Policing and Public Safety: A Black History Seminar for Educators on Law Enforcement and the U.S. Constitution
Policing in the United States has developed dramatically since the era of slavery and settler colonization. Understanding the evolution of American law enforcement is essential for grappling with how much public safety and punishment disparately affect Black Americans and people of color. This seminar focuses on the history of policing, civil rights, and Constitutional change in African American contexts for the purpose of providing educators with key strategies and historical tools to teach topics in Black history about law enforcement, social justice, and the Constitution. It examines how Black Americans challenged unequal justice during slavery, resisted predatory policing in the face of Jim Crow, and shaped police reform and the law enforcement profession in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement. It also explores why community approaches to public safety surfaced to counteract police violence and discrimination within the criminal legal system leading up to today's age of mass incarceration. Participating educators will gain a deeper understanding of Black freedom struggles waged throughout American history to “establish Justice” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty” in “a more perfect union,” which long denied basic human rights on the basis of skin color and other forms of human difference. Ultimately, educators will complete this course better equipped and more inspired to teach hard histories that invite students in their classrooms to imagine equitable possibilities for promoting public safety for all.