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USA TODAY and EJI partner to explore history of racial injustice

The USA TODAY Network has partnered with the Equal Justice Initiative to publish 10 stories of racial injustice that shaped the country and continue to influence it in the present day. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, EJI is a nonprofit legal advocacy organization and public history institution. It developed the "Injustices" series to illuminate the legacy of racism, bigotry and discrimination in America. Each part of the series — EJI hired professional journalists to report on these historical events in video and written forms — tells a story of racial injustice in American history. While some may be familiar, the project is designed to fill gaps in the American education system, EJI founder Bryan Stevenson said. To him, that makes learning about them particularly crucial. "This is the kind of American history everyone needs to know," Stevenson said. The stories will be published in USA Today and many of the hundreds of papers in its network. The story behind the series begins in 2013. That is when EJI began publishing a physical calendar highlighting an incident of historical racial injustice each day. The calendar inspired some to ask Stevenson what they could do to help. He said he would tell them that learning itself helps. "The more you learn about this history, the more equipped you are to think appropriately about contemporary issues," Stevenson said. In recent years, EJI expanded its public education work; this partnership is among the latest such projects for the nonprofit. The series covers events from Ohio's passage of its "Black Laws" in 1807, which prohibited Black people from testifying in cases with a single white party and left Black people vulnerable to crime by white perpetrators; the 1944 South Carolina execution of a 14-year-old Black boy after a sham trial the violent opposition to integration in schools following a 1954Supreme Courtdecision, which led Gov. Herman Talmadge of Georgia to declare, "Blood will run in the streets of Atlanta." Stevenson hopes people sit with the discomfort that learning about these parts of history can cause. By questioning the forces that led to the injustices, people may start conversations about the importance of the rule of law, fair treatment and integrity in government, he said. "We don't have those conversations if they're not triggered by the lessons that are learned by some of these … difficult stories," he said. Stevenson feels many began having those conversations in years, particularly after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. But he thinks we are now in a period of backlash. "I think that there has been an overreaction to some of the activism we saw five years ago, where people are trying to prevent any discussion about history," he said. For example, several government websites were temporarily removed educational pages about trailblazing icons such as the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo code talkers and Jackie Robinson in an effort to scrub their website of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. He hopes education can lead to real change. "If we understood the historical context of some of those acts, we wouldn't have been so afraid to do something in response," Stevenson said. Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas atemealins@tennessean.com. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:USA TODAY publishes Equal Justice Initiative's 'Injustices' series