, Disempower, and Disarm’ Amplifying the .pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Article in The Conversation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article was updated on June 2, 2020.

But tensions between the police and black communities are nothing new.

There are many precedents to the Ferguson, Missouri protests that ushered in the Black Lives Matter movement. Those protests erupted in 2014 after a police officer shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown; the officer was subsequently not indicted.

The precedents include the Los Angeles riots that broke out after the 1992 acquittal of police officers for beating Rodney King. Those riots happened nearly three decades after the 1965 Watts riots, which began with Marquette Frye, an African American, being pulled over for suspected drunk driving and roughed up by the police for resisting arrest.

I'm a criminal justice researcher who often focuses on issues of race, class and crime. Through my research and from teaching a course on diversity in criminal justice, I have come to see how the roots of racism in American policing - first planted centuries ago - have not yet been fully purged.

Slave patrols

There are two historical narratives about the origins of American law enforcement.

The first slave patrols arose in South Carolina in the early 1700s. As University of Georgia social work professor Michael A. Robinson has written, by the time John Adams became the second U.S. president, every state that had not yet abolished slavery had them.

Members of slave patrols could forcefully enter anyone's home, regardless of their race or ethnicity, based on suspicions that they were sheltering people who had escaped bondage.

The more commonly known precursors to modern law enforcement were centralized municipal police departments that began to form in the early 19th century, beginning in Boston and soon cropping up in New York City, Albany, Chicago, Philadelphia and elsewhere.

Police corruption and violence - particularly against vulnerable people - were commonplace during the early 1900s. Additionally, the few African Americans who joined police forces were often assigned to black neighborhoods and faced discrimination on the job. In my opinion, these factors - controlling disorder, lack of adequate police training, lack of nonwhite officers and slave patrol origins - are among the forerunners of modern-day police brutality against African Americans.

Jim Crow laws

Slave patrols formally dissolved after the Civil War ended. But formerly enslaved people saw little relief from racist government policies as they promptly became subject to Black Codes.

For the next three years, these new laws specified how, when and where African Americans could work and how much they would be paid. They also restricted black voting rights, dictated how and where African Americans could travel and limited where they could live.

Reverberating today

For the past five decades, the federal government has forbidden the use of racist regulations at the state and local level. Yet people of color are still more likely to be killed by the police than whites.

The Washington Post tracks the number of Americans killed by the police by race, gender and other characteristics. The newspaper's database indicates that 229 out of 992 of those who died that way in 2018, 23% of the total, were black, even though only about 12% of the country is African American.

Policing's institutional racism of decades and centuries ago still matters because policing culture has not changed as much as it could. For many African Americans, law enforcement represents a legacy of reinforced inequality in the justice system and resistance to advancement - even under pressure from the civil rights movement and its legacy.

In addition, the police disproportionately target black drivers.

When a Stanford University research team analyzed data collected between 2011 and 2017 from nearly 100 million traffic stops to look for evidence of systemic racial profiling, they found that black drivers were more likely to be pulled over and to have their cars searched than white drivers. They also found that the percentage of black drivers being stopped by police dropped after dark when a driver's complexion is harder to see from outside the vehicle.

This persistent disparity in policing is disappointing because of progress in other regards.

There is greater understanding within the police that brutality, particularly lethal force, leads to public mistrust, and police forces are becoming more diverse.

What's more, college students majoring in criminal justice who plan to become future law enforcement officers now frequently take "diversity in criminal justice" courses. This relatively new curriculum is designed to, among other things, make future police professionals more aware of their own biases and those of others. In my view, what these students learn in these classes will make them more attuned to the communities they serve once they enter the workforce.

In addition, law enforcement officers and leaders are being trained to recognize and minimize their own biases in New York City and other places where people of color are disproportionately stopped by the authorities and arrested.

But the persistence of racially biased policing means that unless American policing reckons with its racist roots, it is likely to keep repeating mistakes of the past. This will hinder police from fully protecting and serving the entire public.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The racist roots of American policing: From slave patrols to traffic stops

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Half a century after the federal government voided Jim Crow laws, the criminal justice system still discriminates against African Americans.

# data[].attributes.body
Article in Scalawag Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Late in the evening on May 27th, 1821, Joe Forest and two accomplices canoed down the Santee River to South Island, nestled between the major port cities of Charleston and Georgetown in South Carolina.[1] The three fugitive slaves arrived on George Ford's plantation to steal some cattle for provisions for their camp further up river; such raids were commonplace for maroons who chose not to flee the South and instead made a life for themselves in the swamps and wilderness surrounding plantations.[2] While the men were slaughtering a cow and preparing it for the journey, George Ford was alerted to their presence and came out to pursue the men. Rather than face capture or death at the hands of the planter, the maroons shot at George Ford, who died almost instantly. On that night there began a three year search for Joe and his maroon gang by the White citizenry of coastal South Carolina, resulting in the first official police association in the area where Joe's camp was hidden.

Fast forward to 2015, a year when police in the United States killed 1,207 people. Young Black men are five times more likely to be killed by the police than White men of their same age. Simultaneously, the police are under perhaps the greatest scrutiny they have ever faced as an institution in this country. The riots in Ferguson and Baltimore and Oakland, the occupation of a police precinct in Minneapolis, and the waves of solidarity marches, riots, blockades, highway and bridge takeovers, and economic disruption that followed, have all brought tremendous attention to police training, their technologies, their structure, and their individual members. Some of this attention is the managed product of media outlets and politicians during an election season, almost totally divorced from the lived elements of unrest of the past two years. However, there are also many people asking real questions about the history and role of the cops, and what it could be like to live without them.

The histories contained in this piece are brought back to life when we directly attend to these questions. In reviving these histories, we rely on knowledge that has been generated by generations of mostly Black scholars and researchers, but also lives in the bodies and minds of freedom fighters, grandparents, storytellers, healers, artists, and lovers.

We argue that policing evolved as a method of control to enforce and protect a key economic foundation in the development of American (and global) capitalism: slavery. Policing also functioned to produce a society grounded in the "social death" of Black people.[3] Modern policing continued to evolve after chattel slavery to maintain the racialized division of labor and social divisions that slavery created, but which now (in a post-Emancipation society) had to be reproduced by other forms. This reproduction of authority, wealth, and White supremacy never ceased, and in many ways it has only grown stronger and more insidious.

Get the context you need to reckon with the South

Sign up for our weekly newsletter This Week in the South
Sign up today

In the downtimes between national crises around unarmed police killings, all but the tiniest sliver of our society's discourse around the police isolates that institution as a "natural" arm of that other great "natural" phenomenon, the law--and as a phenomenon without a history. We can read this discourse in part as a set of creation myths, meant to justify the unique power the police have over life and death. And so it is not surprising that the logics of reform and progress, which seek to better but not break with society, rest on an assumption of the inevitability of the police, prison, and the law. But we show here that the police have a beginning, and so may also have an end. We present this piece not as a work of original research, but as our own collected notes and understanding of these inextricable links between slavery, capitalism, police, and civil society. We write this not simply to "set the record straight" on the history of police, as many have already done that work more completely elsewhere, but to understand how that might speak to our ongoing efforts to destroy the system that has been imposed upon us.

One Beginning Among Many

Within days of slaveowner George Ford's death, the Governor of South Carolina delivered a proclamation, including physical descriptions of Joe and his accomplice "Jack," as well as a $200 state reward for their apprehension. Georgetown citizens volunteered their own $300 towards the maroons' capture. Four days after the Governor's Proclamation a local militia, the "Columbian Greens" apprehended Jack and brought him to Georgetown to be tried for the murder of George Ford. Meanwhile, Joe managed to escape the multiple militias and remained free for the rest of the summer.

Georgetown's Court of Magistrates and Freeholders-White, propertied men, and the formal predecessors of today's citizen jurors-found "the evidence conclusive" that Jack was culpable for George Ford's death. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on June 8th. On June 12th, the Captain of the Columbian Greens petitioned the Governor for his reward, claiming personal responsibility for apprehending the maroon. Captain Carnes received the $200 state reward after his son H.L. Carnes Jr. served as one of the men who condemned Jack to his death.

For the next two years, Joe remained at large, his legacy and band growing all the while. Joe and other maroons, with whom he communed and conspired, survived in a well-fortified camp at the headwaters of the Santee River in the densest swamp between Georgetown and Columbia-impenetrable to outsiders.

Maroons posed more than an economic loss to the plantation economy-they threatened both the legitimacy of its existence and its secure future. Maroons were proof that it was possible to subvert White control by navigating the wilderness surrounding plantation and town borders, living a life free of both enslavement and, largely, of waged work. Alliances formed in these swamps that betrayed the White supremacist pact of planter economics-poor Whites who were marginalized from proper society would trade with and assist maroons, though less is documented about these alliances. Shamefully, more is known about the frequency with which non-slaveowning, poor Whites aligned themselves with the planter class by volunteering in the militias and patrols who hunted down escaped slaves. Their collusion with the planter class, with whom they shared little besides racial identity, was absolutely crucial during times like the 1820s when generalized slave insurrections were not only rumor, but planned conspiracy.

Poor Whites, for instance, proved crucial when Denmark Vesey, a free Black man in Charleston, conspired alongside hundreds of enslaved and free Blacks in coastal South Carolina to overthrow the White planter class of the coast, free slaves, and sail to Haiti. This plot was uncovered in the summer of 1822, while forces north of Charleston struggled to control the threat that Joe and his gang posed on the Georgetown planter class. The two governing districts ended up collaborating to apprehend Joe. This collaboration between Georgetown and Charleston points to the evolving geopolitics of southern capitalism: the control of slaves, and especially escaped slaves, became less of a private matter of the individual slave-owner and more a public responsibility of White society and capital. Thus, after two years of failed searches by militias and informal posses, in the fall of 1823, the citizens of Pineville looked toward a hybrid solution between the militia and the posse-the Police.

Instituting an elaborate system of rewards-including manumission (the buying of a loyal slave's freedom), the citizens surrounding Joe's camp formed their own Pineville Police Association in October of 1823, "specifically to deal with the threat posed by Joe and his gang." Their strategy was to force the collaboration of enslaved people against maroons. Within a few days, an enslaved river-boat driver named Royal, who had been dealing with Joe and the maroons in that area for years, volunteered to lure Joe out of the Camp with promise to trade. When Joe and three other maroons emerged from their encampment, they were fatally shot by 23 members of the Pineville Police Association. Joe's head was stuck on a pole at the mouth of the river, "as a solemn warning to vicious slaves." One year later, 81 planters from central South Carolina petitioned the Governor to free Royal for "bringing to merited punishment an offender, against the laws of the land and against the laws of God." The state agreed to pay Royal's owner seven-hundred dollars, declaring that it was "'the policy of this state to reward those slaves who thus distinguish themselves by way of inducement to others to do so.'"

