TCNJ

14 AN INCLUSIVE CAMPUS The rallying cry "Black Lives Matter" echoed across campus this year as members of the TCNJ community added their voices to the national debate on race and social justice. Students painted a mural in the heart of campus and held candlelight vigils and marches to raise awareness. The yearlong conversation was one of many that furthered the college's commitment to an inclusive community. ON RACE AND POLICING IN AMERICA The killings of young black Americans by police officers in Missouri, New York, Cleveland, and elsewhere have inspired a steady drumbeat of condemnation and protest. But New York Times columnist Charles Blow (above left) believes the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, among others, could also provide "a springboard to a higher discussion." "It provides an opportunity to discuss how the theology of personal responsibility and personal choice interact with cultural context and structural connectivity," Blow said during a lecture on "Race and Policing in America" in April. "It offers us all an opportunity to bring our package of preconceptions into the open and sort through them in a search for the truth." ONE NAME, TWO FATES How did two men with the same name and similar childhoods (both were raised by single mothers in inner-city Baltimore) wind up in such different places (one a decorated veteran and White House Fellow, the other in prison serving a life sentence)? Author Wes Moore challenged a packed Kendall Hall to consider this dichotomy during a Community Learning Day lecture on October 8. His book, The Other Wes Moore, was required summer reading for all incoming first-year students. A TRIP TO SELMA TCNJ marked Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday with a trip to view the Academy Award–nominated film Selma. The movie, which chronicles the tumultuous three months in 1965 when King led a campaign to secure equal voting rights in the face of violent opposition, evoked a strong response. "Sometimes it's hard to walk out feeling hopeful, with Ferguson and Eric Garner still happening," says Brenda Leake, associate professor of elementary/ early childhood education. "We think that we're done, but we're not done." DOES RACE MATTER? Harvard Law Professor Charles J. Ogletree's February 25 lecture on race and justice in America brought Black History Month to a close on campus. Likening the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown to that of Martin Luther King Jr., Ogletree (above right) said that their deaths would not be in vain if they led to a better society. He sees signs of that happening through Black Lives Matter. "A whole new generation of activism is happening around the world," he said. Photo by M. Stewart

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