By William H. Freivogel One reform that grew out of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 was that recalcitrant states with strong police unions passed decertification laws to take away peace officer licenses from those with a track record of seriously abusing citizens. California and Massachusetts, two states with strong police unions,
By William H. Freivogel Ten years after the Ferguson uprising, five years after “The 1619 Project” and four years after the murder of George Floyd, the racial reckoning that seemed at hand has largely dissipated amidst a political and legal backlash — laws outlawing “DEI,” attacks on a “DEI vice president” and bans on books
The shooting death last year of Michael Brown and the subsequent events that followed his death in the Ferguson unrest – protests, vigils, riots, outrage – left the public shocked, longing for answers from both sides of the debate that ensued. Brown’s death sparked renewed national attention to police brutality and the relationship between law
By SHANE GRABER / Newsrooms in this country have known for nearly half a century that coverage of African-American communities needs fixing. In 1968, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, argued that newsrooms should provide more inclusive reporting on racial issues in response to a summer of nationwide
By KURT SHILLINGER / In the aftermath of the killing of a black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, last August, St. Louis Public Radio launched an ongoing series of conversations about race called We Live Here. The first full-length program traversed Lindbergh Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare arching through a diversity of
