
Social Activism
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation | Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
I came across this TEDx talk from a year and a half ago. It’s relevant in light of the recent debates over the Confederate symbols, Black Lives Matter, and our country’s obsession with selective history.
150 Years to the day following the unconditional Confederate surrender to the Union Army, Freddie Gray was arrested in Baltimore and severely beaten. His subsequent death, and that of other African Americans at the hand of police, exposed the factual chasm between formal equality before the law and actual self-determination and self possession inherent to actual freedom. Recorded at TEDxBaltimore January 2016.
Keeanga-Yamahtta is an Assistant Professor at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. She is also interested in social movements and Black politics in the United States.