Toni Etheridge has led AFSC's Peace and Economic Justice program in Greensboro, North Carolina since 2013. The program focus is on developing youth leadership, building and enhancing advocacy/activism skills in young people. She is a member of the following: Greensboro’s Community-City Working Group, Alamance Peace Action, North Carolina Peace Action Board Member, and YWCA Social Justice Committee Member.
Note: When this article was submitted, the very next day, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2016, another unarmed black man in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego, was shot by the police. I hope you read this article and are able to come to the realization that indeed our countrymen of color are under militarized police attack. From my lens, tax payers should be concerned and interested in the rising numbers of unjust fatal shootings. And recognize that your non-interest, non-action hurts communities of color. Your silence can be mistaken for support in these rash killings by the police.
During World War I, the American Friends Service Committee created a program to feed thousands of children in Germany and Austria. Since then, AFSC has provided humanitarian relief to countless children devastated by war and conflict.
As racist police violence in the United States continues unabated, including the high-profile killings of Alfred Olango in El Cajon, Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, and Keith Scott in Charlotte, we take a look at some of the recent writings on policing.
Keith Lamont Scott. 1973-2016. I know it’s nothing new. And somehow it still hits closer to home, maybe because it is actually closer to my home.
I was born in Charlotte and grew up there. I graduated from West Charlotte High School in 1995, a school recognized as a national success in busing and racially integrated public schools. My 8-year-old daughter lived in Charlotte for her first year. Charlotte is no longer my every day home, but it will always be my hometown.
Carly Goodman is a historian and served as the Communications Analyst and Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow at AFSC.