Civic and Community Engagement Commons^™

Mentoring Black Teens During National Pandemics: Mutually Beneficial Service, Temitope F. Adeoye, Myson Burch, Terrell Glenn, Rachel Scarlett, De'shovon M. Shenault

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Black youth face systemic educational and social barriers that impede their development and achievement. Research shows that mentoring equips youth to tackle these barriers and use their racial background as an asset. Additionally, college students have limited opportunities to engage in long-term service to local communities. The Heads Up Teen Mentoring Program was begun in September 2019 to provide local Black teens access to Black role models committed to helping them achieve their goals. We currently serve five local Black teens and pair them with five Black graduate student mentors. We engage in monthly group and one-on-one sessions with our …

Uncivil Disobedience And Democracy: An American Perspective, Walter J. Kendall

The Journal of Social Encounters

From the time of the Athenian democracy there has been the debated question of whether protest and dissent, especially uncivil disobedience to the law was supportive or destructive of a people’s democracy. The debate continues unabated today.

In a recent collection of essays titled Protest and Dissent, Professor Susan Stokes offered an answer to the question Are Protests Good or Bad for Democracy? (Schwartzberg, 2020, p. 269). After considering both possibilities, she concludes, as had James Madison in Federalist 10, that protests “are a natural by-product of freedoms of expression and association which, if curtailed, would threaten democracy itself.”(Schwartzberg, 2020, …

Budgetary Obstacles To Police Reform: The Case Of San Francisco, Hayden Anderson

Master's Projects and Capstones

In response to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement issued a statement calling on cities to Defund the Police. The event sparked a nationwide reckoning that has reshaped the narratives and strategies for remedying the racial bias and police brutality apparent in the criminal justice system. The shift in police reform efforts embraces notions guiding police budgeting decisions. Today's advocates are transforming their approach to police reform to include budgeting decisions by promoting a municipal practice known as police budget reform. This Capstone explores the feasibility of successful police budget reform under current …

Contemporary Black Civil Rights Activism Strategies In East Tennessee: Gaining Economic And Political Power In The Black Community, Lily Joy Crosby

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the contemporary Black civil rights movement in East Tennessee to gain a better understanding of the strategies being employed to mobilize publics. Though an important aspect of the public relations field, in public relations academia there is a lack of research centering on activism. Little has been explored outside of organizational settings, especially since the rise of technology and increased interconnectedness of the world. To learn more about the movement in East Tennessee, the researcher interviewed eight leaders of the contemporary Black civil rights movement across the East Tennessee region. The researcher …