The hanging of Jack in 1821, of Denmark Vesey in 1822, and the shooting of Joe in 1823 did not mean defeat for fugitive slaves in South Carolina, and both maroonage and northward escape would continue to pose viable threats to slavery up through the Civil War. Meanwhile, by 1839, the constitution of the Pineville Police Association clearly stated its purpose as "the enforcement of a rigid system of police and the suppression of all traffick with slaves." The documents left behind from the courts, the newspapers, and the small town police in the wake of Joe Forest's capture and death foreshadow a world 200 years later--a world where the FBI is still issuing rewards for self-identified fugitive slaves. Assata Shakur, an invaluable part of the Black liberation movement of the seventies, lives in political exile in Cuba where she identifies as a "20th century escaped slave." Shakur fled the U.S. prison system after enduring an unfair trial, in which she stood accused of killing a New Jersey cop during a traffic incident on May 2nd, 1973. Thirty years after the shooting, on May 2nd, 2013 the FBI renewed their investment to hunt down and capture Assata and now offer two million dollars for her extradition to the United States.

A Broader View of Early Policing Forces in the Antebellum South

The example of Joe Forest's rebellion and the emergence of Pineville's original Police Association offers one poignant snapshot of the origins of the police in the South. A broader picture, including the roles and development of policing bodies in both rural and urban areas, offers some more insight. Officially designated by authorities as "slave patrols," "alarm men," or "searchers," and nicknamed "paddyrollers" or "paterolers" by those they policed, these emerging institutions changed during the 18th and 19th centuries in ways that directly foreshadowed the institutional and structural character of modern police forces.[4]

The first slave patrols that emerged not only depended upon but often coercively required the help of White people in policing slaves, whether they were slaveowners or not. A 1690 law in South Carolina, for instance, demanded "all persons under penalty of forty shillings to arrest and chastise any slave outside of his home plantation without a proper pass." These White people were volunteers, in the sense that they were unpaid and held other jobs, but they sometimes faced real punishment, such as fines or jail time, if they refused their duties. In this way, these slave patrols not only provided for the security of this highly profitable mode of production, but directly enforced and reproduced early racial designations. Whiteness meant not only a structurally reinforced privilege, but implied a duty and obligation toward a state and economy that was both constituted through slavery, and needed it to thrive.

Patrols of this kind were empowered to capture runaways and beat slaves caught travelling without a pass. As concerns of active revolt took hold, they would preemptively break up slaves' gatherings, search their homes, and seize their possessions.[5] The distinction is important: the patrols performed their activities not simply as hastily assembled bands sent out to catch a group of runaways or put down an ongoing revolt, but as a preventative body of racial, social and labor control. In many places, these patrols were also tasked with governing disorderly Whites, in particular vagrants, outsiders, and those who would trade with fugitives and maroons.

The authority of slave patrols typically lay with the militia at first, though this changed. In Mississippi, for example, the patrols were first performed by federal troops, then by militiamen, then finally by groups of White men appointed by the county. Many rural patrols started off as temporary or part-time, and eventually transitioned to full-time policing bodies. Accompanying those changes was the specialization of the police themselves. Though it varied across the South, in many places these patrols evolved from groups of able-bodied, White, male volunteers to paid employees, sworn in by the state and thus indemnified against lawsuits.

Policing bodies in the city evolved along similar lines. In 1783 the city of Charleston formed a City Guard that patrolled as a company, wore muskets and swords, and was tasked with breaking up slave gatherings and cutting down on urban crime. In her book on slave patrols, historian Sally Hadden quotes an Englishman who visited Charleston in the 1850's: "It was a stirring scene when the drums beat at the Guard house in the public square...to witness the negroes scouring the streets in all directions, to get to their places of abode, many of them in great trepidation, uttering ejaculations of terror as they ran."

In cities like Charleston it was not uncommon for slaves to live in one part of the city while their owners lived in another, making difficult the more private system of discipline of the plantations. It was also common for owners to "hire out" their slaves, for a fee, to early urban manufacturing firms. Municipal and state governments recognized the threat to labor control represented by these developments-South Carolina banned the practice for 90 years-but the system of hiring out slaves was immensely profitable, and regulations against it went largely ignored. In this sense, urban police emerged and modernized during the historical and spatial intersection of industrialized labor and slavery. Industrialization and urbanization forced changes in and additions to the private, informal methods of discipline characteristic to the classical plantation system, but not with the intent to lessen White control over Black bodies, or to diminish an enormously profitable system of agrarian capitalism.

Though they varied in pace by city and region, these developments in social control-the slave patrols' preventative function; their specialization as a paid, permanent force; the establishment of civilian rather than military control over the patrols, ultimately by municipal authorities; and the patrols' role in policing racialized neighborhood territories of early industrial workers-all point directly towards modern policing.[6] These forces were already a modern (and modernizing) apparatus of social control long before the Civil War.

Transitions in Policing during Reconstruction

The modernity, industry, and racial "reconciliation" of the post-war period, imposed in part by Northern liberators, directly relied on and enhanced the role and structure of police. The Reconstruction period resulted in a power vacuum in much of the South, whereby experiments in freedom and self-determination could be undertaken with newfound brazenness. Maroons in places like North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp and the Sea Islands continued their efforts at communal life, while former slaves in places like the Ogeechee Neck of lowcountry Georgia armed themselves, raided rice plantations, and occupied the(ir) land, declaring, "No Whites between the Ogeechees!" In Robeson County, North Carolina, a band of Lumbee Indians, former slaves, and disaffected Whites called the Lowry Gang exacted revenge on the plantation aristocracy by assassinating former Confederate officials, expropriating and redistributing crops, and refusing to work in the industrializing sectors of the economy.

It's important to remember that "emancipation" was a program that many Black people had already interpreted on their own terms and had been carrying out before and during the Civil War. In that context, and that of the post-war period where open, armed rebellion by laboring people was a serious threat, the project of northern institutions like that of the Freedmen's Bureau often had more to do with ensuring labor discipline in the newly emerging wage-labor economy than ensuring any kind of meaningful racial "justice." Eric Foner suggests that institution revealed itself to be the enforcer of the old economy in new terms:

The "two evils" against which the Bureau had to contend, an army officer observed in July 1865, were "cruelty on the part of the employer and shirking on the part of the negroes." Yet the Bureau, like the army, seemed to consider the Black reluctance to labor the greater threat to its economic mission. In some areas, agents continued the military's urban pass systems and vagrancy patrols, as well as the practice of rounding up unemployed laborers for shipments to plantations. Bureau courts in Memphis dispatched impoverished Blacks convicted of crimes to labor for Whites who would pay their fines.

It was not uncommon for northern White "liberators" to force former slaves to labor for their former masters at the point of a bayonet, often making use of the very same systems of identifying people and controlling their movement developed under slavery. Those systems of policing were indispensable to disciplining former slaves into the new exploitation of the wage, and thus crucial to the project of industrializing the South after the war. Militia patrols, rewards, bounty hunters, informants, and court structures, for example, were used both by former Confederates in Robeson County as well as northerners and Republicans in an attempt to stem the Lowry Gang's rebellion.

Ultimately, there evolved in the post-war period a "hybrid" system of discipline and social control in the South. This system integrated private forms of discipline consistent with the plantation, the publicly authorized rural and urban patrols alongside Northern judicial practices, institutions of social work and management like the Freedmen's Bureau, and industrialized modes of work and the wage. This meant that although there were already modernizing police forces in the South before the end of the war, those forces had to adapt to the post-war realities of controlling wage labor, unemployment, urbanization, and social codes of segregation all without the "help" of a legalized system of slavery.

Some Closing Notes on Policing, Whiteness, and Civil Society

It's beyond the scope of this piece to further elaborate on the continuity of anti-Blackness and White supremacy endemic to policing and the law after the period of Reconstruction. Suffice to say, White supremacy in America remained both literally and figuratively business as usual into the 20th century, during the periods defined by convict leasing, Jim Crow segregation, and the country's massive prison boom-the "afterlife of slavery" as author Saidiya Hartman has put it.

Plenty of folks will consider the painting of 21st century police as modern-day "slave catchers" as nothing more than metaphor and hyperbole. But as we (and many others) have already demonstrated, modernized police actually emerged in the South during slavery-they literally were slave catchers. We would ask those who desire an "accountable" or "just" police force: At what point in this history, in what period, do they believe that police became an institution that intended anything other than the reproduction of capital and the enforced social death of Black people? When has there ever been a break, either social or economic, political or existential, with this contiguous line of flight towards dispossession and misery? Slavery functions not just as the historical origin point of policing, but also as its continued ontological force and psychological foundation. How could there ever be "accountability" with such an institution?

Slavery itself can of course be defined by and considered from any number of theoretical viewpoints, of which we can only scratch the surface in this space. Two perspectives do seem necessary to mention here. First is a materialist perspective, which primarily defines slavery as an economic condition of bondage and forced labor. The other, suggested by historians like Orlando Patterson, defines slavery not so much by forced labor as by a threefold condition of dishonor or "social death," the systematic rupture of familial ties and genealogical continuity, and gratuitous violence.

Our interest here lies in considering how 21st century policing in fact fulfills the conditions of both perspectives. The police undeniably coerce labor participation in the capitalist economy and thereby reproduce patterns of forced labor, for example by securing unpaid labor for prison facilities, or by preventing acts of collective expropriation, criminalizing lifestyles that resist wage work, and policing the boundaries between the legal/illegal economies, all of which forces those without capital to sell our labor for a wage. Likewise, it's just as possible to see how police continue to fulfill the conditions of slavery identified by Patterson, for example by breaking up familial connections via the mass removal of Black bodies from their communities into the prison system, destroying Black social organization with programs like COINTELPRO, or enacting limitless violence against young Black people in poorer neighborhoods across the country.

The other aspect to this role of police in reproducing conditions of slavery is their role in the reproduction of Whiteness, not just as a set of assumed, individual privileges but also as a structurally reinforced civil duty to the state via inclusion in the social body, citizenship, and Humanity itself. The genesis of this duty is clear in the use of White, non-slaveowning volunteers in the early slave patrols and in the deputizing of White people for the posse comitatus, among many other possible examples.[7] To quote Saidiya Hartman again, "The slave is the object or the ground that makes possible the existence of the bourgeois subject and, by negation or contradistinction, defines liberty, citizenship, and the enclosures of the social body." It follows that the policing of Black people implies, again by contradistinction, a White inclusion in the social body that indicates a specific relationship to the state.

This has real consequences that can only be touched upon here, both in its challenge to the individualizing discourse of privilege politics, so hegemonic in Left circles, as well as in its challenge to the traditional sphere of legitimized (Black or White) activist politics we call "civil society." It raises practical questions for those of us who wish to not just understand policing but actively undermine and destroy it. How do certain forms of activism reinforce a civil relation to the state as a prerequisite for "change"? If the terrain of civil society is inherently and permanently marked by Whiteness, capitalism, and state structures, what forms of organizing against the police are less (or not) limited by this terrain?

