Just three weeks ago, Tyre Nichols’ death appeared to match a pattern of police brutality: a young Black man beaten by officers during a traffic stop. But the response by authorities in Memphis, Tennessee, is where that pattern ended. 

After past allegations of officer brutality, police departments or local prosecutors have often dithered in response, provoking outrage from the community when more details are released. In Memphis, the officers involved have already all been fired and charged.

The body camera footage allowed the Memphis Police Department and the district attorney to hasten their investigations. Yesterday, a grand jury returned indictments – including second-degree murder, kidnapping, and assault – against the five officers, all of whom are Black. Tonight, after 6 p.m. Eastern time, footage of the incident will be publicly released.

In a recorded statement, Memphis Police Department Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis promised “absolute accountability for those responsible for Tyre’s death.”

“This is a failing of basic humanity toward another individual,” she said. 

The police chief, district attorney, and head of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations (TBI) have united in condemning the violence. The United States Department of Justice has opened its own civil rights investigation.

Accountability seems to be moving faster than usual. Almost three years after the murder of George Floyd, some analysts say Memphis might be a sign that reforms adopted by many police departments are working – and perhaps affirming public confidence. 

“The very quick action, the firing and the charging, will have a positive effect on the community,” says Sam Walker, an emeritus professor at the University of Nebraska who studies police accountability. 

But Memphis also shows the limits of after-the-fact accountability and the need for deeper change in police departments. 

“We are here to pursue truth and justice, realizing that we should not be here,” said David B. Rausch, director of the TBI and a 30-year police officer, at a Thursday press conference. “Simply put, this shouldn’t have happened.”

What happened

The incident began with a traffic stop. 

On Jan. 7, officers with the Memphis Police Department’s elite SCORPION unit (Street Crimes Operation To Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods) pulled over Mr. Nichols on suspicion of reckless driving, according to Shelby County District Attorney Steven Mulroy. There was an “initial altercation” between the officers and Mr. Nichols, he said, during which they used pepper spray. Mr. Nichols then fled, leading to a second altercation, reportedly just 100 yards from his parents’ home. This is when most of the violence occurred, Mr. Mulroy said.

A lawyer representing the Nichols family said Mr. Nichols was beaten for three minutes, tased, and restrained. An ambulance later transported him to the hospital, after “some period of time of waiting around afterward” by the officers, said Mr. Mulroy. 

Gerald Herbert/AP

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaks at a news conference in Memphis, Tennessee, Monday with the family of Tyre Nichols, who died after being beaten by police officers.

The Nichols family shared a photo of their son in the hospital before his death, appearing swollen, bruised, and unconscious. The family has seen the police video and compares the treatment of their son to the 1991 beating of Rodney King.

The Department of Justice’s investigation is in partnership with the local FBI field office and joins existing inquiries from the district attorney and Memphis Police Department. The department fired the five officers for violating standards regarding excessive force, duty to render aid, and duty to intervene. The standard of duty to intervene was adopted by the Memphis Police Department after the death of Mr. Floyd to ensure officers are accountable to stop infractions by other officers.

Memphis’ quick response

Chief Davis has said other officers are also under investigation. 

“It’s striking how quickly they moved and how serious their actions were, both police chief and prosecution,” says Professor Walker.

He contrasts the response in Memphis to the response in Louisville, Kentucky, after the 2020 police killing of Breonna Taylor. There, none of the officers wore body cameras and no officers were fired for three months.

Until 2020, a common response to complaints of police brutality was for police departments and unions to protect their officers, a practice commonly referred to as “circling the wagons.” 

“The pattern that I would see is, at most, officers being put on administrative leave for a very long time, often with pay until an investigation was completed,” says Christy Lopez, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “The idea that they would be terminated very quickly is, in my experience, unusual.” 

At this point, it’s not clear whether the speed is a sign of stiffer accountability, a less aggressive police union, or just the incident’s sheer brutality, says Professor Lopez, who led the investigation into the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, after the 2014 killing of Michael Brown. 

In a case of police brutality, the first month is not always representative. 

