Calls for Justice

Photo by Natasha Moustache

I have been thinking about Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy who was murdered in 1955 by two white men in Money, Miss. If he were alive today, Emmett would be fast approaching his 80th birthday. He would be a few years older than Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Even at an advanced age, Emmett would have swagger.

When his mother made the bold decision to allow the world to see his bloated dead body, she sought to render visible the violence that often targets African Americans. If people could see the effects of bias, prejudice, and racist hate on the most innocent among us—a child—then a campaign for justice to safeguard future generations might occur.

Rosa Parks remembered Emmett Till when she chose not to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. Muhammad Ali, who was almost the same age as Emmett, found lifelong inspiration to fight for equality and justice. Countless others were awakened to action.

Today, the spectacle of dead or injured African Americans is distressingly common. Videos are pushed to our handheld devices: Eric Garner and George Floyd gasping for air; Walter Scott and Jacob Blake getting shot in the back. A social media campaign, #SayHerName, has helped spotlight the similarly horrific experiences of Black women, including Breonna Taylor and Michelle Cusseaux.

It is a sobering fact that our newest undergraduate students were nine years old when Trayvon Martin was killed. They were the same age as Tamir Rice, who was twelve years old when he was shot to death on a playground in 2014. Much of their tween and teenage years have been spent witnessing death.

Our current students are rejecting the inheritance of systemic racism. They have taken to the streets to call for justice. They have organized within CFA to make very reasonable demands, including antiracist training, more staff and faculty of color, and more inclusive syllabi.

I am proud of CFA students and alumni who have chosen to stand up and speak out as part of efforts to end racism everywhere and create actively inclusive communities. I am impressed by CFA staff and faculty who, in the midst of a global pandemic, have organized workshops, overhauled syllabi, and begun to revise conceptions of core and canon across disciplines.

There is more work ahead. If you would like to support efforts toward active inclusion or share your thoughts on why it matters, please email me at cfadean@bu.edu.

Harvey Young, Dean of CFA