These are just some of the questions attending to the history of slavery and policing, as those forces continue to haunt both normal, daily life as well as the increasingly common moments where that normality is ruptured in some way. But slavery doesn't just hover in the background like a specter from another century; it actively tells us who we are and where our loyalties lie, it distinguishes the dead from the living, it holds the keys to prison cells and patrols our streets.

[1] All original research about Joe Forest and the maroon struggle of South Carolina in this section can be found in Timothy Lockley Maroon Communities in South Carolina: A documentary record (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009), 93-120. As well as Timothy Lockley and David Doddington "Maroon and Slave Communities in South Caroling Before 1865." The South Carolina Historical Magazine Volume 113, No. 2 (April 2012). The sequence of events and original court and newspaper documentation can all be found in those sources. The stylizing of narrative is our own.

[2] "Maroon" is a term that originated from the Spanish "cimarron" meaning "wild, not tame" typically referring to domestic livestock that went into the woods, escaping their pastures. However, this word morphed over time into a self-identified term by more permanently escaped slaves who led slave revolts from the Caribbean to Brazil to the American South. Lockley, Maroon Communities, ix.

[3] We use the concept of "social death" in the tradition of historians of slavery such as Orlando Patterson and Saidiya Hartman. Implied is not just physical, violent dispossession but a dispossession of and from both place and self, whereby one is separated not only from their past but also from possible future generations. In such a context, one is not simply made to labor for others, but in fact entirely excluded from the category of Human.

[4] Most of the research for this section can be found in the new edition of Kristian Williams' excellent and exhaustive book, Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America. Kristian Williams, Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America. (Oakland: AK Press, 2015).

[5] One is reminded of the 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act which, among an array of get-tough-on-crime policies, expanded the state's ability to seize the assets of convicted or accused drug dealers. The act established a direct and ingenious tool for the financial reproduction of the departments themselves. Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford, Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South. (Oakland: AK Press, 2015), 248-249.

[6] We owe some of our taxonomies of police functions to Kristian Williams' criteria that distinguish "modern" policing from its earlier forms. Ibid., 53-54.

[7] Likewise, every car that passes by on the highway with a "thin blue line" sticker is a modern-day reminder of this, best understood not as a symbolic political support of law enforcement but as the expression of a conscious social contract between White citizens and the police.

References & Suggested Reading

Anonymous. "Between Strangers and Friends: Reading Baldwin and Genet," Baeden: Journal of Queer Time Travel Vol. 3 (2015): 53-114.

Eric Foner. A Short History of Reconstruction. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1990.

Frank Wilderson."'We're Trying to Destroy the World:' Anti-Blackness and Police Violence after Ferguson." Chicago: Ill Will Editions, 2014.

K. Aarons. "No Selves to Abolish: Afropessimism, Anti-Politics, and the End of the World." Chicago: Ill Will Editions, 2016.

Kristian Williams. Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America (Third Edition). Oakland, California: AK Press, 2015.

Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford. Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South. Oakand, California: AK Press, 2015.

Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982).

Saidiya Hartman. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Sally E. Hadden. Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Tim Lockley and David Doddington. "Maroon and Slave Communities in South Caroling Before 1865." The South Carolina Historical Magazine Volume 113, No. 2 (April 2012).

Timothy James Lockley. Maroon Communities in South Carolina: A Documentary Record. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2009.

WEB Dubois. Black Reconstruction in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Late in the evening on May 27th, 1821, Joe Forest and two accomplices canoed down the Santee River to South Island, nestled between the major port cities of Charleston and Georgetown in South Carolina.[1] The three fugitive slaves arrived on George Ford's plantation to steal some cattle for provisions for

# data[].attributes.headline
Settler Colonialism, Policing and Racial Terror: The Police Shooting of Loreal Tsingine

# data[].attributes.subject
Settler Colonialism, Policing and Racial Terror: The Police Shooting of Loreal Tsingine

# data[].attributes.body
Academic research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ghosts are the things we try to bury, but that refuse to stay buried. They are our fears and our horrors, disembodied, but made inescapable by their very bodilessness. Ghostly Indians present us with the possibility of vanishing ourselves, being swallowed up into another's discourses, another's imagination. When ghostly Indian figures haunt the white American imagination, they serve as constant reminders of the fragility of national identity. ( 2000, 5)

Part One

Policing as Indian Fighting

It is useful to think of policing as racial infrastructure, that is, a part of the material systems that organise primitive accumulation and the racial hierarchy on which it depends. In this sense, colonial policing is state organised Indian fighting. In keeping with Yazzie's reminder that police in towns such as Winslow assist white settlers to contain the Indian threat (Yazzie 2014), we can consider policing in Winslow as a part of the infrastructural ground on which settlers' quest both for coherence and land are played out. What first marks the scene of the shooting as a fully colonial and racial encounter is the familiar signpost of colonial policing, namely that it is organised around maintaining the racial lines of force of the settler town. Patrolling the streets of the settler town, as I have shown elsewhere (Razack 2015), maintains public space for white inhabitants, producing Indigenous people as permanently out of place, herded, hunted, evicted, and marked for slow death. The police, it should be remembered, knew that they were looking for an "Indian woman shoplifter on a beer run" the category announced over the police radio and one that Shipley revealed as a part of his everyday lexicon when he unselfconsciously categorised Tsingine as "killing me for a beer run" (12). If we take Shipley at his word, that he felt a fear and a threat from a small, defiant young woman with a blunt pair of small scissors for a weapon, and put into context his repeated encounters with Indians, several of which seemed to be marked by the defiance of Indigenous youth, we can note the infrastructure of policing in which such scenarios of imperiled white masculinity are played out. The streets and the prison are two sites where the contours of the racial order are written on the bodies of Indigenous women and men, and in specific ways, on the bodies of Indigenous children and youth. In a reservation border town (a town that is adjacent to a reservation and not to the actual border) such as Winslow, Arizona, policing, barely altered from its nineteenth century form, has as its primary objective, the disciplining and surveillance of Indians, and their eviction from the settler town. Shipley's daily life as a police officer reveals as much, and the making of settler spaces through violence against Indigenous people confirms the systematised features of his activities and its connection to primitive accumulation on Indigenous land.

The ongoing theft of land and the racial terror that accompanies it are easily traced for Winslow and surrounding areas. In Wasi'chu: The Continuing Indian Wars, Bruce Johansen and Roberto Maestas ( 1979) write of "the theft of life, land and resources from America's first inhabitants" (18). They recount in detail the institutional, cultural and physical violence directed against the Navajo people over centuries. Wasi'chu, explained in the foreword by John Redhouse as a Lakota word for "greedy one who takes the fat," (Redhouse 1979, 11) carefully documents the acres of land stolen by white settlers, and intensified resource extraction on Indian land of the late 1970s when coal and uranium formed the basis of an energy policy that required an even more vigorous pursuit of Indian land than in earlier decades. Putting the American Indian Movement (AIM) of the 1960s and 1970s in this context, Redhouse introduces the book's equally carefully mapping of the persecution of Indian leaders and activists and an escalating racial terror that accompanied what he called "a full scale anti-Indian movement" comprising agencies of the federal government as well as settlers (cited in Johansen and Maestas 1979, 13).

Between 1973 and 1974, the bodies of ten Navajo were discovered, among them the bodies of middle-aged men who were sexually mutilated and tortured. Three non-Indian juveniles were arrested for the crime, tried and sent to a juvenile reformatory for two years, the light sentence sparking an Indigenous protest movement. Describing the "mutilation murders" of the 1970s, Redhouse, then the associate director of the National Indian Youth Council of Albuquerque, New Mexico, notes that Indian activists understood clearly that the violence was not simply the acts of crazy kids but instead "part of a whole racist picture" (cited in Johansen and Maestas 1979, 62). The tapestry of racial violence Johansen and Maestas present in Wasi'chu, and that Redhouse references, includes the activities of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the justice system, the Public Health Service, the multinational energy companies, and everyday encounters with white settlers. Johansen and Maestas meticulously document the removal of Indian children from their families, the sterilisation of Indian women, the denigration of Indian children in the school system and the insidious effects of a colonial police force dedicated to targeting activists and sowing the seeds of internal discord on reservations. The mechanisms that by the middle 1970s enabled 63% of Indian owned agricultural land to be cultivated by non-Indians complete the "whole racist picture," (82) leaving little doubt about the full-on colonial project in operation and the tremendous racial violence required to sustain it. The epicenter of such patterns of accumulation by dispossession is the border town, those spaces marked by a sustained and violent encounter between white settlers and Indians.

The Border Town: A Place Where You Can "Get Away With Anything" Against Indians

Reminding us to attend to the materiality of colonialism, Daniel Nemser ( 2017) observes that "infrastructure can serve not only as a signal of identity or belonging ... but also as a condition of possibility for the emergence of groupness as such, engendering social relations and structures of feeling"(17). Along these lines, "the things on which the process depends" such as railroad lines, roads, surveys, museums, fences and so on, are the foundation for rule and racialisation (18). The reservation border town, a product of the confinement of Indigenous peoples to reservations, offers a clear example of the racial infrastructure on which settler colonialism rests and the racial "groupness" that it requires and sustains. Diné historian Jennifer Nez Denetdale ( 2016), examining the historical and lived experiences of Indigenous people in towns that border the Navajo Nation (including the town of Winslow) and the tremendous racial violence reported to the Navajo Human Rights Commission, traces the emergence of reservation border towns as white settler centers that profited off Indian trade, and, early on, from ever expanding alcohol sales to Indians coming into town to purchase supplies. When continuous erosion of the Navajo land base drove many Indians off the reservation to seek work in the settler town, as a 1953 survey of reservation border towns confirmed, Indians began to settle in the settler town enduring the most abject conditions. Not surprisingly, alcohol abuse, homelessness and deep poverty continue to plague Indians in border towns and Indians remain confined to the edges and most marginal spaces of the settler town (Denetdale 2016). Then as now, the spatial arrangements of settler colonialism, arrangements that emerged with land dispossession and that Cheryl RedHorse Bennett ( 2018) describes as "predatory," generate and require considerable racial violence (24). Lisa Donaldson ( 2006) has shown, for instance, that the practice of 'Indian Rolling', racially motivated assaults committed by white youth against Indians in Farmington, a border town, is a rite of passage for white youth, and a practice with deep historical roots. Donaldson suggests that this degree of racial violence (which she terms hate crime) results from the situation where whites have total economic and political power over Indians. Along the same lines, Barbara Perry ( 2008) has explored the extent of hate crime in reservation border towns, noting their connection to settler colonialism and to an ongoing genocide, an argument also supported by Cheryl Redhorse Bennett's ( 2010) PhD dissertation on hate crimes in Farmington. As Perry ( 2009, 401) notes:

The very motive and intent of racialised violence is to protect carefully crafted boundaries, in the physical and social sense. It is a purposive process of policing the line between white/not white, between dominant and subordinate. It stands, then, as both punishment for those who dare to transgress, and those who are considering it.

