Author: TheConversation

By Vicki Daniel, Teaching Fellow and Instructor of History, Case Western Reserve University In an open lot just a block or so from where George Floyd was killed while being detained by officers, 100 plastic headstones were carefully placed. Created by artists Anna Barber and Connor Wright, the “Say Their Names Cemetery” sprung up in south Minneapolis in early June, as protests over police brutality prompted a more wide-ranging conversation over the legacy of slavery and racism in the United States. Each headstone documents a victim of police violence – their name, age, date and location of death. Accompanying...

By Allissa V. Richardson, Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism A flashbulb emits a high-pitched hum. A photograph of the legendary 19th-century abolitionist and newspaperman Frederick Douglass fades in on-screen. We hear the “Hamilton” alumnus actor Daveed Diggs before we see him. “What, to my people, is the Fourth of July?” Diggs asks in a plaintive voiceover, as a police siren and the opening chords of Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” clash aurally. In just two minutes and 19 seconds, the new Movement for Black Lives short film...

By Sarah Silkey, Professor of History and Social and Economic Justice, Lycoming College The recent wave of protests against police brutality and systemic racism has inspired numerous comparisons with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Commentators frequently depict the charismatic leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in sharp contrast with the decentralized and seemingly leaderless nature of the current movement. Despite the efforts of activists and historians to correct this “leaderless” image, the notion persists. Such comparisons reflect the cultural memory – not the actual history – of the struggle for Black equality....