Heyburn Lecturer Elizabeth Hinton Discusses Race and Protest

Acts of rebellion and resistance in American social movements have received vastly different responses from police and mass media—according to the race of the the protesters—since the foundations of the country, this year’s Heyburn lecturer, Elizabeth Hinton, told Milton students in November.

Hinton, an author and Yale professor who researches poverty, racial inequality, and urban violence in the United States, described the history of Black protest movements and their characterization as “riots,” even when they were peaceful in origin. To understand the disproportionate response to Black social movements, she said, we have to look at the history of policing in America and its roots in racial oppression.