During the week of July 4, 2016, two police shootings took the lives of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Philando Castle in Falcon Heights, Minnesota in a matter of two days. The next day, five police officers were killed in a mass shooting in Dallas, Texas. Those incidents sparked protests and discussions about race across the nation, one movement that gained national attention is the Black Lives Matter movement.
The following week, West Virginia Public Broadcasting news intern and West Virginia University student Aaliyah Brown sat down with two leaders in West Virginia’s black communities to talk about the shootings and their effect on the Black Lives Matter movement.
Marjorie Fuller is director of the Center for Black Culture and Research at WVU. The center is a place on campus that provides a cultural support system for African and African American students, faculty, staff and community members.
Jihad D. Dixon is a WVU Student Government Association Senator and past president of WVU's NAACP chapter. Dixon has taken part in protest on WVU's campus demanding racial justices in America. As a student leader, Dixon says he wants to ensure there is equal opportunity for students of color by creating the proper dialogues to implement diversity.
Click below to hear the conversation between Fuller, Dixon and Brown.
