Two summers ago, shortly after the fatal shooting of unarmed Black teen Michael Brown by a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, Dr. Marcia Chatelain’s sadness deepened when she learned that the first day of school for most K-12 students in that area was being delayed. The decision by officials to change the schedule was based on street protests that they feared could jeopardize the safety of youths going to and from school.
So Chatelain took to Twitter. She encouraged college educators whom she already knew to devote part of the first day of the new school year to discussing with students the events in Ferguson and their broader social, political and economic context. Rather than fixate on the individuals involved with Brown’s death, Chatelain saw a chance to help young people better understand the complexities surrounding the tragedy.
Quite unexpectedly, countless other educators from colleges and from K-12 systems jumped into the Twitter discussion, seeking resources as well as advice on how to facilitate race-based conversations that some of them had never tackled before.
In a matter of days, what emerged was a no-cost, crowdsourced catalog that Chatelain created and curated, titled “Ferguson Syllabus.” It focused on race, African-American history, civil rights and policing, based on suggestions not only from Chatelain but from people representing a spectrum of academic disciplines, geographic regions and educational settings. The catalog continues to be supplemented by Chatelain’s ongoing #FergusonSyllabus campaign, a platform where members of the general public offer and obtain additional tips for classrooms of all age groups.
If not for social media, Chatelain doubts the Ferguson Syllabus would have been assembled so quickly.
“In the old days, there might be little more than a statement from an academic organization, or a panel discussion at the annual meeting of such an association,” says Chatelain, a Georgetown University associate professor of history. “Social media can be a blessing. Perspectives emerge quickly, and plans can be made and be more responsive than if social media didn’t exist. The digital landscape has given us a much more expansive media landscape, which makes us better in these moments.”
The original Ferguson Syllabus features works from urban history, White flight, school desegregation and unrest in the 1960s. The catalog lists books such as Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s The Miseducation of the Negro as well as titles for elementary-age children such as Brad Meltzer’s I am Rosa Parks and Michael Tyler’s The Skin You Live In. There are also films, poems, newspaper and magazine op-eds, and commentaries from bloggers and hashtags like #IfTheyGunnedMeDown.
