#CharlestonSyllabus: A Reading List to Contextualize the Massacre

Last summer, when the unrest in Ferguson, Mo. began, Marcia Chatelein, a Georgetown professor, crowdsourced a reading list about race, African-American history, civil rights, and policing by collecting suggestions via the Twitter hashtag #FergusonSyllabus.

Over the 10 months since, in Baltimore, Staten Island, North Charleston, and Cleveland, unarmed black men have died at the hands of police officers, each time “unleashing a torrent of anguish and soul-searching about race in America,” Lydia Polgreen writes in “From Ferguson to Charleston and Beyond, Anguish About Race Keeps Building.” And each time, parents, teachers, clergy, and others have come together, online, and in person, to think about how these events, and the questions they raise, should be reflected in classrooms.

Now Chad Williams, chair of the Brandeis University African and Afro-American Studies Department, has conceived a new hashtag, #CharlestonSyllabus, to crowdsource a list that provides information about the history of racial violence in the United States, and contextualizes the history of race relations in South Carolina and the country in general:

What to read to understand Charleston attack: A crowdsourced syllabus http://t.co/2MgNSAEEG5 #CharlestonSyllabus

— Chad Williams (@Dr_ChadWilliams) June 22, 2015

On the New York Times Learning Network site, you’ll find a collection of Times articles, Opinion pieces, and multimedia about Charleston published since June 17 and, like all of the content there, free to teachers and students without a digital subscription.

By The Learning Network
Original Post/ The New York Times Learning Network
Photo/ Travis Dove for The New York Times