In the wake of civil unrest and protests in

Ferguson, Missouri Ferguson is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. It is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. Per the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 18,527, and is predominantly Bla ...

, Professor Marcia Chatelain of

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

created the #FergusonSyllabus

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

campaign. Ferguson syllabus provides a space for educators to discuss integrating the events that happened in Ferguson into classrooms.

Background

On August 9, 2014 an unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown, was fatally shot by white police officer Darren Wilson in

. The disputed details of Brown's death sparked protests and civil unrest in Ferguson, across the United States, and internationally. The dispute arose from dueling narratives of why and how the altercation occurred. Wilson and eyewitnesses presented different accounts of what happened. This confusion, along with aggressive policing following Brown's death, led to heated debate and examination of the relationship between policing practices and communities of color. The protests and civil unrest continued on November 24, 2014 after a St. Louis

grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...

failed to

indict An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an indi ...

Wilson on criminal charges. After the verdict was announced, protests flared in Ferguson and in nearly every major U.S. city. On November 29, 2014, Wilson resigned from the Ferguson Police Department with no severance or benefits. Over $500,000 was raised by Wilson's supporters via crowdfunding. On March 4, 2015 the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

announced the findings of its two civil rights investigations into the Ferguson Police Department. The Justice Department found that the Ferguson Police Department "engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the First, Fourth, and 14th Amendments of the Constitution". In Ferguson—a city with a population of 21,000–16,000 people have outstanding arrest warrants, meaning that they are currently actively wanted by the police. The Justice Department also stated, "That the evidence examined in its independent, federal investigation into the fatal shooting of Michael Brown does not support federal civil rights charges against Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson."

Purpose

Ferguson Syllabus is a

crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

syllabus about race,

African-American history African-American history started with the forced transportation of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. The European colonization of the Americas, and the resulting Atlantic slave trade, ...

, civil rights, and policing. It was created as a way to integrate conversations of what happened in Ferguson into classrooms. Marcia Chatelain, an assistant professor of history at

, created the

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...

#FergusonSyllabus so that educators could have a platform to discuss the national crisis in Ferguson, Missouri. Chatelain describes it as, “What emerged was a small call for community across the sometimes impersonal and expansive digital world.” Chatelain contacted her colleagues in her discipline to use Twitter as a mechanism to recommend texts, collaborate on conversation starters, and inspire dialogue about some aspect of the Ferguson events. Chatelain argues, “The academy has never owned movements, and youth outside of colleges longed for intelligent questions, honest reflection, and inspiration moving forward." College professors, high school and middle school teachers, early education specialists, and guidance counselors wanted ideas on how to hold purposeful dialogues around this issue. #FergusonSyllabus has now become a virtual movement used to frame how struggle has shaped American history, infused works of art and literature, and given voice to those most hurt by the failures of leadership, capitalism, and democracy.

Applications

Freedom Ferguson Library

Freedom Ferguson Library is a campaign asking people who benefited from learning from the Ferguson syllabus to consider donating an item to an under-resourced school, prison literacy program, or community center. Chatelain has asked that people write (or make a nameplate) with a message including the words, Ferguson Freedom Library. The expression Freedom Library comes from the Freedom Summer Project of 1964, when civil rights activists created

Freedom Schools Freedom Schools were temporary, alternative, and free schools for African Americans mostly in the South. They were originally part of a nationwide effort during the Civil Rights Movement to organize African Americans to achieve social, political a ...

to educate children and adults.

Ferguson Theater Syllabus

Inspired by the #FergusonSyllabus, actors and playwrights crowdsourced a list from the Ferguson Moment Facebook group, asking specifically for plays that provide opportunities for conversation around this particular historical moment: the shooting of Michael Brown and the response to that shooting by citizens, law enforcement and the justice system, in Ferguson and in other places like it around the nation.{{Cite news, url=http://www.americantheatre.org/2014/12/17/the-ferguson-theatre-syllabus/, title=The Ferguson Theatre Syllabus, last1=Alick, first1=Claudia, date=2014-12-17, work=American Theatre, last2=Sandberg-Zakian, first2=Megan, language=en-US

References

External links

Rhetoric Race and Religion: #FergusonFiasco: The Killing of #MichaelBrown: A Reader

* ttp://rhetoricraceandreligion.blogspot.com/2014/09/fergusonfiasco-doing-theology-after.html?spref=tw Rhetoric Race and Religion: #FergusonFiasco: Doing Theology After #Ferguson-Part 1
Prison Culture » #FergusonSyllabus: Talking and Teaching About Police Violence

TTT Studio and Chat , EdTechTalk

Teaching #FergusonResources – Google Docs
Hashtags Race in the United States Ferguson, Missouri Black Twitter