Author: Buerger Catherine

Teaching about Race, Police Brutality, and the Black Lives Matter Movement

black-lives-matter-1011597_1280The THR Database is happy to announce the addition of several resources that can be used to teach about race, police brutality, and the Black Lives Matter movement. The 2014 killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, as well as countless other incidents of police brutality and racial discrimination are often topics that come up during discussions in human rights classes. These issues are directly related to the structural nature of discrimination, as well as to questions about the enforceability of human rights law and the role of social movements when law fails to produce results.

To help instructors find resources for teaching about these topics, we have included a link on our Resources page to the Anna Julia Cooper Center. Housed on the campus of Wake Forest University, the AJC Center has a wealth of resources related to the study of the intersections of gender, race, and place.  Among the resources offered by the Center are a collection of syllabi, including one entitled, “POL 210: BLACK LIVES MATTER: PERSPECTIVES ON BLACKNESS, STATE VIOLENCE, AND RESISTANCE” from Professor Melissa Harris-Perry. (With Professor Harris-Perry’s permission, we have also included this syllabus in our syllabi database).

Do you have favorite resources for teaching about these topics? If so, we’d love to hear about them!