During the last few months of 2014,
media stations broadcasted coverage of protests and riots taking place all over
the country. The stirrings of social and political upheaval that overtook the
United States resulted from the shooting of Michael Brown (18 years old) in
Ferguson, Missouri by a police officer (28 years old). Officer Wilson claimed
he acted in self-defense and was not indicted by a grand jury, prompting people
to come out in anger over what was seen as an “unjust” verdict.
The image of Michael Brown became the
icon that resulted in civil unrest and national protests, with
#blacklivesmatter trending on social media, bringing back the fervor of the
Civil Rights Movement of the 70’s.
Another civil rights battle that’s
been fought silently in the background for many years is the right of equal
opportunity education for children of all races. In 2014, the Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights
Division conducted investigations which revealed that “African-American
students represent only 15 percent of public school students, but they make of
35 percent of students suspended once, 44 percent of those suspended more than
once and 36 percent of those expelled.”
Although the New York Times stated in the same article that these statistics did not necessarily point a finger towards
discrimination of minority students, research that shows black students do not
engage in misbehavior more frequently than white students definitely alludes to
that conclusion.
Further research has revealed “two kinds of discrimination: cases in which
African-American students are treated more harshly and disciplined more
frequently than white students who engage in similar misbehavior; and cases
where policies — like mandatory suspension, expulsion or ticketing — are
administered in a race-neutral manner but have a disproportionate and
unjustified effect on students of a particular race.”
These disproportionate
effects and discriminatory treatments undoubtedly highlight the civil
inequality in children’s rights to education. Perhaps this is the root of the
issue regarding the stereotype of the troubled, young black man that became the
center of such controversy in the recent cases of Michael Brown and Tamir E. Rice.
Looking at the treatment
these kids receive in school and how to correct it can be the first step
towards creating social change. It is in this context that we should be looking
at Dr. Katharine Capshaw’s book, Civil Rights Childhood: Picturing Liberation in African
American Photobooks. In
it, she explores the function of children’s
photographic books and the image of the black child in social justice campaigns
for school integration and the civil rights movement.
In an interview about the
book she said, “When you think about children in civil rights you think about
the martyred child photograph. But I learned through working on this project
that there were many different approaches to representing childhood during the
Civil Rights Movement.” While the cases of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice should
not be forgotten, we should also not be waiting for events like these to
provoke change in the system. We should be looking to the children who are
succeeding in school and using them as an example to provoke social change.
Dr. Capshaw previewed her
book at San Diego State University last April in a lecture for the NCSCL
entitled, "Freedom (and Fury) Now:
Civil Rights Photographic Picture Books for Children." During her visit,
she sat down to talk with the editors of The Unjournal of Children’s Literature, which included SDSU alumni and former
graduate assistants for the NCSCL, Alya Hameed and Kelsey Wadman. If you have
not had a chance to read the interview, here is you chance!
