There is a new textbook coming out aimed at teaching middle school students about the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Black Lives Matter” is part of the “Special Reports” series by ABDO Publishing. According to ABDO Publishing’s website, “Black Lives Matter” will discuss “the shootings that touched off passionate protests, the work of activists to bring about a more just legal system, and the tensions in US society that these events have brought to light.”
The book corresponds with an 8th grade reading level but is recommended for students who are in 6-12th grade. ABDO Publishing claims the book is “aligned to common core standards and correlated to state standards.”
A glowing chapter-by-chapter review of the book on “The Feminist Wire” highlights some of the specific topics covered in the book. The book mentions chattel slavery, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, the Rodney King riots, the militarization of police, “cradle-to-prison pipeline,” and, of course, the Black Lives Matter movement.
Allegedly, “The book ends with a short list of ‘essential facts,’ including a timeline of events and a glossary of key terms, testifying to why black lives don’t in fact matter, and perhaps never will, despite the swift charges that are increasingly being sought against new offenders, like the six Baltimore police officers responsible for Freddie Gray’s murder on April 12, 2015.”
M. Shadee Malaklou, the reviewer of the book for “The Feminist Wire,” wrote the book is also appropriate for use in college classrooms:
“Connections like these make the book especially relevant for college educators as well, who might use it as a resource in lower-division courses. In a special topics class I teach at the University of California at Irvine, this text has made it possible for students illiterate in antiblack violence to begin to extrapolate black experiences of historical-structural inequality—overdetermined by the experience of being made fungible—from non-black experiences of ethnic difference without being overwhelmed with academic jargon.”
“Black Lives Matter” was authored by Macalester College professor Duchess Harris and Missouri writer Sue Bradford Edwards. The book also includes an introduction penned by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).
The book is available for preorder on Nov. 1 and will be on sale in Jan. 2016.