The four officers who beat Mr. King were charged with felony assault within two weeks but acquitted a year later – though two were convicted on federal charges the next year. The acquittal so outraged the public that it sparked the Los Angeles riots, in which more than 60 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured.

“This case still has to go to trial,” says Tracie Keesee, president and co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity. “So you still have a ways on this one.”

Mark Weber/Daily Memphian/AP

Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy answers questions during a press conference Thursday, after five fired Memphis police officers were charged in the killing of Tyre Nichols.

Clearly, though, authorities have tried to signal that there will be consequences. TBI Director Rausch has already described the incident as “criminal.” Having the FBI involved so early is also powerful, says Ms. Keesee. Thirty years ago, she says, it would’ve taken months, if not longer. 

The speed may be a reflection of public demand. “This is really an indication of how much more sophisticated communities have become,” says Professor Lopez. “They want [the body camera footage], and they’re not afraid to ask for it.”

And the city appears to be keenly aware of the potential for unrest when the video is released tonight. Firing and charging the officers before it was made public could be an attempt to quell potential violence.

Officials from Chief Davis to President Joe Biden have repeated that plea for peace. “Violence is destructive and against the law,” the president wrote. “It has no place in peaceful protests seeking justice.”

The challenge ahead

Chief Davis has climbed to the top of the Memphis Police Department as a reformer, but this case may test how deeply her department has changed.

Body cameras are intended to prevent something like this from happening by recording clear evidence of the incident. But the death of Mr. Nichols suggests that was not enough in this case.

“That real-time accountability should be delivered by your own colleagues,” says Professor Lopez. “That’s just another layer to this tragedy: that it could have been prevented if officers there on the scene had stepped in.”

Policing reforms often take more than a couple of years to implement – an effort complicated by a nationwide increase in violent crime since the pandemic. Violent crime in Memphis has risen significantly since 2016, though it fell some last year. 

The city’s SCORPION units patrol high-crime areas as a more aggressive police response. Such units, says Professor Walker, have a legacy of problematic behavior, often developing their own culture separate from the rest of the department.

“Accountability after the fact is what you’re seeing right now,” says Ms. Keesee.

It’ll take longer to figure out what could’ve stopped the atrocity from ever happening.

“We won’t know until we get further into this and probably ready for trial: What were [the officers] trained on? Have they been in trouble before, and if so, what was the outcome?”

Simon Montlake/The Christian Science Monitor

Pete Frezza, an environmental officer, points to a degraded section of a breakwater off the coast in Islamorada, Florida. The community received a grant to rebuild the breakwater under the Resilient Florida Program championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has invested in environmental protection.

On a map, the quarter-mile-long breakwater resembles a raised eyebrow along Islamorada’s coastline. Up close, though, it’s a crumbling barrier that’s no longer up to the job of protecting this island from erosion. 

“This is where it really gets bad,” says Pete Frezza, Islamorada’s environmental resources manager, gesturing past a locked green gate to a submerged section where the water is ankle-deep. 

Mangroves grow on both sides of the breakwater, which was built in the 1960s from rocks and other material dredged from the ocean. Behind it is a public park and a marina lined with boats, many occupied by retirees who live on board. Even at low tide, the barrier is easily overtopped, says Mr. Frezza. “It’s no longer functional.” 

But help is on the way for Islamorada, a community of 6,500 in the low-lying Florida Keys. Last year it received a $1.9 million grant to rebuild its breakwater after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the bipartisan Resilient Florida Program. The program is providing $640 million in its first year to help communities prepare for the impacts of climate change, including investments in sea walls, wastewater plants, septic tank conversions, and road elevations. That came on top of other environmental initiatives championed by Governor DeSantis in his first term, from Everglades restoration to water quality projects and wildlife protection. 

On the national stage, Mr. DeSantis is best known for point scoring in the political culture wars – whether it’s taking on federal public health officials, attacking “woke” companies, or flying Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. His pugnacious profile, along with his landslide reelection in November, has made him the most talked-about Republican eyeing the White House after Donald Trump.

