October 14, 2021
ACS’s Statement of Support for Black Lives Matter at School Day of Action
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Pablo Willis, pwillis@acslaw.org
Washington, DC — American Constitution Society President Russ Feingold today released the following statement of support for Black Lives Matter at School Day of Action:
"In June 2021, as ACS celebrated its 20th birthday, I was proud to announce our commitment to truth, racial healing, and transformation (TRHT). Racial inequality is rooted in the history of this country, from the drafting of our first laws to the very design of our government. Our legal systems and the systemic racism entrenched within them continue to drive racial inequality to this day, from housing to health outcomes to education. To fully dismantle white supremacy requires comprehensive transformation of our laws and legal systems.
Today, we are furthering our commitment to TRHT by supporting the Black Lives Matter at School Day of Action and committing our support for the full year. Our participation in the Day of Action and Year of Purpose is part of our work to expose frameworks that perpetuate systemic racism.
We support inclusive and culturally responsive curricula that teach the truth about American history, including the founding failures of our Constitution. The most egregious and criminal of these founding failures was America’s commitment to the institution of chattel slavery.
We stand united for change and for radical truth-telling, and against the laws that are striving to eliminate important conversations about race and racism from our classroom. Our country’s truth is uncomfortable, but it is our truth, and it must be told for us to transform our laws and legal systems so they protect all people.
I hope you will join us on Thursday by sharing the Day of Action on your social media channels and with your family and community. Our support will continue in February as we join Black Lives Matter at School’s Week of Action for Black History Month.
“In short, we must emerge from this crisis in our republic with a new birth of freedom, rooted in the knowledge that we are so much more when the “We” in “We the People” is not some of us, but all of us.
We are greater than, and greater for, the sum of us.”
Heather McGhee, The Sum Of Us
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AMERICAN CONSTITUTION SOCIETY
ACS believes that the Constitution is “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We interpret the Constitution based on its text and against the backdrop of history and lived experience. Through a diverse nationwide network of progressive lawyers, law students, judges, scholars, and many others, we work to uphold the Constitution in the 21st Century by ensuring that law is a force for protecting our democracy and the public interest and for improving people’s lives. For more information, visit us at www.acslaw.org or on Twitter @acslaw.