“Resist and participate in democracy! That is your right and it cannot be taken away from you.” This quote from Whose Streets?, a documentary film by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis, responds to the systemic oppression at work around the world against people of color. This lesson provides a framework for critical analysis of current and historic race relations in America through the lens of the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, Jr., a young unarmed black man, by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. In this lesson, students conduct a Socratic seminar in preparation for creating a plan of action to submit to local bodies of government with suggestions for improving relations between police departments and the people in the communities that they protect and addressing other disparities in our country’s criminal justice system. This plan of action is malleable and will be adjusted depending upon grade level and specific issues in your school community. The structured conversation of the Socratic seminar will help students generate questions and proposed solutions for their written plans of action.