But DeSantis allies argue that his true strength as a possible presidential contender lies in a pragmatic approach to governing – with the environment as Exhibit A. The governor’s middle-ground approach to Florida’s myriad environmental challenges, particularly its growing vulnerability to storms and flooding, helps explain his appeal to voters beyond the Republican base. It also offers a window into how he might govern as president, where the stakes are much higher when it comes to tackling the underlying causes of the warming effects that threaten his state and others. 

A “Teddy Roosevelt” conservative?

Mr. DeSantis has called himself a “Teddy Roosevelt” conservationist. But while President Roosevelt’s interest in protecting natural resources grew from a lifelong love of the outdoors, Mr. DeSantis’ approach seems more driven by concerns for Florida’s tourist-based economy. 

“Anything that would hurt the [tourist] economy hurts Florida, and he’s for doing anything to help,” says Edwin Benton, a professor of political science and public administration at the University of South Florida.

Lynne Sladky/AP/File

Governor DeSantis speaks during a news conference at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne, Florida, Dec. 1, 2022. The governor announced increased funding for the environmental protection of Biscayne Bay.

During Mr. Trump’s presidency, that included taking a stand against offshore oil drilling, which many Republicans support. Mr. DeSantis recognized that “one oil spill could ruin the beautiful beaches and damage the tourism industry,” says Professor Benton. 

It’s a different approach for a Republican politician – presenting economic and environmental interests as linked rather than at odds. Under Florida’s previous GOP governor, Rick Scott, who’s now the state’s junior senator, water quality issues mostly took a back seat to real estate and other businesses. Governor Scott even banned the state’s Department of Environmental Protection from using the words “climate change” and “global warming.” 

By contrast, Mr. DeSantis, who took office in January 2019, vowed in his inaugural address to “lead the efforts to save our waterways,” fight toxic algae and red tides, and restore the Everglades. “The water is part and parcel of Florida’s DNA. Protecting it is the smart thing to do. It’s also the right thing to do,” he said. 

Even Mr. DeSantis’ critics concede that he has followed through on these issues, though the results have sometimes fallen short. His administration has marshaled taxpayer dollars to increase water flow into the Everglades, increase water quality monitoring, reduce discharges into lagoons and bays, and create the Florida Wildlife Corridor, which connects state and national parks with tracts of open land to allow isolated groups of threatened species to intermingle. 

His policies haven’t pleased everyone. Environmentalists say Mr. DeSantis has fallen notably short in addressing the root causes of climate change like greenhouse gas emissions. As warmer oceans fuel stronger, slower, and wetter tropical storms, Florida is facing more events like Hurricane Ian, which walloped its west coast in September, leading to 144 deaths and causing more than $100 billion in damage. The third most populous state in the U.S., Florida gets most of its electricity from natural gas and other fossil fuels, though its per capita emissions have been declining, mirroring the trend in the United States overall. 

Critics charge Mr. DeSantis with impeding some efforts to reduce Florida’s emissions. In 2021, he signed a bill supported by power utilities that prevents cities from setting mandates for 100% renewable energy. He recently ordered state pension funds not to hold funds that monitor companies for their environmental practices. 

Politically, the governor has deliberately distanced himself from climate activists, whose policies he casts as impractical and economically harmful. “We’re not doing any left-wing stuff,” he told a press conference in December 2021 to announce a flood prevention program. “What we’re doing, though, is just reacting to the fact that, OK, we’re a flood-prone state.” 

That focus on adaptation – while ignoring mitigation – will likely prove costlier in the long run, says Rick Kriseman, a Democrat who was the mayor of St. Petersburg from 2014 to 2022. “He cares more about dealing with the aftermath [of storms] and what do you need to do to become more resilient, as opposed to trying to have a positive impact on addressing climate change, which in the long run is cheaper,” he says. 

Yet Mr. DeSantis has also sided with Democrats at times. Last year he surprised many by vetoing a bill that would have cut subsidies for residents with rooftop solar panels. “We have to give him credit for that,” says Mr. Kriseman, a former state legislator. 

