Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You

Look out, also, for the many powerful stories that depict us all as we truly are- human.

Black women like Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. They started not only a hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, they started a movement

candidate George H. W. Bush, who used the racist idea that Black people are a threat, to help win the presidency.

The War on Drugs pushed by President Ronald Reagan. Even though White people and Black people were selling and using drugs at similar rates, the new drug laws targeted Black people. For example, one law made it a more serious crime to be caught with small amounts of the types of drugs more often found in poor Black neighborhoods than with larger amounts of the types of drugs more often found in rich White neighborhoods. The result of this new policy was that millions of Black Americans were sent to jail. It was a war on Black people, and it devastated Black communities.

but many others who were silenced by the White House and by Black male leaders of the civil rights movement. Like… Black women. Daisy Bates read a short vow, a pledge on behalf of women working within the movement. But Dorothy Height, a powerful leader who helped organize the event and was the only woman to stand on the platform with Dr. King, was not invited to speak. Nor was Rosa Parks. Or so many other Black women whose work had fueled the movement. Black LGBTQ+ leaders. Bayard Rustin, a key adviser to Dr. King and an organizer of the event, was not invited to speak. Nor was James Baldwin, a Black novelist who, through his writings, had become a brilliant and bold political voice. Malcolm X. He attended the event but was not invited to speak.

And, what’s worse, he claimed that enslaving Africans was a mission from God. God? Can you believe that? And that it was the Europeans’ duty to civilize and tame them—to teach them Christianity in order to save their wretched souls. Over time, these racist lies would begin to convince even some African people that they weren’t as good as White people.