Revealing for its generative features, namely its role in producing young white men as white and affirming settler power, Indian rolling is sufficiently practised as to have its own colloquial term, in much the same way as the term 'Starlight tours' is the label for the sometimes lethal Canadian police practice of driving Indigenous people outside of towns and leaving them to walk back into town in sub-zero temperatures, and often without shoes or coats (Razack 2015). Reservation border towns are places where an intense anti-Indian policing takes place, and where anti-Indigenous settler violence is considerable. Denetdale notes that anti-Indigenous violence in towns such as Winslow, Holbrook, Flagstaff and Page, Arizona, is nonetheless routinely attributed to the Navajo themselves and settlers are represented in law and society as the innocent and injured party.

Although research into border town violence is sparse, scholars and journalists have reported on the same features Denetdale and Donaldson describe, noting in particular that the gendered pattern of the violence has changed little for a century. Anti-Indigenous violence in border towns retains its early colonial character in that it is white men's violence (both police and settler) directed at Indigenous men and women alike. Writing one of the few in depth explorations of 'The Police Killings No One is Talking About', journalist Stephanie Woodard ( 2016) notes that police killings of Native Americans is greatest in border towns such as in New Mexico near the Navajo reservation, in South Dakota near Sioux reservations and in Montana near the Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations. Woodard chronicles the range of police killings of Indigenous men and women, from the shooting of a Suquamish woman, Jeanetta Riley, pregnant, homeless and mentally ill, who threatened suicide and who was shot when she refused to drop the knife she held to herself, to Sarah Lee Circle Bear who died in her cell after telling her jailors that she was in excruciating pain. Commenting that the deaths she investigated "sound like tales from the pre-civil rights deep South," (Woodard 2016) Woodard draws a grim picture of Indigenous deaths in custody that often occur in border towns. Importantly, police violence has generated strong resistance from Native people. Woodard describes the Puyallup tribe's efforts to support a Washington State ballot initiative that seeks greater police accountability for lethal use of force. The Tribe's spokesperson whom Woodard interviewed, tribal elder Ramona Bennett, outlined the historical and gendered features of the violence and their connection to white men's sense of entitlement. Offering the example of railroad deaths a century ago, Tribal Elder Bennett explained the phenomenon:

Fishing and trapping were outlawed so the men went out at night, making the cabins very dangerous. White men would come, kick the doors in, rape and murder the [women] and throw their bodies on the railroad tracks, where they'd be called 'railroad accident deaths'. We discovered in our tribal enrollment office a stack of 'railroad death' documents from 1912 to 1917 (Woodard 2016).

Racial violence that emerges in the context of white claims for land and resources has remained constant up to the present. For instance, Traci Brynne Voyles ( 2015) charts how sexual violence against Indian women skyrocket with the influx of white miners in reservation border towns.

American Indian women also have the highest rate of violence perpetrated against them, as Sarah Deer has shown, violence that is both internal and external, the latter at rates higher than it is for other groups of women (Deer 2015). Framing the violence of white men towards Indian women as 'hate crime', Cheryl Redhorse Bennett ( 2018) notes that there has been little attention paid to the specific space of the reservation border town as a place where you can "get away with anything" against Indians (24). Confirming this conclusion, Amnesty International ( 2007) has reported widespread police harassment, and shootings and young white men regularly targeting Indigenous women in border towns. Although less reported and examined than it is in the Canadian Indigenous context, missing and murdered Indigenous women are also a phenomenon in the US. Alleen Brown ( 2018) describes the legal and political structures that inhibit investigations into Indigenous women who have disappeared. Farley et al. ( 2011) reporting on sex trafficking and Native women, document the tremendous violence that is aimed at Indigenous women in prostitution, a violence that Indigenous sex workers describe as specifically aimed at them as Indian women.

Although Native Americans account for 25% of Winslow's population, they averaged nearly 64% of arrests from 2012 to 2015, according to police filings (Newton 2017). Indigenous youth and women have a particular place in these statistics. If sexual violence from white men and police is not empirically validated for Winslow specifically, the Navajo community expresses tremendous fear for its girls and women when they venture into Winslow. (Indeed, one uncharitable commentator at a Navajo public forum at which I was present even blamed Tsingine for having gone to live in Winslow in the first place, knowing what the town is like for young Indian women, while another speculated that Tsingine might have been one of the women the police routinely take outside of the city to rape). Although it is hard in these informal conversations to confirm sexual violence and to delineate the role of the police from internal sexual violence, it is clear, as Shannon Speed ( 2016) has argued, that internal violence within Indigenous communities is linked to state violence in complex ways. Tsingine lived in Winslow and in that environment, she had a great deal of police contact, contact that sometimes occurred when she encountered sexual assaults from Indigenous and racialised men. Shipley, for example, was the police officer who responded to a call about domestic violence involving Tsingine, an event he claimed that he could not recall. He encountered a naked and evidently frightened Tsingine fleeing her abusive boyfriend, a man onlookers described as "Hispanic" (Rank Tribe 2017). Reading police reports of these events, one readily sees ongoing displacement and its consequences in Tsingine's life, the role of sexual violence and both Indigenous and police involvement in it. The violence in her life that came from all directions, and the sheer difficulty of surviving and thriving in a system premised on her destruction is evident in her short life. Her descent into drugs, for instance, her attempts to get help for mental illness, the sexual violence from Indigenous men, and her previous contacts with police all reveal the outlines of a life lived amidst considerable violence.

It is critical to consider the violence that is written on the Indigenous woman's body as a multiscalar imprinting of colonial power. In her analysis of Linda Hogan's novel Solar Storms, Mishuana Goeman ( 2017) emphasises that in order to understand the role of gender based violence in reproducing colonialism, it is essential that we consider the body as it journeys through temporalities and spaces. Hogan's protagonists are women whose individual bodies are linked to the social body of the Native community and the national bodies of the United States, Canada and Quebec. Thus extensive physical and sexual abuse at the hands of colonising men and the violence within their own communities that native women endure must be connected to the making of the settler collectivity, an unfolding of colonialism over time on land and on bodies. Interviewing Indigenous women asylum seekers in detention, Shannon Speed ( 2019) found confirmation that gang violence, drug violence, militarisation and state violence were all inextricably linked to intra familial violence ensuring that Indigenous women were consistently more likely than any other group of women to be victims of gender violence. Reporting that the US National Institute of Justice confirms that four out of five Native women experience violence in their lifetime and that 97% of these crimes are committed by non-Indians (Rosay 2018, cited in Speed 2019, 16), Speed emphasises we should not lose sight of the mutually constitutive nature of most gender violence. Domestic violence, for example, is in part generated by state violence ( 2019, 30).

White men are an important link in the chain of events that culminate in excessive violence in the lives of Indigenous women. The asymmetrical intimacies of the border town reveal that what we know as the excessive use of force by police towards Indigenous peoples is a daily gendered enactment of colonial power on the part of white men. The police files detailing Shipley's encounters with Indians, record the traces of the fear, memory and desire to which Bergland refers when she describes the colonial subject attempting to bury what cannot be buried. An organised and continuing dispossession unfolds in everyday and institutional extractive relationships between white men and women, and Indians, a dispossession in which policing has a central role to play. Institutionally sustained and integral to the extractive economy and spatial arrangements of settler colonialism, Shipley's use of force is important to the circuit of ongoing dispossession, assuaging colonial fears and anxieties, and, simultaneously, consolidating dispossession.

Part Two

The Official Story: Imperiled White Masculinity

The colonial underpinnings of Shipley's encounter with Loreal Tsingine are visible from the outset. If Tsingine arrived at the encounter already scripted as "an Indian on a beer run," (Jacobs 2014b, 118) Shipley came to it as a white man drawn to guns and to Indians. He enters the scene as a prototypical Indian fighter at risk from a wild Indian. At first glance, it is tempting to attribute Shipley's relationship to Indians to white extremism. Photographed at an earlier event wearing a t-shirt of the Three Percenters, a movement organised around patriotism and the idea of a constitutional right to bear arms, Shipley can be seen as someone whose allegiances are to what Kathleen Belew ( 2018) has described as the white power movement and paramilitary America. Belew is careful to note the expansive and contradictory category denoted by the term white power movement, a movement that brings together "members of the Klan, militias, radical tax resisters, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and proponents of white theologies such as Christian identity, Odinism, and Dualism between 1975 and 1995" ( 2018, ix). She advises that not all members of this group advocate white nationalism and cannot be easily pinned to the right of the political spectrum. Importantly, Shipley, as an insightful reviewer of this article pointed out, does not have to be a member of white nationalist/right wing groups in order to fulfil the colonial role I am suggesting he plays. His allegiance to the Three Percenters merely confirms the colonial features of his character. One has only to reflect on the historical origins of the right to bear arms and the concomitant movement against big government to note the colonial underpinnings of such beliefs. As Dunbar-Ortiz ( 2018) has shown, the right to bear arms gave settlers the right to attack Indians and take their land. Settler insistence on the right to overthrow oppressive governments grew out of settler resistance to British authorities who sought to regulate the extent to which settlers could seize Indian land. The Three Percent movement insists that it is neither a militia nor white supremacist, merely nationalist. Yet, critics have pointed out that heavily armed three percenters have actively tried to infiltrate the US military and have provided armed security to white supremacist groups at rallies, including at the 2017 Charlottesville rally of white supremacist groups in which an anti-racist protester was killed. Although the group subsequently distanced itself from the rally and from related events, local affiliates are known to be involved in mosque bombings and other violent racial incidents (Sankin and Carless 2018). The Three Percenters have declared themselves solidly in favour of Donald Trump, and particularly so in the matter of stricter immigration controls and the building of a wall along the Mexico-US border. A land/race/arms nexus lies at the core of their white nationalism and there is little doubt that Shipley found himself comfortable with its chief tenets. If Shipley's affiliations announce his white supremacist leanings, it is also the case that his devotion to guns and his political position concerning protecting white America are foundational ideas in a settler society born of the dispossession of Indigenous populations. It is difficult to untangle the white extremist and white nationalist from an ordinary patriot and equally, to separate extremist anxieties and anger from the resentment that emanates from an ordinary white entitlement. Indeed, as Inderpal Grewal has argued in her discussion of mass shootings in America "the angry, white, Christian man who sees himself as dispossessed from his rightful place of power in the nation and exerting the sovereignty given to him by virtue of his gender and race," is now so familiar a figure that when mass murders occur, the killer is simply called a shooter, and not a killer, murderer or criminal (Grewal 2017, 185). Shipley, then, would seem to personify the unexceptional white subject for whom the Indian remains the archetype of all those (Black people, Brown people and racialised foreigners) who are imagined and experienced as a threat to white settler entitlement. Rather than extremist, the Indian fighter and the Indian fighter turned cop should be seen as foundational figures in the national imaginary, inhabiting and structuring the institution of policing among other places.

