April 2018
The U.S. Department of Education's 2015-16 Civil Rights Data Collection, released in 2018, confirmed stark racial disparities in school discipline. Black students represented 15.5% of enrollment but 31% of in-school arrests and 36% of students referred to law enforcement. Black preschool children were 3.6 times more likely to receive out-of-school suspension than white preschool children. The data documented 'school resource officers' (police in schools) arresting students for minor infractions that previously resulted in detention. Research consistently showed harsh discipline reduced graduation rates and increased incarceration odds — a documented pipeline.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, conceived by Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative, opened in Montgomery, AL on April 26, 2018. The memorial documents over 4,000 racial terror lynchings in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950, with steel monuments for each county where lynchings occurred. It was the nation's first memorial dedicated to victims of racial terror lynching. The companion Legacy Museum opened the same day. The project forced a public reckoning with racial terror previously absent from the landscape of American public memory.
Events
- April 26, 2018National Memorial for Peace and Justice Opens in Montgomery Alabama
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, conceived by Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative, opened in Montgomery, AL on April 26, 2018. The memorial documents over 4,000 racial terror lynchings in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950, with steel monuments for each county where lynchings occurred. It was the nation's first memorial dedicated to victims of racial terror lynching. The companion Legacy Museum opened the same day. The project forced a public reckoning with racial terror previously absent from the landscape of American public memory.
- April 26, 2018National Memorial for Peace and Justice Opens in Montgomery Alabama
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, conceived by Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative, opened in Montgomery, AL on April 26, 2018. The memorial documents over 4,000 racial terror lynchings in the U.S. between 1877 and 1950. It was the nation's first memorial dedicated to victims of racial terror lynching, forcing a public reckoning with racial terror previously absent from American public memory.
- April 2018Education Department Data Confirms School-to-Prison Pipeline Racially Disparate
The U.S. Department of Education's 2015-16 Civil Rights Data Collection, released in 2018, confirmed stark racial disparities in school discipline. Black students represented 15.5% of enrollment but 31% of in-school arrests and 36% of students referred to law enforcement. Black preschool children were 3.6 times more likely to receive out-of-school suspension than white preschool children. The data documented 'school resource officers' (police in schools) arresting students for minor infractions that previously resulted in detention. Research consistently showed harsh discipline reduced graduation rates and increased incarceration odds — a documented pipeline.