By prioritizing his state’s natural resources and its bottom line, Mr. DeSantis is carving out a path with broad appeal, say allies. “I think he’s not comfortable with the notion of turning on a dime overnight and trying to cure all the threats to our planet,” says Adam Goodman, a Florida-based GOP strategist. “He knows what to do right now.” 

The policies have particularly resonated with independent voters, adds Christian Ziegler, a former county commissioner in Sarasota who is running to chair the state GOP. In midterm polling, many unaffiliated voters cited the environment, among other issues, as a primary reason to support Mr. DeSantis. “There are independent voters who turned out to vote for him because of his position on the environment,” Mr. Ziegler says. 

Behind the breakwater

In the case of Islamorada, the crumbling breakwater had been a concern for years, but there was no money to fix it. The state grant was “perfect timing,” says Mr. Frezza. The village is preparing to solicit bids to rebuild and raise the barrier, though the final cost will likely exceed the $1.9 million grant as construction costs have soared since the project was first assessed.

Behind the breakwater, dozens of boats line the marina. One, a 48-footer called Vital Time, belongs to Tom Vitale, a retired surgeon from St. Louis who lives on the boat with his wife.

It’s about time Islamorada rebuilt its sea wall, he says. “The waters are coming up, there’s no doubt about it. If they want to keep this marina, it has to be done.” 

He says he disagrees with Mr. DeSantis on most social issues, but voted for him anyway because of fiscal matters. And the governor’s coastal resilience projects are another big selling point. “He’s a man of action,” he says. 

Farther down the marina, Mary Dobson’s 32-foot sailboat has been her home for 25 years. The senior works the turnstile at the island’s 40-acre park, which has an Olympic-sized pool and a sandy beach. 

Ms. Dobson is delighted that the breakwater will be rebuilt and is full of praise for the governor. “I love DeSantis. He’s a good man. He’s done a lot for this state,” she says. 

Small hands round clumps of wet clay and compost, forming sticky spheres. Sara Villa watches her second grader, Aaron, focus on the task, his jacket hood raised against the November chill. He’s one of several dozen students on a school excursion at a New Mexico ranch.

The Villas evacuated their nearby Holman home in the spring due to wildfire, then again in the summer due to floods. Because of water damage, the family went into debt purchasing a new mobile home, says Ms. Villa. Other scars are harder to see.

Aaron gets “scared now when it rains,” she says. “I just try to explain to him that he’s OK.”

Aaron, shy, offers a snaggletooth smile. The ball in his mud-smeared palms is stuffed with seeds of native grasses. Students can plant these “seed bombs” where they please, such as at home or here at Collins Lake Ranch, where about half of its 300 acres burned last spring in the state’s largest recorded wildfire.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Sara Villa joins her second grader, Aaron, on a school excursion in Cleveland, New Mexico, Nov. 4, 2022. She and her family, including her infant son, Cash, had to find new housing in Mora County after flooding last year. Aaron "gets scared now when it rains," she says. "I just try to explain to him that he's OK."

The activity is part of a school district experiment linking environmental recovery to that of students, whose families lost ranchland, income, freezers full of food, and safe drinking water. This school year, the rural Mora Independent School District (MISD) has tried several ways of harnessing lessons about such disasters to “promote the healing,” says Superintendent Marvin MacAuley.

Beyond an “expeditionary learning” model that brings students outdoors, the district hired a second social worker to deal with an upswell of behavioral issues. MISD has also doubled down on logistical preparedness, which includes ongoing food distribution to local families and the drafting of school flood-response plans.

Laura Schifter, a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute’s initiative This Is Planet Ed, appreciates the district’s efforts. “Schools really need to be adapting and building resilience to climate impacts, and what this district is doing in thinking about it holistically can really be used as an exemplar for other districts to consider,” she says.

Not unlike the weather radio that Mr. MacAuley keeps on his desk, antenna raised at the ready, district staffers have had to broaden their attention to student needs that include not only academics but also resilience.

“I want them to recover. I want them to succeed,” says the superintendent. “I want them to become valuable community members, and cherish their cultures and their traditions, and be able to revive our area.”