Shipley's record as a police officer offers glimpses of frustrated colonial desire and the violence it inspires, the figure Richard Slotkin describes as the subject for whom Indians lurk everywhere in society and in the recesses of one's own mind (Slotkin 1973, 564). Here one thinks of Shipley's service record, revealing his interest, if not obsession, in expressing power over Indigenous people, and Indigenous youth and girls in particular, groups that often refused to grant his authority. Equipped with extra guns, an illegal practice for which he was not sanctioned, Shipley could indulge himself with impunity in a twenty-first century version of Indian wars. Struggling to maintain his own coherence as colonial subject, fending off any intimacies that threaten colonial arrangements, Shipley can be seen to preserve coherence through violence. In his three years as a police officer, Shipley's service record hints at a volatility that easily led to an undue use of force particularly directed at young Indigenous people in whom he seemed to have inspired neither fear nor respect, responses that appear to have enraged him. As journalists reported, Shipley was first disciplined when the mother of a 15-year-old girl, complained that Shipley "slammed her daughter against a squad car and made a 'rude, ugly comment...'" (Farzan 2017). The girl apparently taunted Shipley by referring to him as a rookie. Shipley acknowledged responding harshly and was suspended, but the Department did not find evidence of excessive force. In another event, Shipley used a taser on a teenage girl, arguing that he felt threatened by her friends, and that she possibly had a weapon. The girl in question refused to obey his order to sit on the curb. Finding no evidence of a weapon in the video taken by the police body camera Shipley wore, and no evidence that the group in question behaved in an aggressive or hostile manner, the Department gave Shipley a one-day suspension. In this encounter recorded on the body camera, the youth in question can be heard calmly intervening on behalf of the young woman, one man admonishing Shipley, "Dude, she's a girl" (Farzan 2017).

To place this imperiled whiteness and masculinity within a more collective context, we can consider what daily policing entails in Winslow, the relentless cycle of evicting Indigenous people from the town, and the making of white settler masculinity (and femininity) through these practices. If Shipley's service record offers evidence that he was a haunted man, an aggressive police officer who was easily provoked and who had a particular interest in asserting his power over Indians, and young Indian women in particular, it also confirms that his violence was sanctioned. Shipley's record of multiple incidents of use of force against Indians did not overly trouble the police department, inviting only minor rebukes. In 12 other instances Shipley was found to have used force on suspects, (including tasering an Indigenous man waiting on a hospital trolley for medical treatment) actions for which he faced few consequences. He was, however, required to complete diversity training, presumably because all these use of force incidents involved Indians (Jeong 2016). When the violence finally ended in the loss of life, the Department offered its assistance in constructing the legal basis for his exoneration. For example, Shipley carried extra, unauthorised guns in his car. The matter of his authorisation to carry the guns was quickly dispensed with during the investigation of Tsingine's death. Sergeant Tolliver could not remember authorising any training in the use of these weapons but then later claimed he could have forgotten. Tellingly, Shipley's personnel records begin with the fact that a supervisor recommended that he not be hired on the grounds that he was emotionally volatile and used force inappropriately. He was nevertheless hired and remained on the force in spite of this history. Protected to the end, in spite of documented irregularities, it should also be noted that it was Shipley's superior officer, Sergeant Cano, who advised him not to bother with bandages for Tsingine and who backed up his story about a justified use of force. It is also his police Chief who advised him "don't say anything" immediately after the shooting (Arizona Dept. of Public Safety 2016). Finally, it was the Department of Justice that refused to investigate the Winslow Police.

The Encounter and the Incident Review

An aggrieved, anxiety ridden and colonial subject confronting an imagined 'wild Indian' is the narrative that gives coherence to Shipley's shooting of Tsingine. Its intrinsic racial logic is evident both in Shipley's behaviour at the scene and in the account he gives during the interrogation where, with assistance from the police themselves, it becomes the story of record. The story rests on the idea that Shipley is a man guided by rational aims, acting professionally to confront a threat, manifest or latent in any Indian who crosses his path. The visual record of the shooting available from Shipley's body camera is enlisted to give substance to the story of fear and threat. The manner in which this occurs during the investigation of Shipley's actions reveals the structuring role of racial logic and offers hints of the racial fantasy and racial feelings that marked the encounter.

It was a mere 22 seconds from the time Officer Shipley made contact with Loreal Tsingine to the time he fired his gun five times and killed her. Police typically defend shootings with recourse to a codified narrative about use of force, one that typically invokes the phrases 'edged weapons' and 'the 21 foot rule', and a newly emerging discourse about 'persons in mental health crisis' in formulaic ways that frame the victim as a threat (emanating from the irrational behaviour of a mentally ill person), a threat that only deadly force could contain (Racial Violence Hub 2020). Scholars have noted the importance of race to the police narrative of containing deadly force through violence. For instance, the iconic moment when, twenty-five years ago the beating of Rodney King by ten police officers was captured on a bystander's video of the event, the Los Angeles police defended their actions as necessary to contain the threat that King posed. Addressing the problem of how King came to be seen on the videotape as the agent rather than the victim of violence, Judith Butler ( 1993) describes the visual field itself as a racial formation or episteme (as Fanon first argued) in which white paranoia transforms King's blows into the "blows he never delivered, but which he is, by virtue of his blackness, always about to deliver" (19). In his analysis of the video of the King beating, Feldman ( 1994) adds that increasing objectification increases our capacity to inflict pain and, crucially, to render the Other's pain as inadmissible. To achieve the transformation "where King's body could be processed as a racial, a disciplinary, and a legal object," his body had to be rendered pre-social. The police were merely taming and caging King, achieving "the neutering of the animalized body" (211). King is rendered bestial to the point that he could not feel. The police reenact their violence in court, performing King's body as a spectrum of aggressive movements.

It is easy to spot the police coding schemes that Butler and Feldman identify with respect to the beating of Rodney King, in the police narration of the videotape of the shooting of Loreal Tsingine. The 22 seconds that elapses between the time Shipley first encounters Tsingine and when he fires five bullets is narrated second by second and each second becomes an event that conveys professional action on the part of the police. Police language assists with this endeavour. Twenty-two seconds stretch much longer and it is easy to forget that such an abbreviated time span cannot contain the reasoned, professional practices itemised by the police. The police's narration begins with the note that the first thirty seconds of the recorded film contain no audio. Audio begins at the 30 second mark, a scant 8 seconds after the shooting has occurred. The Incident Review offers this fact in the passive voice, "At approximatively thirty seconds, the audio was turned on," (Jacobs 2014c, 20) and we are not directed to the fact that Officer Shipley himself had to turn it on before it changed from buffering mode to event mode when audio begins, as the User Manual instructs (TASER International 2014). The first 'event' of the shooting is of Shipley exiting his vehicle and approaching Tsingine who was walking on the sidewalk. The writer of the Review, Officer Aaron Jacobs, volunteers the following information: "Tsingine appeared to be a Native American female with black hair" (Jacobs 2014c, 17) - a racial categorisation that comes easily given that the police radio announced that the suspect was a Native American who "did a beer run" (Jacobs 2014a, 24). At the four second mark, Shipley is described as having reached Tsingine's left side, and at the five second mark, he has moved to her back. At six seconds, he is described as attempting to gain control and by the ten second mark, Shipley has grabbed her collar and hood and pulled Loreal to the ground, standing over her by the 12 second mark. She spends the next three seconds, at the 15 second mark, attempting to stand and the Review notes that a "pair of silver scissors" is then visible (Jacobs 2014b, 121). At the 13 second mark, Officer Cano's patrol SUV enters the frame. At 17 seconds, the Review records that "a plastic bag was visible in Tsingine's right hand" (Jacobs 2014c, 18). Imputing motive and purpose to Shipley, the report notes: "Shipley pushed Tsingine away in an easterly direction in an attempt to create distance from her" ([Jacobs 2014c, 18), an action that resulted in items falling from her purse including the pill bottles that would later be used to emphasise her problems with mental illness. At 18 seconds, the Report notes that Tsingine got up and began walking toward Shipley. At 19 seconds, he draws his handgun. Cano has arrived at this point and was nearly directly behind Tsingine by a few feet. He is described as walking faster at this point. Shipley is described as walking backwards while Tsingine is described as "lunging" at him when he fires his weapon three times at the 22 second mark (Jacobs 2014c, 19). The video cannot easily confirm these descriptions of movement but the narration slows down a story frame by frame about a menacing, advancing threat that two police officers cannot contain except through shooting.

Even after she is shot five times, Tsingine continues to be described as advancing threat. As in the King video, where small movements are enlisted to tell a story of overwhelming threat, Tsingine is described as active and as "holding her body off the ground with her right hand, while her left hand was draped over her body," a position she holds for two seconds (Jacobs 2014c, 19). The narration isolates each actor in the frame and the two seconds, from the 25 second point to the 27 second point is broken down by actor so that we have a sense that a great deal is going on:

At approximately twenty-seven seconds, Cano was still talking on the radio, and Tsingine still held her body up. Shipley's weapon was still trained on Tsingine. Shipley could be seen removing his left hand from his weapon, and appeared to be bringing it back to the TASER camera "on" switch. (Jacobs 2014c, 20, emphasis added)

Rendered as a force that will not stop coming, even after five bullets, perhaps even a supernatural force, Tsingine remains the aggressor from whom Shipley is defending himself by moving backwards and even attempting to taser (something the evidence does not support). If Tsingine's hand rises after she is shot, and she remains for an uncanny amount of time as someone who "still held her body up" (Jacobs 2014c, 20), this is not narrated as the involuntary movements that are the response of someone suffering, someone who has been shot multiple times. It is, instead, a threat subsiding. If, as Butler argued with respect to Rodney King, the raising of his hand after suffering numerous blows was read as evidence that King was in control, it is the brutality that King was said to embody that transforms him into the author of his own misfortune. Rodney King, Butler ( 1993) suggests becomes in this moment "reduced to a phantasm of white racist aggression," his body at once the site upon which white racist violence disavows itself and the place where desire is similarly disavowed through violence (20). Colonialism, Meyda Yegenoglu ( 1998) reminds us, is structured by unconscious, sexualised processes where fantasy and desire play a fundamental role. The colonial subject is constituted through an encounter with the racial/cultural Other, becoming through an active denial of the Other's difference but nonetheless disturbed and haunted by masculine dreams of possession. Tsingine's body is reduced to a phantasm and the desire that circulates and is disavowed, an amalgam of desiring and imperiled white masculinity, is apparent in Shipley's own narrative below.

