Making Black and Brown Lives Matter: Incorporating Race Into the Criminal Procedure Curriculum

Abstract

The fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an African American teenager, in August 2014 by a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and the death of Eric Garner, an African American man who died after being put into a chokehold by a New York City police officer in July 2014, led to a firestorm of protests under the moniker of “Black Lives Matter.” Many Blacks saw these two deaths and the failure to indict the officers involved as reflecting a lack of concern for Black lives.