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Marvin MacAuley, superintendent of the Mora Independent School District, stands on campus in Mora, New Mexico, Nov. 4, 2022. "I want them to recover. I want them to succeed," he says of his roughly 400 students.

“Adaptability is a key”

Family trees in Mora County intertwine with Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican histories; some residents trace back ties to the land through nine generations. The district of around 400 students – most are Hispanic, and nearly all qualify for free or reduced-price lunches – sits among expanses of cattle ranchland threaded by a river. Forests ring a valley where mission churches still stand.

But compliment Mora’s beauty and you may get a sigh. It used to be more beautiful, locals say, before the fire. 

In April, prescribed burning in Santa Fe National Forest botched by the U.S. Forest Service grew into the largest wildfire in recorded New Mexico history. The blaze of over 340,000 acres was fueled by adverse conditions that the government says it underestimated. April set a record dry average for the state in terms of precipitation: five-hundredths of an inch that month.

Climate change “likely played a major role” in the overall dryness of the area, which was compounded by a La Niña climate pattern that makes for drier- and windier-than-average springs, says Andrew Church, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.

As the fire blazed, Mr. MacAuley, a former wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, made the call to send students and staff home early. Evacuations followed. After a “chaotic” two weeks, he says displaced teachers resumed lessons through a semblance of virtual learning. Though the district had begun using 1-to-1 computing during the pandemic, not all children evacuated with devices, let alone landed where they had access to Wi-Fi.  

SOURCE:

Wildland Fire Interagency Geospatial Services

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

The district’s Head Start program, meanwhile, began a distribution center on-site, serving hundreds of people a day with food, water, livestock feed, and more. The full-fledged operation lasted some 45 days, but due to ongoing need nine months on, the early childhood center still organizes a monthly food distribution and hands out firewood commonly used to heat local homes. 

Summer flooding from thunderstorms was made worse by the wildfire. At the start of the fall semester, flooding cued two early dismissals and the sheltering of students late at school until the roads cleared. 

“I teach them that it’s important to be adaptable and to be willing to change with what’s going on,” says middle school English teacher Tina Burton-Crunk. “Adaptability is a key thing to being able to survive anything.”

Student helpers

Researchers are beginning to understand the impact of climate change on young people, including through self-reporting of “climate anxiety.” In April 2021, a year before the New Mexico blaze, the National Association of School Psychologists adopted a resolution recognizing the importance of mitigating climate-related harms (like air pollution, extreme heat, and wildfire) to the learning and mental health of students. 

MISD is now equipped with cots, food, and water in case of future needs to shelter students. And the district used American Rescue Plan Act education funding to hire the second social worker based on a spike in social-emotional needs, with a third contracted on an as-needed basis.

Longtime district social worker Deyhle Adkins says some students “internalized [the natural disasters], and they started acting out, and you’d see these erratic behaviors,” including bullying. But others took it “really well, and they wanted to help out,” she adds. 

Senior Casey Benjamin is among those who helped, as a junior firefighter. Sixth grader Ana Crunk, daughter of the teacher, volunteered at an evacuation center in Peñasco.

Though it was “scary” to flee home, helping out “helped me feel better,” says Ana, whose own family was evacuated for two weeks. 

Ana is also a fan of the learning expeditions. “I love it because I’m outdoors, and I don’t have to be in the classroom,” she says. 

Jim Weber/Santa Fe New Mexican/AP/File

Fire rages along a ridgeline east of Highway 518 near the Taos County line as firefighters from all over the country converge on northern New Mexico to battle the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, May 13, 2022.

Next: the Envirothon

Mora’s expeditionary learning, first mentioned in a report by Searchlight New Mexico, is partially meant to address social-emotional needs. Sometimes called experiential or project-based learning, the hands-on learning approach was developed by educators in the 1990s.