"I Felt a Fear and a Threat"

Feeling both the fear that Tsingine refuses to recognise him as authority and the threat that is a projection of his own fear, Shipley narrates himself in the police interview as a professional confronted by a wild Indian, a thread enabled by the questions that are asked and those that are not asked by his interviewers (Jacobs 2014d). As above, in the official narration of the video, equipped with the stock arsenal of the 21-foot rule and related police concepts, Shipley presents himself, and is presented, as the police professional who utilised everything he had been taught about how to confront an overwhelming threat. The narrative is based on what Shipley is feeling, the feeling offering the basis on which we understand what he is doing. As the story of Shipley's feelings, it is always defensible, and made more so by the historical storyline about the irrational savage, maddened with fury, and assaulting the white man. Its gendered dimensions are apparent in the sense that Tsingine does not belong to the feminine gender in the narrative. She is not a petite young woman in a ponytail but rather a near unstoppable force of nature, a force only bullets can contain.

As in the incident review, the narrative force of the interview derives from the presentation of Shipley's professional behaviour, and Tsingine's irrationality. As the video recorded, it took four seconds for Shipley to reach Tsingine once he parked his car and yelled "Police. Stop!" (Jacobs 2014d, 5) In six more seconds, he has positioned Tsingine on the ground, an action that one witness described as "slamming her to the ground" but which Shipley describes as a series of professional actions: "I gave verbal commands;" (Jacobs 2014d, 5) "I tried to put her arms behind her back; I tried to get her on her stomach; I used the 'soft holds' technique and did not apply my full force because I didn't want to hurt her" (Jacobs 2014d, 13). As the seconds go by in slow motion, the next ten seconds also entail a series of professional calculations. Shipley, for instance describes that he kept the 21-foot rule in mind when he assessed the level of threat. The situation is nevertheless so tense that he develops "tunnel vision" (Jacobs 2014d, 2)2 and is not sure of where his partner is, his eyes focused on the threat in front of him. Solicitous of their interviewee, especially when he appears early on to be overcome with emotion, and sharing the same bank of professional knowledge, the police appear to bond over the shared language of edged weapons and the 21-foot rule.

There can be no other role for Tsingine but that of an out of control, irrational threat and Shipley's account is shaped by a careful and judicious sprinkling of adjectives to describe Tsingine's state of mind. Tsingine is in his view "actively resisting;" "making furtive movements"; "aggressively walking" (Jacobs 2014d, 6). Her demeanor is "blank" and she is silent (Jacobs 2014d, 9). Recalling her "blank" demeanor, Shipley remembers the prescription pill bottles falling out of her purse and we and the interviewers are left to connect the dots, lines that will explain Tsingine's irrationality as due to mental illness. Impressing upon the interviewers Tsingine's aggression and instability, Shipley recalls his own state of mind at the time: "What the hell, why is this lady resisting?" "Why did this have to happen? Why does this woman have scissors? Why was she trying to kill me?" (Jacobs 2014d, 12) Tsingine's behaviour was incomprehensible, Shipley concludes, especially when he considered that this was only a misdemeanour crime (Jacobs 2014d, 12). She committed aggravated assault on a police officer, he concludes, and apparently for no reason. In the end, all he could have wished for, was that he didn't come to work that day. Tsingine's body, converted into threat and disposed of, generates Shipley, the police professional confronted with crazed and unruly Indians on a regular basis, people doing a beer run. Apparently traumatised by the encounter, it is Shipley, his narrative insists, for whom we should feel sorry. As with King, imagined, in Feldman's ( 1994) words as a "resistant body without senses and without corresponding judgment" (213). Tsingine is narrated as an animalised body that feels no pain, a body that holds within it an intrinsic violence created by alcohol. What gives the story its appeal, as Feldman memorably observed with respect to King, is "unfinished history as mise-en-scene" ( 1994, 209). We might consider, then, the unfinished history in which Shipley, a white man and a police officer, and Tsingine, a Navajo woman, both feature, the ongoing extractive regimes and the racial terror on which they depend, and the colonial subjects whose anxieties are assuaged, and who regenerate, through violence.

Conclusion

Colin Dayan ( 2011) has powerfully argued that white vulnerability to Black savagery is a baseline narrative in the law, whether with respect to police shootings or to cruel and unusual punishment. This is also the narrative that fuels gun culture and that gave rise to the second amendment's right to bear arms (Dunbar-Ortiz 2018). Commenting on Dayan's ( 2011) book The Law is a White Dog, discussing the legal rituals that transform prisoners into "unpersons" against whom all force is justified, Angela Davis observes that the logic of prisoners as less than human shows us "how the ghosts of slavery animate institutions" (cited in Dayan 2011, back cover). If we see the afterlives of slavery in prisons and in police shootings, both in their frequency and in police impunity, how might we understand the police shooting of a young Navajo woman and the legal narratives that justify it? Although it is certain that a justice system that is organised around the disposability of Black bodies sweeps up in its ambit all racialised persons, when the target is a young, Navajo woman, it is necessary to consider what settler colonialism has to do with the violence Shipley enacted and the legal and social approval of it. Settler colonialism is an ongoing project that preserves intact its colonial, spatial and legal structures. Dispossession continues apace with extraction as the engine that drives the racial project of accumulation. We can expect, then, that both the ghost of slavery and the ghost of settler colonialism animate institutions such as prisons and policing.

I have argued that, with its emphasis on extraction, a white settler society targets Indigenous land and Indigenous people. In this regard, police shootings of Indigenous people and the legal response to police use of force (along with everyday settler violence) are a part of the racial terror that is a central part of settler colonialism. As an ongoing racial project of accumulation, settler colonialism requires the enforcement of colonial lines of force. This is abundantly in evidence in the reservation border town where policing entails the eviction of the native from the settler town, a perpetual drawing of the lines of power between settlers and natives. The settler imagines himself or herself threatened at every turn by the native and obliged to use extreme force. A circulating colonial affect, threat narratives produce embattled colonisers who feel a fear and a threat and who do what they have to do, as Shipley did when he shot Loreal Tsingine. In the settler's psyche as in the streets of the border town, wild Indians are everywhere and can only be controlled through force. There is plenty to indicate that Officer Shipley undertook his daily duties within such a colonial imaginary. As Slotkin ( 1973) has shown, the Indian fighter remains a central figure in American national mythology, requiring settlers to bear arms and to defend white property through violence. As Indian fighter turned cop, Shipley is able to count on institutional support for his activities; indeed, Indian fighting is his job. The story in police shootings of "I did what I had to do" and "I felt a fear and a threat" (Jacobs 2014b, 24-25), official statements made by Officer Shipley in referring to his shooting of Loreal Tsingine is one that is powered by race, dependent as it is on the idea that Indians always pose a threat to the settler, a threat that only considerable force can dissolve. Scripting himself as imperiled, and sustained institutionally for doing what he had to do in the wake of such a racial threat, Shipley can exercise force against Tsingine with impunity.

The last word to Loreal Tsingine: Indigenous Refusal

In the 22 seconds of the police encounter captured on the police body camera, one of the first things I imagine I see in Tsingine's face is fear. The last thing I think I see of her is defiance. Perhaps even the blank stare Shipley describes is evidence of this defiance. Initially walking away from Shipley, who pursues her and throws her to the pavement, she stands up and walks towards him, apparent determination in her stride. I think of this moment as one that shares the sentiment of the hashtag #Iftheygunmedownwhichpicturewouldtheyuse (Stampler 2014). The inevitability of the moment, the end that those who are racially targeted anticipate, finally comes. Is this refusal, a final bringing to an end of a life of endless confrontation, a defiant inhabiting of the category of disposable? Even as I imagine refusal, I think about my own stakes in the story. The sources I mine for the police narratives discussed here do not easily give up insights either into Loreal Tsingine's humanity or her suffering. They do, however, reveal the contours of a colonial encounter, one structured by violence and terror. Yet I betray her if I don't find ways to resurrect the person who was killed, the person who struggled with racial terror and who may have found this last moment to confront it. Constructed by the police as animalistic threat who rises up after five bullets to confront a police officer seeking to apprehend her, I want to re-write this narrative, leaving an image not of superhuman aggression but of an insistence on being recognised and perhaps a taunt and despair: I am (still here).

Notes

1. 1.

Statistics of police killings by race are notoriously complicated. In 2016, The Guardian reports that of the 2016 people killed by police, 24 were Native Americans and 266 were African American. When considered relative to percentage of the population, Native Americans who constitute 0.8 % of the population comprise 1.9% of police shootings while African Americans comprise 13% of the population and comprise 26% of police shootings. These figures suggest comparable rates of police shootings. An important issue to consider is who is counted as Native American or African American. A second important point is whether Native Americans are more likely to die in cells rather than in police shootings. Additionally, see: Mike Males, "Who are Police Killing", Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (August 26, 2014), https://www.cjcj.org/news/8113 This study using data from the federal Centers for Disease Control, showed that over a 12-year period, Native Americans were statistically more likely to be killed by police than any other group, including African-Americans. John Swaine et al. "The Counted, 2015 and 2016 datasets", The Guardian (2017) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database This study revealed that between 2015 and 2016, Native Americans were the only racial group to see their death toll due to police shootings go up, even as the number of officer-involved shootings across the country fell.

2. 2.

Police narratives frequently mention tunnel vision which suggests that it is a concept that police learn in training. See: Force Science Institute, "New Findings Expand Understanding of Tunnel Vision, Auditory Blocking and Lag Time," Police One, Aug 1, 2005. https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/1247087-New-findings-expand-understanding-of-tunnel-vision-auditory-blocking-and-lag-time/ See also, David Montero, "'Why Am I Going to Die Today?': The Words of First Responders to Deadly Las Vegas Shooting," Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2018. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-vegas-police-shooting-2018-story.html.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Stephanie Santos and Bianca Beauchemin for research assistance, Jennifer Denetdale, Melanie Yazzie and David Correia for their insights and Leslie Thielen Wilson and the reviewers for their comments.

Author information

Affiliations

Department of Gender Studies, UCLA, 1120 Rolfe Hall, Box 951504, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1504, USA

Sherene H. Razack

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sherene H. Razack.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

About this article

Cite this article

Razack, S.H. Settler Colonialism, Policing and Racial Terror: The Police Shooting of Loreal Tsingine. Fem Leg Stud 28, 1-20 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-020-09426-2
Download citation
Keywords

Indigenous women

Policing

Racial violence

Settler colonialism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Settler Colonialism, Policing and Racial Terror: The Police Shooting of Loreal Tsingine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On 27 March 2014, Loreal Tsingine, a 27-year-old Navajo woman was shot and killed by Austin Shipley, a white male police officer, also 27 years old, who said he was trying to apprehend her for a suspected shoplifting. Shipley was never charged, and the Department of Justice declined to investigate the Winslow police on the matter.

# data[].attributes.body
New York Times Magazine Interactive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
American slavery began 400 years ago this month. This is referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the country’s true origin.

