Civil Rights Movements & the Law

The mothers of Jamarion Robinson and Oscar Cain on fighting for justice amid the trauma of more police killings.

Black women’s interaction with the state, through law enforcement, is marked by violence. Black women are murdered by the police.4 They are assaulted and injured by the police.5 They are arrested unlawfully by the police;6 and finally they are tried, convicted and incarcerated for defending themselves against nonpolice violence.7 State violence against Black women is long-standing, pervasive, persistent, and multilayered, yet few legal actors seem to care about it. This Article will bring together the strands of scholarship that exists across several fields on the dilemma of state sponsored violence against Black women, to highlight for legal scholars the depth of the problems Black women experience. The relationship between Black women and the state was birthed in violence, through the establishment of slavery in the colonial world. Part I of this Article explores the historical roots of Black women’s interaction with the state. The historical exploration is necessary because in the foundational years of interaction between Black women and White colonists the process of dehumanization and genesis of cultural stereotypes were created. Throughout the research cited in this Article, contemporary linkages to both legal policy, as well as law enforcement behavior will be made to stereotypes fostered and maintained through slavery.

This toolkit is a project of love from the grassroots, from and by Asian American communities.As Asian Americans, we believe that our liberation is tied to Black liberation and we continue to dream about a world where all of our people will be free.

'The Black Renaissance is stirring Black people to be themselves. Totally. Unapologetically. Freely.'

A day after prosecutors charged five former Memphis police officers with murder over the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, we speak with his parents, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, about their drive to seek justice for their son. “He had a beautiful soul, and he touched everyone,” RowVaughn Wells says of her son. Nichols was a 29-year-old Black father, amateur photographer and longtime skateboarder who died January 10 from kidney failure and cardiac arrest, three days after he was brutally beaten by the five officers during a traffic stop. The officers were fired earlier this month and indicted on Thursday with second-degree murder, kidnapping and other charges for their role in Nichols’s death. We also speak with civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family.

Troy Anthony Davis, who maintained his innocence until his last breath, was executed by the state of Georgia Wednesday night. As the world watched to see whether his final appeal for a stay of execution would be granted by the U.S. Supreme Court, Democracy Now! broadcast live for six hours from outside the prison grounds where Davis was ultimately killed by lethal injection at 11:08 p.m. EDT. [includes rush transcript]

“I can’t breathe” — that’s what George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, repeatedly told a white Minneapolis police officer who pinned him to the ground Monday with a knee to his neck. Video of the police attack went viral. Now four officers have been fired. This comes as another video went viral of a white woman calling the cops on a Black man in New York City’s Central Park and falsely accusing him of “threatening her life” after he asked her to leash her dog. We discuss these developments and more with Ibram X. Kendi, founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University and National Book Award–winning author of “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” and “How to Be an Antiracist.”

In a Juneteenth special, we mark the federal holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. We speak to the writer and poet Clint Smith about Juneteenth and his new book, “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America.” “When I think of Juneteenth, part of what I think about is the both-handedness of it,” Smith says, “that it is this moment in which we mourn the fact that freedom was kept from hundreds of thousands of enslaved people for years and for months after it had been attained by them, and then, at the same time, celebrating the end of one of the most egregious things that this country has ever done.” Smith says he recognizes the federal holiday marking Juneteenth as a symbol, “but it is clearly not enough.”

As the Sikh community in Indianapolis and across the United States is in mourning after a gunman killed eight people at a FedEx facility last week, where four of the victims are Sikh, we speak with Simran Jeet Singh, scholar, activist and senior fellow for the Sikh Coalition, which is calling for a full investigation into the possibility of racial or ethnic hatred as a factor in the killings in Indianapolis. A majority of the workers at the warehouse are Sikh, and while authorities have not shared evidence Brandon Hole was targeting Sikh workers when he attacked the FedEx facility, police revealed Monday they previously found evidence that Hole had browsed white supremacist websites. The mass shooting took place as more than 15 states across the U.S., including Indiana, mark April as Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month. “This community, in Indianapolis, all around the world, is really devastated,” says Singh. “Given the pattern of violence against Sikhs, we are demanding a full investigation into the possibility of bias and racism in this attack.”

CNN spoke to six people around the US who are helping protect and uplift Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Here are their stories.

