In the final event of the 2024–25 (In)Justice Series on Just Policing, we come back to the core concern of our project: What might it take to create just policing?

Panelists Monica C. Bell (Yale University) and Leesa Kelly (Memorialize the Movement), moderated by Michelle S. Phelps (University of Minnesota Twin Cities) will discuss how scholarship, activism, and community engagement can move us toward a more just future. Through her project Fifty Mothers, Bell transforms interviews into poetry to illuminate how Black American women living on the margins love, fear, hope, dream, ache, wonder, resist, grieve, claim their dignity, and remake their lives. At Memorialize the Movement, Kelly and her collaborators have developed a living archive that collects, preserves, and activates the plywood protest murals created during the Minneapolis uprising in 2020 to ensure the voices and experiences of the community who created them are not forgotten or erased. Together, our panelists will discuss how art ranging from poetry to street art created during protest against radicalized police violence can illuminate our path toward justice.

Image: A child raises a fist at a concert at George Floyd Square on May 25, 2021, a year after George Floyd was murdered. Credit Lorie Shaull via Flickr.