Since the fall semester, several expeditionary learning days, including the seed bomb outing, have taken place at Collins Lake Ranch, a nonprofit serving people with disabilities. In other lessons there, students learned to fly drones for aerial data collection and tested post-fire water quality, in partnership with the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute at New Mexico Highlands University. They also helped blaze a hiking trail at the Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area. The district is pausing these Friday excursions during the winter months – taking kids skiing instead, in part to show them that “we can still enjoy our mountains and some things have not changed,” Mr. MacAuley adds in an email.

Some older MISD students have been less impressed with or interested in the Friday outings. While some sessions have been “informative,” says freshman Michaela Aragon, “sometimes you’re really just kind of bored with them.” 

But her mother, board of education chair Monica Aragon, sees an upside.

Since the start of the pandemic, “they don’t just have to learn how to focus; they have to learn how to socialize,” she says. “That’s what these fun Fridays are trying to encourage.”

Other parents stress the need for more academic recovery. 

“We know that somewhere along the line, years from now, those trees – life – continues,” says Judy Martinez, who has five children in the district, kindergarten through seventh grade. “But academically is where the suffering took place.”

She recalls the challenge of managing her students’ pandemic remote learning, and then how they lost out on remote learning for a few weeks last spring as the family hurriedly evacuated without its laptops. Students deserve patience from their teachers for being behind through no fault of their own, she adds.

Students attest to the difficulties as well. “Every year of my high school career, we’ve been out a portion of the year or the whole year,” says senior Casey. Disruptions to learning have made students “pretty unattentive,” he adds.

Mr. MacAuley recognizes the uphill climb that lies ahead. He says Mora students are generally a year behind where they should be academically – some two years, due to remote learning challenges. 

There’s another plan he hopes will help the high schoolers in particular. The district has launched its first team to enter the New Mexico Envirothon, a problem-solving competition that tests student knowledge of natural resources. It’s another idea from what Mr. MacAuley calls “my crazy mind.” 

Above his desk with the weather radio hangs the skull of a mule deer, shot by one of his three daughters. Asked how many kids he has, however, he doesn’t say three.

“I say I have 425,” he says.

That includes second grader Aaron Villa. According to his mom, he cast a seed bomb into a burn scar behind his former home.

Lynne Sladky/AP

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks, after being sworn in to begin his second term, outside the Old Capitol on Jan. 3, 2023, in Tallahassee, Florida. His administration has blocked a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies from being taught in the state's high schools.

Last week, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis explained his rejection of a proposed Advanced Placement African American Studies class, I thought about the small number of Black students enrolled in AP courses. A 2020 report by The Education Trust pegged it at 9%, despite counting 15% of high school students nationwide as Black.

I was one of those few Black students 20 years ago. More often than not, I was the only African American kid in my class, the social ramifications of which I didn’t fully understand until I attended a historically Black university years later. I can only imagine how many more Black classmates I might have had in an AP course if the curriculum presented had been relatable to students of African descent.

Fortunately, I didn’t solely rely on the public school system for an understanding of Black history. I still have a box of BlacFax, a Trivial Pursuit-style game that my parents bought for my younger brother and me when we were kids, with the intent of teaching us about popular African American facts along with less conventional anecdotes. I didn’t fully understand the ramifications of this either, until I became much older and gained a profound appreciation for the intricacies of Carter G. Woodson’s view of Black history.

“We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history,” he said in 1927, a year after starting Negro History Week.

Clearly, Dr. Woodson didn’t start the week, which ultimately became Black History Month, for the purpose of an annual occasion. He started it because he realized that Black people and our history had been omitted from public education.

That omission comes with a price – the devaluing of Black lives. Thought turns into deed, as Dr. Woodson expressed in “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” when he said “there would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.”

AP/FILE

African American historian and author Carter G. Woodson in an undated photograph. “We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history,” he said in 1927.

Such a statement might be seen as extreme – or no longer relevant – until one looks at the reasoning behind Florida’s ban of AP African American Studies. As reported by CBS, a Jan. 12 letter from the state’s Department of Education said the course “is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” Specific concerns were noted about such topics as intersectionality, reparations, Black queer theory, and “Black Study and the Black Struggle in the 21st Century.” The board also leveled criticisms at the inclusion of Black authors and activists such as Angela Davis, whom they referred to as a “self-avowed Communist and Marxist.”

