Lesson of the day
The Equal Justice Initiative’s Segregation in America Project
Listen: The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to our Constitution. And in our episode about the Bill of Rights, the final seven minutes of the episode, featuring Alvin Tillery and Linda Monk, is about the actions it took to make these rights actually apply to our lives. Listen here:
Please note: the EJI’s reports on our history of racial injustice contain graphic descriptions of violence.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is an organization devoted to confronting the United States’ history of racial injustice. They draft reports, create videos, produce a history of injustice calendar, and have established the remarkable Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice. They also work toward criminal justice reform and provide legal services to people who have been wrongly convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in prisons.
In order to change the narrative about race in America, the EJI highlights the often painful and violent past that got us here. For today’s lesson, we’re featuring the EJI’s “Segregation in America” project.
This site includes reports; a map tracking the proliferation of Confederate monuments since the Civil War; footage of arrests, beatings, bombings and terrorizing of civil rights demonstrators; stories of the segregationists that fought to maintain this way of the world; and the iconography that celebrates and glorifies our history of enslavement. Many of these images and videos feature violence that is horrific to watch.
As you learn the history of American segregation, consider these questions.
Why is it important to understand the details -- not just the broad strokes -- of segregation in this country?
What language did segregationists use to maintain the myth of white supremacy? What does the language of white supremacy sound like in modern-day America?
The term “de facto segregation” describes racial segregation that happens “by fact” (for example, because of socioeconomic differences) instead of by legislation. What are examples of de facto segregation in the United States today?