The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer a year ago sparked a historic wave of global protests and a massive upsurge in the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

Without that movement, Derek Chauvin would likely have never appeared in court, and George Floyd’s family would never have obtained justice. The movement also played a major role in the defeat of Donald Trump, the world’s #1 racist.

But structural racism and police violence is far from over. In Britain, black people are nine times more likely to face stop and search than white people. This rises to 18 times under Section 60, where no reasonable suspicion is required.

The Covid-19 crisis has disproportionately affected BAME communities in a huge way medically and economically, with thousands of preventable deaths and hundreds of thousands more forced into poverty.

Most shamefully, there is the endless list of deaths in police custody – where no British police officer has ever faced prosecution.

Instead of addressing this, the British government responded to the #BlackLivesMatter movement by launching a major racist offensive with a ‘Race Report’ that denies the reality of institutional racism, a Police and Crime bill targeting anti-racists and a wave of legislation attacking refugee and migrant rights.

Go to Stand Up To Racism homepage for more information.

Some suggestions your school could do on May 25th .

Please approach your headteacher now.

a) Lessons across whole school on George Floyd, BLM etc in run up to 25th

b) Whole school – staff and students- coming to playground on 25th and having a mass taking of knee

c) Taking a picture to put on front page of school website to show what kind of school we are  

d) Setting up working party now to plan for a massive anti-racism autumn in school around and beyond Black History Month.

e) Take a whole staff selfie Taking The Knee (as many staff as you can find/persuade) and post it on social media using the above hashtags and @AntiRacismDay