Page 11 - Paths to Change

In early 2020, America found itself facing one of its most challenging times in history. A global pandemic had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and sent those who remained home to shelter-in-place as schools, churches, and most other public places closed. With little else to do, mainstream and social media had our full attention. For better or worse, Americans were a captive audience, so when headlines and videos showing Black people being murdered by white Americans and law enforcement surfaced, America was watching. Not only were they watching, but they were ready to act. As the country sat under quarantine in early May 2020, it saw the video-recorded murder of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old Black man who was jogging near his home in Georgia over two months prior. Within weeks the murder of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was reported after Louisville police raided her home and shot her as she slept. The police later discovered that they were actually in the wrong home. By the end of the month, the nation was viewing footage of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd until he lay motionless in the street. Floyd was pronounced dead an hour later. After countless murders of Black men, women, and children going unanswered, Americans tapped into their power, reacting swiftly and strongly by organizing protests, pushing for legislation, and calling out racist practices in classrooms, workplaces, and courtrooms across the country. Using social media, petitions, and marching, Americans of all backgrounds came out in high numbers against the senseless killing of Black men and women and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The most visible response and act of resistance to these events were protests. A protest is a public display of anger or disagreement with an action or idea. Protests can be individual actions or done with others as large groups. Protestors come together hoping to be heard and to convince leaders to make changes. For many children and young adults in America, these events were the first in their lifetime, however, protests of many forms have been used as a way to try to provoke change for much of America’s history. In 1773, British colonists protested unfair taxes by destroying imported tea docked at a harbor in Boston, Massachusetts. American women spent nearly a decade protesting and petitioning lawmakers before finally being given the right to vote in 1920. In the 1960s, bus boycotts, sit-ins, and marches were used to protest segregation laws in the southern United States aimed at keeping Blacks separate from whites everywhere from movie theaters to schools. For centuries Americans have rallied together around circumstances they felt were unfair, but did their efforts actually change anything? This BlackIQ explores just that: given the available paths to change, why do people protest, and does it actually work? The Black Inquiry Project 10