From The 1960s To 2020: Civil Unrest In The Face Of Systematic Injustice

Police arrested more than 4,000 people over the weekend, as protests swept cities across the country.

For many, the moment calls to mind history: the civil unrest of the 1960s and the protests after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968.

Peniel Joseph, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin, says these protests also signal a “generational opportunity” — to acknowledge and address racism and white supremacy within the country’s institutions.

Joseph’s new book is “The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.”

Interview Highlights

On his reaction to the protests over the weekend

“I think like many, I’ve been very saddened by the death of George Floyd and watching that video and then