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Our Moment - Letter from the Editor
Hayes, Jelani
Hayes, Jelani
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Abstract
his Symposium was inspired by events that took place last summer.
In fact, I have measured the past decade in summers. In summer 2013, a jury failed to provide legal justice for Trayvon Martin, and the verdict sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. The next summer, Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer inspired intense protests in Ferguson, Missouri. During summer 2015, nine black American worshippers were murdered at the historic Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. President Obama sang “Amazing Grace,” and Congress failed, once again, to reform our gun laws. But a week later, Americans celebrated the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to same-sex marriage.