A historic crossroads for systemic racism and policing in America

After 400 years of systemic discrimination against black people in America, the volcanic reaction to video of the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis has pushed America to another major inflection point in its seemingly endless struggle with race. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, both black people and allies from other racial identities, have taken to the streets to decry police brutality and systemic discrimination, and to demand change. But will that change be transformative or incremental? And will it be permanent or merely temporary, forgotten when the next big crisis comes along? To help us sort it out, host Thoko Moyo welcomes Harvard Kennedy School Professors Khalil Muhammad and Erica Chenoweth. Muhammad is one of the country’s foremost scholars on the history of race, criminal justice, and inequality, and the author of groundbreaking book “The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.”He is a professor of History, Race and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, and faculty director of the Institutional Anti-racism and Accountability Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Chenoweth is known internationally for her pioneering research on social and protest movements and what makes them successful. Much of her work examines the relative efficacy of nonviolent and violent protest and what tactics can help bring about lasting change. She is the Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and director of the new Nonviolent Action Lab at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.