George Floyd Archives - Public Seminar

Activism

To Build a Black Future

In this excerpt, an introduction to the new Black politics of joy, pain, and care

September 11, 2023 • by Christopher Paul Harris

One of the critical features of the contemporary moment in Black movement, the time of #BlackLivesMatter, is how capacious the definitions of Blackness and, with it, Black radicalism have become....

Activism

The Power of Black Feminist Pragmatism

Why the Black Lives Matter movement is the best alternative to the anti-democratic, white supremacist, authoritarian capture of the United States

January 20, 2022 • by Deva Woodly

The Black Lives Matter movement is not a “new social movement” that focuses on cultural transformation while eschewing policy intervention, nor is it fashioned after “old style,” “traditional” social movements that attempt to move policy while deemphasizing the need for deep changes in public understandings of the problems facing polities ...

Activism

Reckoning with Deva Woodly’s Reckoning

What kind of coalition must the Left forge in order to defeat Trumpism and whatever comes after it?

January 18, 2022 • by Sidney Tarrow

Black Lives Matter was not born in the streets, even if it sometimes moved there following the police murder of Michael Brown in 2014, and again after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. But the movement, after these intense episodes of protest and direct action has not stayed in ...

Race

There’s a Black Man Running Down My Street

When nice white neighbors criminalize a man for being Black and kill him it’s not just murder—it’s a lynching.

December 1, 2021 • by Mark Allan Williams

When is a murder not a murder? When it’s a lynching. On November 24, 2021—the day before Thanksgiving—many Americans let out a collective breath of relief. In Brunswick, Georgia, a jury convicted Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan of murder for hunting down and killing Ahmaud Arbery, an ...

There’s a Black Man Running Down My Street

Media

Has the Press Corps Learned Nothing?

Journalism, when done right, should change a person

November 9, 2021 • by John Stoehr

Members of the Washington press corps like to tell a story about the heroes of the Washington press corps “holding power to account.” This seems noble, and it can be, but more often than not, it’s not noble. In practice, what “holding power to account” means is countering the dominance over ...

Columnists

Justice Moves Slowly–But It Moves

Will George Floyd’s murder lead to police reform–and can Donald Trump stay out of jail?

May 26, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ A year ago this week, 46-year-old George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis as then–police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. While bystanders begged Chauvin to get up, a teenage girl walking by had the presence of mind to video what was happening. Thanks ...

Columnists

What Campus Police Really Do

Private university security forces do mostly deliver social services—and it’s a problem

May 26, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ This week marks a year since former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. In the twelve months since a renewed Black Lives Matter movement brought lethal racism back to the forefront of white America’s consciousness, many of us who are white have learned to see policing, at its most ...

Democracy

The Chauvin Verdict and Common Sense

Further reflections on democracy and social justice

April 29, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

I am relieved by the verdict and, of course, I’m not alone. We knew that Chauvin was guilty as sin: the racist, apparently remorseless, cold blooded killer of George Floyd. It was clear as day, common sense. But common sense has failed us when it comes to American policing and ...

Race

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

At last, a policeman is held accountable for murdering a Black American. But the process of imagining an end to lethal policing has only begun

April 21, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ My greatest fear as I waited for the verdict in the George Floyd case yesterday was not that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin wasn’t going to be convicted of something. The prosecution had carefully left two back doors open for the jury, alternative charges that would have allowed the ...

Activism

The Models We Need

Forty years ago this week, four U.S. women were killed in El Salvador. It’s taken this long to understand the meaning of their deaths — and their lives

December 3, 2020 • by Eileen Markey

This week in the mountains of El Salvador people who survived that nation's civil war and its violent aftermath walked solemnly into the plaza of the town of San Antonio Los Ranchos, carrying aloft portraits of four Catholic missionaries who were killed 40 years ago. The women are remembered in ...

Race

Can I Get a Witness?

Until recently, Black testimony about racism had to be validated by whites. That’s changing

November 19, 2020 • by Jeffrey Aaron Snyder

“I opened my phone and I started recording because I knew if I didn’t, no one would believe me.” So said Darnella Frazier, the 17-year old Minneapolis resident who took the footage of George Floyd’s killing that circulated around the world last summer. Frazier’s instinct to press record, something other witnesses ...

Migration

Universalizing Racism in Public Schools in 2020

October 23, 2020 • by A middle school teacher in Baltimore

I wonder if the fact that we are completely virtual (at least for now) helps students to listen to each other respectfully and to open to each other as they broadcast into the classroom from a familiar, private space. Of course, e-learning is not the same as in-person learning and has enormous ...

George Floyd

To Build a Black Future

In this excerpt, an introduction to the new Black politics of joy, pain, and care

There’s a Black Man Running Down My Street

When nice white neighbors criminalize a man for being Black and kill him it’s not just murder—it’s a lynching.

Has the Press Corps Learned Nothing?

Journalism, when done right, should change a person

Justice Moves Slowly–But It Moves

Will George Floyd’s murder lead to police reform–and can Donald Trump stay out of jail?

What Campus Police Really Do

Private university security forces do mostly deliver social services—and it’s a problem

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

At last, a policeman is held accountable for murdering a Black American. But the process of imagining an end to lethal policing has only begun

The Models We Need

Forty years ago this week, four U.S. women were killed in El Salvador. It’s taken this long to understand the meaning of their deaths — and their lives

Can I Get a Witness?

Until recently, Black testimony about racism had to be validated by whites. That’s changing

Universalizing Racism in Public Schools in 2020

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