Quite simply, Mr. DeSantis’ critique and the board’s evaluation contain the language of segregation. The attribution of communism as a pejorative is similar to the Red Scare rhetoric of the 1950s and 1960s, from which not even Martin Luther King was exempt.

The power of language and its importance to freedom – or oppression – cannot be overstated. It is no coincidence that Mr. DeSantis and politicians of a similar ideology choose to either attack or co-opt phrasing such as “woke” or “critical race theory.” Those phrases are seedlings, which, in fertile ground, can cultivate honest instruction and dialogue about race relations.

A commentary from one of my favorite movies, “V for Vendetta,” puts it this way in a memorable speech about revolution:

Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression.

Dr. Woodson saw Negro History Week as a steppingstone to the understanding that Black people are part of American history. Nearly a century later, some see this AP course filling a similar role. 

Henry Louis Gates Jr., a noted scholar of African American history and literature, told Time magazine that the creation of the course signified “ultimate acceptance and ultimate academic legitimacy.”

“AP African American Studies is not [critical race theory]. It’s not the 1619 Project,” explained Dr. Gates, who helped develop the course. “It is a mainstream, rigorously vetted, academic approach to a vibrant field of study, one half a century old in the American academy, and much older, of course, in historically Black colleges and universities.”

But this has never been a discussion about critical race theory as much as a discussion about critical thinking. The need for Black history – American history – outside of the month of February is indisputable.

Yet “indoctrination” is the word Mr. DeSantis used to describe the course. That’s an interesting take from a governor trying to stop “woke.” I can’t help but think about another controversial governor, George Wallace, who literally attempted to block integration at the University of Alabama in 1963.

The College Board has announced it is revising the pilot course, currently taught at 60 high schools, and will announce the official framework Feb. 1. Will public school students be able to read not only about Mr. Wallace but also about the nuanced reasoning of Black thought leaders and activists, such as the Black Panthers, who embraced communism?

That’s the beauty of this controversy, though. My gut feeling is that, like Mr. Wallace, the governor of Florida will eventually have to remove himself from the doorway of history, and the taxpaying citizens of the Sunshine State, regardless of race, will then enjoy a fuller understanding of American history. At least one lawsuit, originating with high school students, is in the works if Florida doesn't reverse course. 

One of the greatest lessons about education is that it doesn’t always take place in a classroom. That’s true of the study of Africans in America. Here’s hoping that the rebellious nature of people against authoritarianism manifests itself in their desire to learn more about the Negro in history.

Ken Makin is the host of the “Makin’ a Difference” podcast. 

1. The Chinese Groove, by Kathryn Ma

It’s 2015, and 18-year-old budding poet Xue Li – call him Shelley – has bid China farewell for a new life in fog-shrouded San Francisco at the home of his “rich uncle.” Reality quickly reveals an extended family under financial and emotional strain, plus a city far different from his expectations.

Shelley narrates his newcomer experience with optimism, generosity, and humor. Kathryn Ma’s deftly written novel soars.

2. In the Upper Country, by Kai Thomas

In 1859 in Dunmore, Alberta – a stop on the Underground Railroad – a young Black journalist meets with an older woman in jail for killing a white slave catcher. Tales of brutality, escape, survival, and grit are volleyed in their story-for-a-story pact. Kai Thomas’ first novel, lyrical and layered, illumines the complex ties among Indigenous, Black, and white individuals of the era.

3. The End of Drum-Time, by Hanna Pylväinen

When a charismatic Lutheran minister is sent to northern Scandinavia to convert the Indigenous population, both sides must deal with the consequences, especially when a tribal leader experiences a religious awakening. Set in the mid-19th century, Hanna Pylväinen’s tale offers not only exquisite prose and insightful observations, but also fresh perspectives on family bonds, cultural traditions, and religious colonialism.