# data[].attributes.headline
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

# data[].attributes.subject
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

# data[].attributes.body
There is a version of this book for young people also available.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Now part of the HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck

2015 Recipient of the American Book Award

The first history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortizoffers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. In An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them."

Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.

About the Series

Beacon Press's ReVisioning History series consists of accessibly written books by notable scholars that reconstruct and reinterpret US history from diverse perspectives.

"A must-read for anyone interested in the truth behind this nation's founding."
-Veronica E. Velarde Tiller, PhD, Jicarilla Apache author, historian, and publisher of Tiller's Guide to Indian Country

"This may well be the most important US history book you will read in your lifetime. . . . Dunbar-Ortiz radically reframes US history, destroying all foundation myths to reveal a brutal settler-colonial structure and ideology designed to cover its bloody tracks. Here, rendered in honest, often poetic words, is the story of those tracks and the people who survived-bloodied but unbowed. Spoiler alert: the colonial era is still here, and so are the Indians."
-Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams

"Dunbar Ortiz's . . . assessment and conclusions are necessary tools for all Indigenous peoples seeking to address and remedy the legacy of US colonial domination that continues to subvert Indigenous human rights in today's globalized world."
-Mililani B. Trask, Native Hawai'ian international law expert on Indigenous peoples' rights and former Kia Aina (prime minister) of Ka La Hui Hawai'i

" An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States provides an essential historical reference for all Americans. . . . The American Indians' perspective has been absent from colonial histories for too long, leaving continued misunderstandings of our struggles for sovereignty and human rights."
-Peterson Zah, former president of the Navajo Nation

" An Indigenous Peoples' History . . . pulls up the paving stones and lays bare the deep history of the United States, from the corn to the reservations. If the United States is a 'crime scene,' as she calls it, then Dunbar-Ortiz is its forensic scientist. A sobering look at a grave history."
-Vijay Prashad, author of The Poorer Nations

"Justice-seekers everywhere will celebrate Dunbar-Ortiz's unflinching commitment to truth-a truth that places settler-colonialism and genocide exactly where they belong: as foundational to the existence of the United States."
-Waziyatawin, PhD, activist and author of For Indigenous Minds Only

"Dunbar-Ortiz strips us of our forged innocence, shocks us into new awarenesses, and draws a straight line from the sins of our fathers-settler-colonialism, the doctrine of discovery, the myth of manifest destiny, white supremacy, theft and systematic killing-to the contemporary condition of permanent war, invasion and occupation, mass incarceration, and the constant use and threat of state violence."
-Bill Ayers

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a fiercely honest, unwavering, and unprecedented statement, one which has never been attempted by any other historian or intellectual. The presentation of facts and arguments is clear and direct, unadorned by needless and pointless rhetoric, and there is an organic feel of intellectual solidity that provides weight and trust. It is truly an Indigenous peoples' voice that gives Dunbar-Ortiz'sbook direction, purpose, and trustworthy intention. Without doubt, this crucially important book is required reading for everyone in the Americas!"
-Simon J. Ortiz, Regents Professor of English and American Indian Studies, Arizona State University

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes a masterful story that relates what the Indigenous peoples of the United States have always maintained: Against the settler U.S. nation, Indigenous peoples have persevered against actions and policies intended to exterminate them, whether physically, mentally, or intellectually. Indigenous nations and their people continue to bear witness to their experiences under the U.S. and demand justice as well as the realization of sovereignty on their own terms."
-Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and author of Reclaiming Diné History

Introduction
This land

We are here to educate, not forgive.
We are here to enlighten, not accuse.
-Willie Johns, Brighton Seminole Reservation, Florida

Under the crust of that portion of Earth called the United States of America-"from California . . . to the Gulf Stream waters"-are interred the bones, villages, fields, and sacred objects of American Indians. They cry out for their stories to be heard through their descendants who carry the memories of how the country was founded and how it came to be as it is today.

It should not have happened that the great civilizations of the Western Hemisphere, the very evidence of the Western Hemisphere, were wantonly destroyed, the gradual progress of humanity interrupted and set upon a path of greed and destruction. Choices were made that forged that path toward destruction of life itself-the moment in which we now live and die as our planet shrivels, overheated. To learn and know this history is both a necessity and a responsibility to the ancestors and descendants of all parties.

What historian David Chang has written about the land that became Oklahoma applies to the whole United States: "Nation, race, and class converged in land." Everything in US history is about the land-who oversaw and cultivated it, fished its waters, maintained its wildlife; who invaded and stole it; how it became a commodity ("real estate") broken into pieces to be bought and sold on the market.

US policies and actions related to Indigenous peoples, though often termed "racist" or "discriminatory," are rarely depicted as what they are: classic cases of imperialism and a particular form of colonialism-settler colonialism. As anthropologist Patrick Wolfe writes, "The question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism. Land is life-or, at least, land is necessary for life."

The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism- the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft. Those who seek history with an upbeat ending, a history of redemption and reconciliation, may look around and observe that such a conclusion is not visible, not even in utopian dreams of a better society.

Writing US history from an Indigenous peoples' perspective requires rethinking the consensual national narrative. That narrative is wrong or deficient, not in its facts, dates, or details but rather in its essence. Inherent in the myth we've been taught is an embrace of settler colonialism and genocide. The myth persists, not for a lack of free speech or poverty of information but rather for an absence of motivation to ask questions that challenge the core of the scripted narrative of the origin story. How might acknowledging the reality of US history work to transform society? That is the central question this book pursues.

Teaching Native American studies, I always begin with a simple exercise. I ask students to quickly draw a rough outline of the United States at the time it gained independence from Britain. Invariably most draw the approximate present shape of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific-the continental territory not fully appropriated until a century after independence. What became independent in 1783 were the thirteen British colonies hugging the Atlantic shore. When called on this, students are embarrassed because they know better. I assure them that they are not alone. I call this a Rorschach test of unconscious "manifest destiny," embedded in the minds of nearly everyone in the United States and around the world. This test reflects the seeming inevitability of US extent and power, its destiny, with an implication that the continent had previously been terra nullius, a land without people.

Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" celebrates that the land belongs to everyone, reflecting the unconscious manifest destiny we live with. But the extension of the United States from sea to shining sea was the intention and design of the country's founders. "Free" land was the magnet that attracted European settlers. Many were slave owners who desired limitless land for lucrative cash crops. After the war for independence but preceding the writing of the US Constitution, the Continental Congress produced the Northwest Ordinance. This was the first law of the incipient republic, revealing the motive for those desiring independence. It was the blueprint for gobbling up the British-protected Indian Territory ("Ohio Country") on the other side of the Appalachians and Alleghenies. Britain had made settlement there illegal with the Proclamation of 1763.

In 1801, President Jefferson aptly described the new settler-state's intentions for horizontal and vertical continental expansion, stating: "However our present interests may restrain us within our own limits, it is impossible not to look forward to distant times, when our rapid multiplication will expand itself beyond those limits and cover the whole northern, if not the southern continent, with a people speaking the same language, governed in similar form by similar laws." This vision of manifest destiny found form a few years later in the Monroe Doctrine, signaling the intention of annexing or dominating former Spanish colonial territories in the Americas and the Pacific, which would be put into practice during the rest of the century.

Origin narratives form the vital core of a people's unifying identity and of the values that guide them. In the United States, the founding and development of the Anglo-American settler-state involves a narrative about Puritan settlers who had a covenant with God to take the land. That part of the origin story is supported and reinforced by the Columbus myth and the "Doctrine of Discovery." According to a series of late-fifteenth-century papal bulls, European nations acquired title to the lands they "discovered" and the Indigenous inhabitants lost their natural right to that land after Europeans arrived and claimed it. As law professor Robert A. Williams observes about the Doctrine of Discovery:

Responding to the requirements of a paradoxical age of Re-
naissance and Inquisition, the West's first modern discourses
of conquest articulated a vision of all humankind united
under a rule of law discoverable solely by human reason. Un-
fortunately for the American Indian, the West's first tentative
steps towards this noble vision of a Law of Nations contained
a mandate for Europe's subjugation of all peoples whose ra-
dical divergence from European-derived norms of right conduct
signified their need for conquest and remediation.

The Columbus myth suggests that from US independence onward, colonial settlers saw themselves as part of a world system of colonization. "Columbia," the poetic, Latinate name used in reference to the United States from its founding throughout the nineteenth century, was based on the name of Christopher Columbus. The "Land of Columbus" was-and still is-represented by the image of a woman in sculptures and paintings, by institutions such as Columbia University, and by countless place names, including that of the national capital, the District of Columbia. The 1798 hymn "Hail, Columbia" was the early national anthem and is now used whenever the vice president of the United States makes a public appearance, and Columbus Day is still a federal holiday despite Columbus never having set foot on any territory ever claimed by the United States.

"Interview with an Indie Press: Beacon Press," Literary Hub, book mentioned in Q&A with the press

"The 23 best history books written by women, from previously untold war stories to page-turning biographies," Business Insider, listed as one of 23 best history books written by women

"Missing Pages Of History: 31 Books To Read For Juneteenth," Patch/Across America, book included in Juneteenth reading roundup

"A reading list to honor Indigenous Peoples Day," Day One/Amazon, book included in Indigenous Peoples' Day reading list

"14 Books for a More Inclusive Look at American History," Book Riot, included in book roundup

"Solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement begins with a critical education," Oxfam America, included in anti-racist reading list

"American violence in the time of coronavirus," High Country News, Q&A

"Raoul Peck Teams With HBO for Hybrid Docuseries on European Colonialism," Variety, director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) is basing his new documentary on colonialism on this and two other books

"The 1619 Project Sparks Dialogue and Reflection in Schools Nationwide," Pulitzer Center, book mentioned in piece on 1619 project impact on students

"How Hipcamp Became the AirBnB of the Outdoors," The New Yorker, book mentioned in article

"Alexandra Fuller's 'Travel Light, Move Fast' is a new memoir about her father," Tampa Bay Times, book recommended in author Alexandra Fuller's Q&A

"Trump's Trail of Fears," The New York Times, book mentioned in op-ed

"Our Blind Spots Often Hide the Truth About America," The New York Times, book mentioned in op-ed

"White Supremacy and the Second Amendment," The Intercept, author quoted in Facebook video piece

The book trailer for An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States was the Shelf Awareness Book Trailer of the Day, 9/12/14

An excerpt titled "Indian Wars" was featured on The Jacobian, 9/16/14

"Greed is Good," an excert from An Indigenous People's History of the United States was featured in the online and print editions of This Land Press, 9/12/14

Salon posted a long excerpt from An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, 10/13/14

Book TV's taping of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's BookPeople Bookstore event in Austin, TX is available here

Truth-Out named An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States its "Progressive Pick of the Week" and posted about Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, the book, and the White House petition, 10/10/14

The White House petition and An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States were featured in a Latin Post article about Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples' Day, 10/11/14

