Politics
LIVE STREAM EVENT: Black Lives Matter Lecture Series
Most young black people in the US operated under the illusion that they were somehow shielded from harm by police and that in a post-racial world, racism and the color of their skin was of declining significance. However, watching George Zimmerman walk after confronting and fatally shooting the unarmed 17-year-old while he walked home from a nearby convenience store recalibrated the calculus.
Thurgood Marshall Center Trust, Inc. Presents
BLACK LIVES MATTER Lecture Series
November, 19, 2015
6:00PM – 9:00PM
1816 12th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009
Featuring Principal Lecurer, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Jr., Civil Rights Leader, Educator, Author and Producer
President/CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association
VIEW THE LIVE STREAM
RSVP to attend the FREE event: http://bitly/TMSJRCLectureSeries
For many of the young activists in the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of vigilante George Zimmerman by a Sanford, Florida jury of whites marked a tragic coming of age.
Until that moment, most young black people in the US operated under the illusion that they were somehow shielded from harm by police and that in a post-racial world, racism and the color of their skin was of declining significance. Watching Zimmerman walk after confronting and fatally shooting the unarmed 17-year-old while he walked home from a nearby convenience store recalibrated the calculus.
The #BLM movement gained new energy following the police-involved killings of Eric Garner in Staten Island, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, and the recent suspicious deaths of Sandra Bland, Kindra Chapman, Ralkina Jones and other women while in police custody. Through local and national protests and other acts of civil disobedience, activists have taken aim at the criminal justice system and police officers who are shooting and killing black men, women and children at a rate of one every 28 hours. They’re demanding substantive reform of the criminal justice system and also that rogue cops, prosecutors and public officials are held accountable for the troubling treatment of black, brown and poor in underserved communities by law enforcement and are advocating for widespread and significant reform of the criminal justice system.
