Education

Emory To Offer Fall Class On Impact Of ‘Ferguson Movement’

March 23rd, 2015

Emory University announced it will offer a class next fall on the police shooting death of teenager Michael Brown last summer in Ferguson, Missouri, and the social, political and cultural movement that followed.

Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014, in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis. The killing sparked protests in cities across the nation. A grand jury decided not to indict Wilson in the case.

The new class, called “The Ferguson Movement: Power, Politics, and Protest,” will focus on the “impact of Brown’s death” and how it has affected “contemporary society,” Emory Vice Provost of Academic Affairs and law professor Dorothy Brown said.

“It’s an opportunity for students and faculty across disciplines to talk to each other about topics that are relevant,” said Brown, who is not related to Michael Brown, during an interview on WABE’s ”A Closer Look.”

“The course looks at a variety of issues that have come out of Ferguson,” she added. “The aim is to help participants think broadly about the impact of Brown’s death and the overwhelming public response to it.”

Brown helped create the class through Emory’s Center for Faculty Development and Excellence. The course will include topics from policing, media, and voting rights to tax policy and state and local politics.

“One of the goals of the course is to help our students become critical consumers of information,” Brown said.

Ferguson, Missouri is a predominantly African-American community, but the local government, including the police department, are predominantly white.

“The course will ask ‘what critical issues in our nation’s history have set the stage for the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement and what the future holds,’” Brown said in a press release announcing the class.

Brown’s death and the deaths of several other black men by police officers sparked an outcry on social media, too. One of the hashtags on Twitter was #blacklivesmatter.