Listen to a Soapbox podcast featuring Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz here, 10/12/14

Truthout featured a Q&A with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz in which she discusses historical figures who were propenents of Native American genocide, 10/19/14

Laura Flanders of Grit TV interviewed Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on pre-colonial socialism, 10/14/14

Listen to an interview with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on Wisconsin Public Radio, 10/24/14

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz was interviewed on Uprising Radio/KPFK on why her book isn't just a collective indigenous peoples' perspective but rather a "history of the United States," 11/5/14

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz was part of a Thanksgiving roundtable discussion on The Marc Steiner Show/WEAA, 11/26/14

In an interview with Christy Thornton on WBAI/Pacifica, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz discusses the myth of Thanksgiving, 11/24/14

An excerpt titled "America's Founding Myths" was featured on Jacobin Magazine on 11/27/14

Counterpunch picked up a Beacon Broadside article written by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, entitled "The Myth of Thanksgiving" in its Weekend Edition November 28-30, 2014

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States was the featured book in Sonali Kolhatkar's weekly column on truthdig.com. The article, titled "This Thanksgiving, Let's Talk About Genocide Rather than Pilgrims and 'Friendly Indians,'" ran on 11/26/14

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States was reviewed in Make/Shift: Feminisms in Motion in the Summer/Fall 2015 issue

Dunbar-Ortiz's original essay appeared in Powell's on 8/14/2015

Dunbar-Ortiz was interviewed on New Books in Native American Studies on 8/17/2015

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States was excerpted in In These Times Rural America blog on 9/12/2015

History News Network, original piece, 5/12/2016

Indian Country Media Today Media Network, reading list roundup, 8/3/2016

The American Prospect, quoted, 11/16/2016

Democracy Now! (Pacifica Radio)/National, interview, 11/23/2016

Education Week, commentary piece, 11/28/2016

The Progressive, feature, 12/27/2016

Counterpunch, review, 10/6/2017

Pasatiempo/Santa Fe Mexican, profile piece, 10/6/2017

Lannan.org, 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize awarded to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Winter 2017

Beacon Press Reading Guide:

1. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writes in her introduction to An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States that "writing US history from an Indigenous peoples' perspective requires rethinking the consensual national narrative." What was your knowledge of Indigenous history before you began reading this book? How has reading this book changed your understanding of the "consensual national narrative"?

2. An Indigenous Peoples' History is the latest book in the ReVisioning American History series by Beacon Press, a series intended to reinterpret history through new perspectives. How do you think this book offers a fresh viewpoint? Dunbar-Ortiz points to a central question in An Indigenous Peoples' History, one that could easily apply to the ReVisioning series as a whole, asking, "How might acknowledging the reality of US history work to transform society?" Discuss this question.

3. Numerous US myths are discussed in An Indigenous Peoples' History, ranging from foundation myths surrounding Columbus to the true nature of "the Doctrine of Discovery." Discuss these cultural (mis)conceptions. What is their influence on modern American society?

4. What myths and stereotypes about Indigenous peoples continue in today's society? How do we continue to reframe current events and information about Indigenous peoples?

5. Discuss the "cult of masculinity" encouraged by Hollywood, the "Leatherstocking Tales," and authors like James Fenimore Cooper in the era of the Jackson presidency. How has this myth allowed for the emergence of an "enduring populist imperialism"? How does it affect notions of modern US American masculinity?

6. "Indigenous nations had defied the founding of the independent United States in a manner that allowed for their survival and created a legacy-a culture of resistance-that has persisted." Dunbar-Ortiz points to the idealized image of the noble savage and the pervading myth that Indigenous peoples passively accepted Western colonialism and refutes them, offering instead a detailed account of their "culture of resistance." How does this new understanding of a "culture of resistance" impact your views on US and Indigenous history?

7. Dunbar-Ortiz quotes the late Native historian Jack Forbes, who often stressed that "while living persons are not responsible for what their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in, which is a product of that past." How should we seek to address and remedy the subversion of Indigenous peoples' human rights?

8. The author emphasizes the importance of land to the Indigenous community throughout An Indigenous Peoples' History, stating that "land claims and treaty rights are most central to Indigenous peoples' fight for reparations in the United States." Discuss the Sioux Nation's fight for the repatriation of the Black Hills. What are your thoughts on the Sioux Nation's refusal of the $106 million and the controversy surrounding Mount Rushmore?

9. "The absence of even the slightest note of regret or tragedy in the annual celebration of the US independence betrays a deep disconnect in the consciousness of US Americans." Has reading An Indigenous Peoples' History affected your understanding of key US American celebrations, such as Independence Day, Columbus Day, or Thanksgiving? Do you agree with the statement that the lack of regret over or recognition of tragic events betrays a disconnect in the US American consciousness?

10. "A red thread of blood connects the first white settlement in North America with today and the future." How does Dunbar-Ortiz reinterpret Indigenous-US relations as a "template for US imperialism and counterinsurgency wars"? How does this apply to contemporary US foreign policy?

11. "Indigenous peoples offer possibilities for life after empire." What does Dunbar-Ortiz suggest regarding the future?

View the Reading Guide for Congregations

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
the first history of the united states told from the perspective of indigenous peoples

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Now part of the HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck 2015 Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land.

# data[].attributes.body
Read this piece by Alex S. Vitale if you don't have capacity to read The End of Policing.

# data[].attributes.body
Boston Review

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abolition is not about transforming the police, it is about transforming the nation.

Last year student activists at Harvard Law School covered the official portraits of the school's professors with printouts of police shooting victims' last words: Please don't let me die. Why did you shoot me? You promised me that you wouldn't kill me. I love you. In classrooms, many of our professors excluded victims' voices from debates about criminal justice reform. This action centered them. Afterwards, a classmate asked: "How will we be safe with the police? How will we be safe without them?"

How can we re-center policing as a public good if it never was one?

In " Policing: A Public Good Gone Bad," Tracey Meares calls for a "kind of policing that we all can enjoy." She suggests that the police can be transformed after they have been abolished, and that "disadvantaged communities ought not give up policing any more than they should give up public schools, electricity, or water." The Yale law professor hopes to re-center the police as a public good, change community perception of police encounters, and insist that cops value black life.

Meares's post-abolition transformational call is at best unclear and, at worst, a liberal version of broken windows policing. How can we re-center an entity as a public good if it never was one? How can society transform police departments after they no longer exist? What do we gain by shifting how the community feels about police interactions? What do we truly believe police abolition to be?

First, disadvantaged communities have incomplete access to public goods. Poor people do not have the option of giving up public schools, water, or highways, and the state penalizes them for trying. Privileged groups give up public education by sending their children to private schools or moving to wealthy zip codes. When poor families use a relative's address to send their children to a higher-performing school district, they go to jail. Highways are public goods for suburban residents who work in downtown centers. Yet poor black folk cannot give up the highways that divide and pollute their neighborhoods. Flint residents are still without clean water; 41 percent of them live in poverty. At one point, the state charged residents for overdue water bills. If they do not give up their water, they face sickness and death.

Oppressed people must give up the systems that harm them. Police are not public, nor good. Departments arrest for profit and sell vulnerable people to jails and prisons to fill beds. Cities incentivize and reward police officers for maximizing their ticket writing and traffic stops. On college campuses, cops make drugs disappear; on the streets, cops make alleged dealers disappear. Police officers are prison-industrial complex foot soldiers, and poor people are its targets. Disadvantaged communities should not ask for law enforcement to ensure safety any more than someone should ask for poisoned water to quench thirst.

Abolition requires more than police officers disappearing from the streets. It means decreasing and eliminating the reliance on policing.

Second, a call for police transformation after abolition undermines the purposes of abolition. The call tethers accountability to police review boards, task forces, and pleas to value black lives. Meares is silent on what shall remain of law enforcement to be transformed after it is abolished.

We must expand notions of abolition.

During slavery, abolition required more than just disappearing enslaved people from plantations. Society had to eliminate its reliance on forced and brutal labor (unfortunately, it largely shifted to sharecropping and convict lease labor). The country fought a civil war. Overseers, plantation owners, and slave importers had to become obsolete. Amendments were added to the Constitution. Capital was shifted. The formerly enslaved had to find labor, shelter, and protection. There was a short-lived Reconstruction period with elected black officials, civil rights gains, and Jim Crow losses. Abolition required a complete end to slavery, and an ongoing struggle to end all of its lesser versions.

Today abolition requires more than police officers disappearing from the streets. Last week I watched news footage of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, throwing punches and rocks at crowds of clergy counter-protesters. My professor, Cornel West, and hometown hero, Rev. Traci Blackmon, were among the attacked group. West, Blackmon, and I faced police military tanks, tear gas, rubber bullets, chemical agents, and physical violence in Ferguson, Missouri. Officer Darren Wilson murdered Michael Brown, Jr., just three years ago this month. How can we account for the different police response to the white supremacist attacks in Charlottesville? State inaction in Charlottesville and state militarization in Ferguson demonstrate that for vulnerable groups, police officers can be either perpetrators or bystanders in violent encounters.

'How will we be safe with the police? How will we be safe without them?'

Some argue that a "Ferguson Effect" has led to lax patrolling, intervention, and arrests. You see what happens when police don't do anything? Who is going to keep law and order? Mere police absence, inaction, or non-intervention is not police abolition. Mychael Denzel Smith explains police activity in the Nation this way: "Ninety percent of an officer's time isn't devoted to our safety, but rather to things we may find annoying (or in the case of things like untaxed cigarettes, create a black market for goods that threaten the profits of businesses), inserting the potential for violence where there is cause for none." Law enforcement arbitrarily enforces laws according to demographics and maintains order according to each officer's subjective notion of peace. Transformation will not save it.

Police abolition could mean and require society to decrease and eliminate its reliance on policing. Rather than re-center police as a public good, the nation must become good and public. The prison-industrial complex must be dissolved. Communities must rebuild labor organizing to shift capital, and the state must drastically disrupt rising wealth inequality. Congress may have to pass laws around prison labor, voting rights, gun ownership, and campaign finance, and decriminalize thousands of behaviors. Social workers and activists must work with communities to find solutions for patriarchal, homophobic, and mental health-based violence. Police abolition advocates and scholars have robust visions for the future beyond transformation.

Finally, Meares suggests that finding a new symbolic language to think about police officers' role in society would initially redeem the institution as a public good. Yet the community's subjective perceptions of policing does little in the face of objective brutality. Meares does not provide data to suggest whether friendly police interactions make cops less likely to assault and kill people. Relying on police benevolence leaves black people vulnerable to the arbitrary spectrum of police violence. If more people cared about cops being nice to them personally, would that have saved Tamir Rice or Aiyana Stanley Jones?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abolition is not about transforming the police, it is about transforming the nation. Last year student activists at Harvard Law School covered the official portraits of the school's professors with printouts of police shooting victims' last words: Please don't let me die. Why did you shoot me?