Black Lives: Struggle. Still dreaming of racial justice in St. Louis' black neighbourhoods

Fifty years after Martin Luther King’s death, some American cities are still divided along racial lines. The legacy of legalised segregation persists and shapes urban areas like St. Louis. The African-American population is mostly confined to neighbourhoods with high violent crime rates and low wages.

Episode one follows St. Louis activists who are fighting battles old and new: against inequality, poverty, bias, lack of prospects, police abuse, and extrajudicial killings, all problems the African-American community faces every day. We meet activist rapper, T-Dubb-O, Ferguson protester, Dhoruba Shakur, and local protest organiser, Tory Russell. They all describe the bleak reality of living in black enclaves.

“Most of the people out here are not bad people – they are in bad situation,” say, Rev Kenneth McKoy and priest, Jay Kanzler, who hold weekly 'peace walks' to call for an end to violence in troubled neighbourhoods.

We also hear from Gina Torres, whose son, Isaiah Hammett, was killed in a raid on their home by a SWAT team. Some say the young white man received, “the treatment of black people” and died because he hung around black people. 

Black Lives. Struggle; a raw portrayal of life in black communities in the United States.



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