Civil Rights Movements & the Law

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.

Sounds Like Hate is an audio documentary series about the dangers and peril of every day people who engage in extremism, and ways to disengage them from a life of hatred.

Hatewatch monitors and exposes the activities of the American radical right.

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.

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).

ADL is a leading anti-hate organization. Founded in 1913 in response to an escalating climate of anti-Semitism and bigotry, its timeless mission is to protect the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all.

I’m breathing deeply as I write this. What I’m writing about is charged. I feel this energy in my body. It’s a heat in my throat and a rumbling in my belly. It’s an intensity that’s frustrated that…

Most white people in the US are familiar with explicit racism or racism that is a conscious choice to actively hate or discriminate someone of another race.  Most white people associate explicit ra…

Elizabeth Martinez Smith noted the “balancing act” dilemma Black people face as they run the gauntlet of contradictory pressures. She describes the meaning of “running the gauntle…

Be Antiracist imagines what an antiracist society might look like and how we all can play an active role in building one. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the author of How to Be an Antiracist, the book that spurred a nationwide conversation redefining what it means to be antiracist, and in this podcast, he guides listeners how they can identify and reject the racist systems hiding behind racial inequity and injustice. Alongside notable guests, Dr. Kendi continues his journey towards building a just and equitable world and proposes how we can all help create it with him.

By Andre Davison On February 1st, 2022, the first day of Black History Month, former Miami Dolphins head coach, Brian Flores, filed a class-action suit against the Miami Dolphins and the National F…

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

By Jessica Almeida, LISP-SIS During the AALL Virtual Meeting, the LISP-SIS sponsored program was the thought provoking “Understanding Bias in Artificial Intelligence: How Algorithms Impact Our Patr…

Just what is going on with white people? Police shootings of unarmed African Americans. Acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists. The renewed embrace of raw, undisguised white-identity politics. Unending racial inequity in schools, housing, criminal justice, and hiring. Some of this feels new, but in truth it’s an old story. Why? Where did the notion of “whiteness” come from? What does it mean? What is whiteness for? Scene on Radio host and producer John Biewen took a deep dive into these questions, along with an array of leading scholars and regular guest Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika, in this fourteen-part documentary series, released between February and August 2017. The series editor is Loretta Williams.

NPR'S partnership with the race card project explores a different kind of conversation about race.

Show About Race Podcast with Anna Holmes, Baratunde Thurston, Raquel Cepeda, and Tanner Colby. Plus special guests!

"Our goal is simple—educate white people on black history. The highest calling of humanity is to love. Whether you know it or not, the racial disparities in our country hurt us."

"I am just so happy that I have lived long enough to witness this moment," legendary activist Angela Davis says.

There's a newish acronym, BIPOC, that encompasses the victims of US colonization and slavery. But should they be lumped together? And who does that label leave out?

NPR's Rachel Martin talks to author Ibram X. Kendi, who has made a name for himself tackling one of the most sensitive topics in America: racism. His latest book is How to Be an Antiracist.

From passionate pleas for reform to poetic turns of phrase, these talks take an honest look at everyday realities of Black Americans and illuminate the way forward.

In his new book, “How to Be an Antiracist,” professor Ibram X. Kendi urges readers to break out of the false framework of “racist” and “not racist,” instead laying out what it means to be antiracist: viewing racial groups as equals and pushing for policies that create racial equity. Kendi says, “We can’t just talk about racism as an original sin. We have to talk about racism as the original cancer, as this original disease that has been killing America.”

“The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it,” writes professor Ibram X. Kendi. This is the essence of antiracism: the action that must follow both emotional and intellectual awareness of racism. Explore what an antiracist society might look like, how we can play an active role in building it, and what being an antiracist in your own context might mean. This conversation was recorded during the 2019 Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado. The week-long event is presented by the Aspen Institute in partnership with The Atlantic. Prominent leaders and thinkers across business, politics, media, culture, science, and more participate in hundreds of panels, interviews, presentations, and screenings. Learn more at https://www.aspenideas.org

November 17th, 2019 - New York Times Best Selling Author, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Moral Movement Architect, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II engage in conversation led by author Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove on how the systems of our shared lives must change if we are to progress as a people.

"I Am Not Your Negro: Race, Identity, and Baldwin" with Raoul Peck, Academy award-nominated director of the documentary "I Am Not Your Negro" based on James Baldwin's unfinished manuscript. October 18, 2017. Follow Vanderbilt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vanderbiltu, on Instagram: http://instagram.com/vanderbiltu and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vanderbilt. See all Vanderbilt social media at http://social.vanderbilt.edu.

"It started as a text between two friends. Tarana Burke, founder of the 'me too.' Movement, texted researcher and writer, Brene' Brown, to see if she was free to jump on a call. Brene' assumed that Tarana wanted to talk about wallpaper. They had been trading home decorating inspiration boards in their last text conversation so Brene' started scrolling to find her latest Pinterest pictures when the phone rang. But it was immediately clear to Bren'e that the conversation wasn't going to be about wallpaper. Tarana's hello was serious and she hesitated for a bit before saying, "Brene', you know your work affected me so deeply. It's been a huge gift in my life. But as a Black woman, I've sometimes had to feel like I have to contort myself to fit into some of your words. The core of it rings so true for me, but the application has been harder." Brene replied, "I'm so glad we're talking about this. It makes sense to me. Especially in terms of vulnerability. How do you take the armor off in a country where you're not physically or emotionally safe?" Long pause. "That's why I'm calling," said Tarana. "What do you think about a working together on a book about the Black experience with vulnerability and shame resilience?" There was no hesitation. Burke and Brown are the perfect pair to usher in this stark, potent collection of essays on Black shame and healing (and contribute their own introductions to the work). Along with the anthology contributors, they create a space to recognize and process the trauma of white supremacy, a space to be vulnerable and affirm the fullness of Black love and Black life"--

"As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014, and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'black rage, ' historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames, ' she writes, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.' Since 1865 and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances towards full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. The end of the Civil War and Reconstruction was greeted with the Black Codes and Jim Crow; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South while taxpayer dollars financed segregated white private schools; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 triggered a coded but powerful response, the so-called Southern Strategy and the War on Drugs that disenfranchised millions of African Americans while propelling presidents Nixon and Reagan into the White House. Carefully linking these and other historical flash points when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition, Anderson pulls back the veil that has long covered actions made in the name of protecting democracy, fiscal responsibility, or protection against fraud, rendering visible the long lineage of white rage. Compelling and dramatic in the unimpeachable history it relates, White Rage will add an important new dimension to the national conversation about race in America"--