Page 24 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2021

FEATURE
Chris Johnson, Esq.
The Future of Commmunity Organizing
Be the change you wish to see in your neighborhood
America is facing a flash point. In addition to health and economic crises, the country faces a reckoning concerning racial equity and equal justice. George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, was certainly not the start of the justice reckoning in our country, but it was the match that lit the powder keg of heightened tensions in America.
22 DELAWARE LAWYER WINTER 2021
When images of George Floyd’s face on a warm pavement surfaced, his life expiring under the knee of a police officer, outrage and worldwide protests ensued. The incident where Mr. Floyd, an African American, died at the hands of a Caucasian police officer led to protests and riots in the streets of not only Minneapolis, but in cities throughout the nation and around the world, including in Wilmington. Since the young African American Trayvon Martin’s death in early 2012, a new era of racial reckoning has accelerated with each untimely, usually unjusti- fied, death of a young Black or Brown person. The list of names of the other African Americans who lost their lives in an untimely fashion has grown ex- ponentially. These names include Bre- onna Taylor,1 Eric Garner,2 Ahmaud Arbery,3 Tamir Rice,4 and many others
who perished untimely and unjustly. Wilmington City Council President Hanifa Shabazz believes that while the death of George Floyd was not unlike that of Emmett Till in the 1950s, so- cial media and modern technology have made it impossible for the world to ignore the horrors of these deaths. “Facebook and Instagram — the lan- guage of the youth,” she believes, led the disturbing images of Floyd’s death to spread like wildfire and capture the
world’s attention.
Long-term local and national dis-
investment in housing, infrastructure, amenities, and a widening opportunity gap have only hastened the urgent cry from activists and organizers for sys- temic change. The Occupy Wall Street movement, which began advocating for social and economic justice in 2011, reflected the growing sentiment that