Mother of a murdered teen whose death sparked global protests has continued her fight for justice, while Georgetown University owes its existence to slavery; therefore, a new book explores this legacy head on.
Unfounded accusations of voter fraud continue to destabilize election procedures and disenfranchise voters of color, yet The College Board reinstated its AP African American Studies course despite conservative opposition.
Police Reform Legislation
George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin caused widespread outrage that resulted in local and state-level reforms, such as banning chokeholds, tighter use-of-force policies, enhanced reporting of officer misconduct, body cameras, de-escalation training programs and de-escalation training – some states even reform their recruiting and training of officers while some cities reduced police budgets in an attempt to redirect funds toward programs designed to combat racial profiling and systemic violence – something law enforcement organizations generally opposed.
Even with these reforms in place, activists and lawmakers alike still desire more from Washington. They hope Congress will pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which calls for new national standards that reduce racial bias against police officers as well as ending qualified immunity for such officers, ending qualified immunity for police officers, creating an inclusive database of police misconduct records, among other provisions.
However, new laws alone cannot do enough to improve police accountability. Therefore, many activists and lawmakers are turning away from divided Washington in hopes for significant change on a local or state level. CNN’s What Matters spoke with state senators and city council members leading reform movements to see what works and doesn’t and what may lie ahead for change in their communities and states.
Racial Equity in Education
Racial Equity in Education refers to efforts designed to ensure all students of color have equal educational opportunities and access to teachers of high caliber. It involves addressing all forms of racism that impact education from overt racism to microaggressions; and also includes providing educators with training about white privilege and creating learning environments that foster diversity and inclusion.
Education about US racial inequality requires teaching about its historical foundation and informing individuals and schools on its contemporary effects, while at the same time equipping individuals and schools to take purposeful actions to bring about racial justice.
Education initiatives often aim to educate students on the roots of institutional racism within school systems by looking at practices and policies that have led to inequality, such as selecting gifted programs that exclude students of color or reviewing discipline policies that unfairly punish these same students. Such efforts help schools identify issues they need to address such as selecting methods for gifted programs that have excluded students of color and reviewing discipline policies that unfairly punish certain groups, for instance.
Education initiatives may include expanding access to high-quality early childhood education, increasing funding in underfunded school districts, implementing culturally responsive curriculums and increasing resources available for Historically Black Colleges and Universities as well as creating welcoming campus climates that honor student diversity and perspectives. All of these efforts represent steps in the right direction, but more must be done to achieve racial equity in education.
Voting Rights Advocacy
The League has long been at the forefront of efforts to remove barriers to voting. A major achievement was the 1965 passage of The Voting Rights Act, providing national protections of voting rights while mandating states with histories of discriminatory voting practices to submit any changes for approval by the Department of Justice before making changes that affect voting practices.
Iconic civil rights leaders such as Ida B. Wells and Fannie Lou Hamer led the fight for this crucial piece of legislation, yet many protections have since been eliminated since the Supreme Court struck down Section 5 in 2013; new anti-voter laws have come into play since. The League continues its fight for fair elections that truly represent all people.
Civil rights icons like these laid the foundation for a nation in which everyone’s voice could be heard at the ballot box. Unfortunately, however, we now face many challenges to ensure marginalized communities — like low-income people, ethnic minorities, senior citizens and current and former inmates — can participate in our democracy with representation they can trust. Southern Coalition for Social Justice’s Voting Rights Program helps these communities combat new barriers to voter participation.
Criminal Justic Reform
The United States boasts thousands of state and local corrections systems, federal prisons and jails, juvenile corrections facilities, juvenile detention centers, military incarcerations camps, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals despite a decrease in crime. Unfortunately, this expansion in incarceration continues to stigmatize communities of color by arresting young Black men for minor drug offenses; cost taxpayers money; expel them from workforce employment. It is a contemporary form of slavery; The Mechanism heard stories such as children being sentenced to life imprisonment as well as pregnant women being chained during labor who lost their babies due to being chained during labor and persons held solitary confinement for years – examples which highlighted by The Mechanism hearing hearing stories like children sentenced life imprisonment, pregnant women chained during labor before giving birth; children sentenced life imprisonment for life imprisonment and persons held solitary confinement for years as examples of contemporary forms of slavery.
A new president and Congress can make criminal justice reform a top early priority, championing national use-of-force standards, supporting community-led police accountability mechanisms, reimagining policing strategies, banning the box on federal job applications, and significantly shortening long federal sentences by adopting evidence-based sentence reduction policies such as the “Criminal History Amendments”.
US society faces an uphill struggle in combatting systemic racism a century after slavery was outlawed, yet progress can still be made. Supporting federal, state, and local prosecutors who can help reduce America’s overreliance on imprisonment is integral to reaching that goal.
Hate Crime Awareness and Legislation
HRC provides model training curriculums and technical resources that enable educators, law enforcement officials and other professionals who must respond to hate crimes to provide victims and communities with assistance. HRC also assists these professionals by developing effective disciplinary procedures against offenders who commit such offenses.
Hate crimes occur when offenders commit traditional offenses – for instance assault or murder – but do so due to an individual’s race, color, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin or disability. To increase awareness about hate incidents and strengthen legal protections for their victims, Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act which expanded definition of hate crime to include gender identity/expression/sexual orientation crimes; additionally, it added new offense categories into FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program Uniform Crime Reporting Program UCR).
Louisiana was the first state to include police officers as victims of hate crime by passing legislation amending existing civil rights laws. This amendment was spurred on by concerns that Black Lives Matter activists may use rhetoric that inflames fear among community members and fuels hatred against law enforcement officers.
Economic Equity Initiatives
UN human rights experts issued a scathing report that called upon the US to significantly reform its police forces and criminal justice system in response to ongoing racist brutality, as well as address systematic racism against African Americans which is the legacy of slavery and transatlantic slave trade.
The panel encourages the US government to implement new police force policies and training that foster greater trust with local communities, as well as conducting more robust and thorough investigations of police incidents to guarantee all parties involved are protected under international human rights standards.
To help advance economic equity for all Americans, the Biden Administration has taken steps to ensure our government serves as a model of equality and inclusion. As part of these efforts, President Biden signed Executive Order 13985: Promoting Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through Federal Agencies.
Since 2021, the Administration has assessed how its programs and policies perpetuate barriers to opportunity; participated in an ongoing government-wide equity learning community; and created innovative new strategies to embed equity into day-to-day governance. Their efforts led them to produce a historic set of Agency Equity Action Plans which outline specific agency commitments toward racial equity.
Community-Led Activism
Community activism and involvement in social movements are effective forms of civic engagement for young people, often inspired by them. Youth activism plays an integral part in fighting for racial justice while offering transformative experiences for its participants.
College campus chapters of Black Lives Matter were inspired to organize by their desire to have their voices heard, with hopes of creating change within local communities. Students raised funds for racial justice organizations, petitioned their schools for changes in building names or statues and performances of art that conveyed their passion.
One Billion Rising, launched as a worldwide initiative against gender-based violence in 2013, began as a response to UN statistics that one out of every three women will experience some form of beaten or sexual violence during her lifetime. It involves activists, survivors and artists from over 200 nations.
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