4. Small World, by Laura Zigman

Great wit and wisdom permeate Laura Zigman’s quirky story of two newly divorced sisters who, looking for a fresh start, become roommates. The siblings are forced to confront fallout from their childhood, when the family struggled to care for a sister with severe disabilities, who died at age 10. Balancing grief with humor, Zigman throws in the sisters’ ongoing frustration with unusually noisy neighbors, who may be running an illegal yoga studio. A delight. 

5. Independence, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 

A Hindu family is thrown into chaos during the 1947 Partition of India. Told through the lives of three sisters, the novel is a captivating tale of family, love, and friendship during heartbreaking times, making it ultimately a story of resilience and courage.

6. Better the Blood, by Michael Bennett

Michael Bennett’s crime fiction debut explores themes of colonization and Indigenous culture by way of New Zealand. A serial killer looking to avenge the 160-year-old murder of a Maori chief is pursued by police detective Hana Westerman, whose Maori ancestry makes the case personal. 

7. Master Slave Husband Wife, by Ilyon Woo

In 1848, married couple William and Ellen Craft – both enslaved in Georgia – launch a daring escape: Light-skinned Ellen, disguised as a wealthy white gentleman, travels north accompanied by William, an enslaved servant. Their remarkable journey rivets, as does their subsequent work as lecture-circuit abolitionists who “demanded that others not look down at them, but eye to eye.” 

8. Preparing for War, by Bradley Onishi

A religion scholar and former evangelical youth minister looks at evangelical Christianity in the United States and the movement’s increasing involvement with political extremism. The author argues that the Jan. 6 insurrection was not an aberration but the logical outcome of the melding of politics and white Christian nationalism. 

9. Shirley Chisholm, by Anastasia C. Curwood

Shirley Chisholm became the first Black congresswoman in 1968 and sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination four years later. Anastasia C. Curwood’s stirring biography of the trailblazing politician presents her as a “brilliant strategist, inventive intellectual, and flawed human.”

10. Three Roads Back, by Robert D. Richardson

Robert D. Richardson, who died in 2020, was an acclaimed biographer of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James. In this slim but profoundly affecting volume, he argues that their experiences with grief inspired their enduring contributions to intellectual history – and can serve as a guide for modern-day readers coping with loss as well.

AP

Ukraine officials met Jan. 18 with officials of various countries in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine.

Construction firms around the globe took note last month when the World Bank estimated that postwar reconstruction of Ukraine will cost upwards of $630 billion. Yet even before any “Marshall Plan” for Ukraine begins – and after Russian bombing ends – those companies also know this: Standards against bribery are rising and favoring firms that can prove an internal culture of integrity.

One reason is that international agreements on preventing corruption have increased in recent decades. Law enforcement agencies are cooperating more closely across borders. New rules on transparency in company ownership have opened “more opportunities for effective detection and investigation of abuses by shady actors,” according to watchdog Transparency International in a 2022 report. Two years ago, the United States designated corruption as a top national security priority – with special attention on Ukraine.

The latest Bribery Risk Matrix, which measures bribery risk across 194 jurisdictions, reports “encouraging signs of decreasing tolerance for corruption.” A 2021 global survey of compliance and risk professionals by consulting firm Kroll found 78% say their organization is meaningfully committed to a culture of integrity.

One gold standard to help a company prevent, detect, and respond to a bribery situation is to obtain a special outside audit and earn a certification known as ISO 37001 under standards set in 2016 by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization, which is known as ISO. It sets benchmarks for best practices and a common language for transparent and accountable corporate governance.

The ISO, a body better known for establishing agreements on units of measurement and information security, recently found the ISO 37001 accreditation to be one of its most widely accepted standards. “Transparency and trust are the building blocks of any organization’s credibility,” states the ISO. “Nothing undermines effective institutions and equitable business more than bribery, which is why there’s ISO 37001.”

One example is the recent certification by the Brazilian company Novonor, which owns the giant construction firm OEC. Formerly known as Odebrecht, the firm has a history of bribing to get contracts, which led to scandals across Latin America and felled dozens of elected officials. By adopting the new standard, the reformed company has tried to make a comeback. Like many other construction firms, perhaps eager to rebuild Ukraine, it sees integrity as a better path to prosperity.