The fire in Ferguson, Missouri continues to burn. More than a week
after an unarmed black teenager was fatally shot in the street by a
white police officer, the situation in the suburban St. Louis
community remains tense. Attempts to mourn the passing of Michael
Brown and protest his death have been complicated by looters and the
presence of a militarized police force, outfitted with tear gas and
rubber bullets. Local law enforcement has been supplanted by state
troopers; early Monday morning, Gov. Jay Nixon called in the
Missouri National Guard, even as the Justice Department and the FBI
moved in to further investigate the shooting. By day’s end,
President Obama had weighed in, and dispatched Attorney General Eric
Holder to the scene.
If Ferguson has become the epicenter of
debate over police use of deadly force and its impact on race
relations in America, it is hardly an isolated case. In Los Angeles,
police shot and killed an unarmed man named Ezell Ford. In the
Dayton, Ohio suburb of Beavercreek, John Crawford III was fatally
shot by police at a Wal-Mart. And in Staten Island, New York, Eric
Garner was killed during a confrontation with police who, according
to the coroner’s office, used an illegal procedure—a chokehold—to
subdue him.
There has been a great deal of heat, but not enough light, as the
country absorbs the lessons of these tragedies. Understanding the
root causes of these crises is the first step toward preventing
them. Toward that end, I offer the following resources to help
inform constructive and ongoing public discourse about this nation’s
long and arduous journey toward racial justice.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s
Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. This is a
poetically beautiful account of the Great Migration, in which
thousands of black citizens trekked from their homes in the South to
cities in the North – some fleeing for their lives – in the years
between about 1910 and 1970. Wilkerson conducted years of research
about the factors that contributed to the exodus of black people
from the South—persecution and terrorism at the hands of angry
whites, lack of economic opportunity, and exclusion from quality
education experiences. Wilkerson then shares those findings in the
stories of the people who fled—some of which bear marked similarity
to the stories of young black men like Michael Brown today.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. This is a
searing examination and critique of the American criminal justice
system, powerfully written by a civil rights lawyer, advocate and
law school professor. Her bewilderment and anger are palpable as she
methodically documents with irrefutable data the way the criminal
justice system continues to marginalize and criminalize black people.
She forces us to take stock of the nation’s progress—and lack
thereof—in its treatment of African-Americans from slavery to
Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the present day, when people of color
are incarcerated in numbers disproportionate to their white
counterparts. She thoroughly examines the impact those prison terms
have on the people locked up, their families and their communities
as a whole, exposing the economic incentives to allowing racism to
fester and boil over.
Simple Justice by Richard Kluger. In
this comprehensive tome, Kluger, a master storyteller, weaves
together the squares of the quilt that is Brown v. Board of
Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling banning racial
segregation in schools. He shares in great detail the lives of those
impacted by the “separate but equal” policy in place before the
ruling—and paints vivid portraits of the key players in tearing that
doctrine down, from famous figures like Thurgood Marshall to lesser-known
change agents such as the Rev. Joseph DeLaine. Kluger lays bare the
system of white supremacy that touched every facet of life for all
of those involved in Brown and invites the reader to draw the
painful and obvious parallels to society today.
America in the King Years by Taylor
Branch. Beginning in 1954, where Simple Justice leaves off, Taylor
Branch provides a deep and introspective look at the building blocks
of a movement, including the man who was eventually at the center of
it all, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Using Dr. King as his vehicle,
Branch explores the nooks and crannies of American society that
contributed to the need for a civil-rights movement and that came
together to build that movement. This powerful trilogy—Parting the
Waters, Pillar of Fire, and At Canaan’s Edge—details a system of
oppression that kept black people in a position of economic
servitude and marginalized them socially. Partnerships formed across
faith, geographical location, professions, and race to combat such
oppression. The stories of the people who formed the civil-rights
movement, and the way they navigated currents that threatened to
pull them under, help form a roadmap for moving forward today.
At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and
Resistance – A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa
Parks to the Rise of Black Power by Danielle McGuire.
For centuries, black women in this country have been subjected to
sexual violence at the hands of white men. McGuire tells the story
of how that sexual violence gave rise to the civil rights movement—and
how Rosa Parks, a champion of black women and an investigator for
the NAACP, used the stories she knew, of women who were victimized
as they went about trying to do their jobs, to galvanize a movement.
The Children by David Halberstam.
Halberstam chronicles the experiences of Rev. James Lawson to bring
the non-violent, civil unrest teachings of Gandhi to the U.S.—and
specifically to young black people, who became the driving force of
the civil-rights movement. When children were beaten, hosed, and
attacked by dogs, the nation paid attention. When children peaceably
sat a lunch counter and were threatened and assaulted, the nation
was horrified. When children spoke, the nation listened. As
Halberstam carefully documents, many of those children became the
legendary leaders we revere today.
Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling
by Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer. Michelle Alexander opens the
foreword of this book with a warning to readers: “Do not
underestimate the power of the book you are holding in your hands.”
She speaks truth. Marc Mauer’s classic work has been reimagined as a
graphic novel, with artist Sabrina Jones’ powerful illustrations
helping to make important arguments about the criminal justice
system’s excesses more accessible to young audiences. While the
format has changed, the message remains constant: this is a
revealing narrative about the history of mass incarceration in the
United States—and the political, economic, and social ramifications
of society’s decision to over-incarcerate on communities of color.
Source:
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/understanding-ferguson