USING ACTIVE LISTENING, EMPATHY, AND PERSONAL STORYTELLING TO PROMOTE RACIAL EQUITY

"The ABA Legal Education Police Practices Consortium aims to contribute to the national effort examining and addressing legal issues in policing and public safety including conduct oversight and the evolving nature of police work. The Consortium will leverage the ABA's expertise and that of participating ABA accredited law schools to collaborate on projects to develop and implement better police practices throughout the United States. "

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, mobs of white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses in the city's Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street. The attacks from the ground and private aircraft killed an unknown number of Black people, estimated to be between 75 and 300, and injured and displaced hundreds more. The massacre was largely undiscussed in local, state, and national histories, even after a state commission on the event published its final report in 2001 but gained increased public awareness when it was featured in the HBO series Watchmen in 2019 and Lovecraft Country in 2020.

"Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative a human rights organization in Montgomery Alabama. Under his leadership EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing exonerating innocent death row prisoners confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill and aiding children prosecuted as adults."

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"The SPLC is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation education and other forms of advocacy the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality."

The recent, well-publicized tragic deaths of African Americans at the hands of police officers have generated a public debate about race and policing. This is not the first time police violence against African Americans has been the predicate for a nationwide conversation about race. Likely, it won’t be the last.

As anti-Asian attacks continue, three victims come forward to share their experiences and the change they hope to inspire.

Our communities stand united against racism. Hate against Asian American Pacific Islander communities has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, we can stop it. Support Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay Visit our Act Now page for more information. × Dismiss alert Act Now Latest News Latest Reports

By Jennifer Mendez What is Latinx (or Hispanic) Heritage Month? Each year, Americans observe National Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, c…

EJI challenges racial and economic injustice and provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in jails and prisons. Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has asked the state Court of Appeals to overturn his conviction for the 2020 murder of George Floyd, according to an appeal filed Monday.

Implicit racial bias remains widespread, even among individuals who explicitly reject prejudice. One reason for the persistence of implicit bias may be that it is maintained through structural and historical inequalities that change slowly. We investigated the historical persistence of implicit bias by comparing modern implicit bias with the proportion of the population enslaved in those counties in 1860. Counties and states more dependent on slavery before the Civil War displayed higher levels of pro-White implicit bias today among White residents and less pro-White bias among Black residents. These associations remained significant after controlling for explicit bias. The association between slave populations and implicit bias was partially explained by measures of structural inequalities. Our results support an interpretation of implicit bias as the cognitive residue of past and present structural inequalities.

Hack The Gates: Radically Reimagine Admissions aims to critically examine current structures and gatekeeping functions in college admissions, and to propose innovative solutions to dismantle barriers to access and participation in higher education for low-income and students of color. Through partnership, we have brought together practioneers and researchers to rethink higher education from multiple perspectives. In addition, Hack the Gates facilitates urgently needed honest conversations among college admissions stakeholders about the roles we play as gatekeepers to opportunity, perpetrators of race and class inequities, and transformative leaders in designing equitable college access and enrollment processes. Through online learning, creative brainstorming, and policy analysis, Hack the Gates: Radically Reimagine Admissions will be a catalyst for a complete transformation of the college admission process.

J. Alexander Kueng and Tou Thao, two of the former Minneapolis Police officers convicted of federal charges in the fatal arrest of George Floyd, were sentenced to 3 years and 3.5 years in prison, respectively, on Wednesday.

To overcome the obstacles of measuring racial attitudes, Pew Research Center conducted an Implicit Association Test (IAT), a technique that psychologists say measures subconscious or “hidden” bias by tracking how quickly individuals associate good and bad words with specific racial groups.

Racism occurs between individuals, on an interpersonal level, and is embedded in organizations and institutions through their policies, procedures and practices. In general, it may seem easier to recognize individual or interpersonal acts of racism: a slur made, a person ignored in a social or work setting, an act of violence. However, "individual" racism is not created in a vacuum but instead emerges from a society's foundational beliefs and "ways" of seeing/doing things, and is manifested in organizations, institutions, and systems (including education).

Everywhere you look someone is worried that America has gotten too woke, writes W. Kamau Bell. For the premiere episode of the new season of 'United Shades of America,' Bell delves into the war on 'woke' in the state he refers as 'desert Florida.'

Asian-Americans tend be held to high expectations in the U.S. Terms such as “Asian advantage” and “model minority” are the cultural expectations placed on Asian-Americans as a group that each individual will be highly intelligent, wealthy, self-reliant and obedient, and live the “American dream.” Not living up to these stereotypes and expectations places a great burden on the individual and often makes her/him feel inadequate. Perceived racial discrimination has been associated with several negative mental health outcomes, including higher psychological distress, suicidal ideation, state anxiety, trait anxiety and depression. The facts are that Asian-Americans are a diverse group of individuals, with diverse experiences.