| Jul 13, 2016 | Rights / DemocracyWhen I heard about the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I thought back to another name etched into American history: Dred Scott. In 1857, the Supreme Court was tasked with deciding whether Scott, an African American man born into slavery,...
| Aug 27, 2014 | Rights / DemocracyMichael Brown. Jordan Davis. Sean Bell. Trayvon Martin. The list of African-American boys and men gunned down at the hands of police officers and vigilantes just gets longer and longer. It makes me numb. I don’t want to feel the full weight of grief and turmoil...
| Feb 19, 2014 | Peace / SecurityMy 15-year-old son is a hulking 6’6″. He wears a hoodie and listens to hip hop. But I’ve never had to explain to him that his neighbors might find him threatening. I’ve never told him that police officers might assume that if he’s hanging...
| Aug 7, 2013 | Rights / DemocracyThe immediate response to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial on my campus was a mixture of outrage and frustration. A reaction of this kind isn’t surprising at a historically black university, especially here at North Carolina A&T State University....
| Jul 17, 2013 | Peace / SecurityAre you familiar with “Black Man 101”? Black men never get to graduate from this constantly changing and mandatory course in survival and behavior modification. With the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, the Black Man 101 curriculum has been...
