Next Generation Leadership

Everyone is talking about structural racism. It's an important, intimidating, sometimes confusing, and huge topic. Let's get our arms around what it is—and how it's different from behavioral racism.

by Dana Mariani-Lada

Photo Credit: National Museum of African American History & Culture

Photo Credit: Shelah Marie

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Palo Alto City Library

In October 1998, Matthew Shepard was found nearly dead, hanging from a fence just outside of Laramie, Wyoming. Matthew was 21 years old. His murderers said that he made sexual advances toward them. They robbed and brutally beat him. Matthew died of his wounds six days later in a Fort Collins, Colorado hospital.

Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution

11:19

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, and National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman.