Photos: YouTube Screenshots
New Jersey–The students in Jennifer LaSure’s African American history class listened intently to stories about the country’s racist past during the Jim Crow era.
LaSure also challenged the group of underclassmen at Cherry Hill High School East to explore how that legacy may have impacted Black Americans today in the fight for social justice.
She used the high-profile case of five Black and Latino men exonerated in 2002 in the rape and beating of a white jogger in Central Park in 1989. Students watched a clip about the case from filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us.
“Do you think racial bias played a role in that case?” LaSure asked, referring to the case known as the Central Park Five. The students typed their responses in a group chat and she displayed some of their answers on a screen.
