'I'm Willing To Fight For America': 5 Student Activists On Protesting For Change
Peaceful, student-led protests have been a powerful force for change throughout American history.
In 1925, for example, students at Fisk University staged a 10-week protest to speak out against the school's president, who didn't want students starting a chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. In 1940, almost 2,000 students protested after New York University decided to pull a black player from its football roster to accommodate the University of Missouri's segregationists.
And campus-based protests, including against racism, were a major lever of social change in the 1960s.
But during one of the largest protest movements of our generation, campuses nationwide have been shut down due to COVID-19.
So what does student activism look like today? It's happening online and in the streets; with art and tech skills. NPR Ed spoke to five high school and college students fighting in different ways for black lives, an end to police brutality and structural racism.
Julian Dowell, 20, Washington, D.C.
When he was growing up, Julian Dowell says, his mom was a big advocate for reading up on racism in American history. "In the eighth grade I was reading Cornel West. Michelle Alexander's had just come out," he says. "So when Trayvon Martin occurred, I was actually kind of in my school mobilizing people around me, like, yo, we're gonna do a day where we're all going to
