We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.
—Martin Luther King, Jr., "The Purpose of Education, " The Maroon Tiger (Morehouse College Newspaper), Feb. 1947.
Purpose of this Guide
On May 25, 2020, the world witnessed the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds as Floyd pled for his life. Chauvin has been charged with second degree murder.
George Floyd’s death was not an isolated incident. Just two months earlier, on March 13, 2020, 26-year-old Breonna Taylor was shot 8 times and killed by police as they broke into her apartment in Louisville, KY while executing a search warrant. It was later revealed that police entered the wrong house. Ms. Taylor was an African-American woman. She was an emergency room technician.
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed while jogging in a neighborhood of Brunswick, Georgia. Father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael, shot and killed Arbery, claiming they thought he was a suspect of recent thefts and trespasses in the neighborhood. On May 7, 2020, the McMichaels were charged with felony murder and aggravated assault. On June 4, 2020, a judge determined there was probable cause to charge the McMicheals and William Bryan, a neighbor who filmed the killing, with murder.
These incidents are just a few of the seemingly racially-motivated killings and assaults that have happened throughout the history of this country. Although laws have been enacted to change some discriminatory behavior, education is needed to change the way all of us think. As Dr. King noted in the above quote, “[e]ducation must enable one to sift and weigh evidence.” The purpose of this research guide is to provide that evidence through stories of the experiences of people of color in our country so that all of us might better understand racism and how to fight against it.