CONNECT, a yanasisters publication (FALL 2021)

Why I Protest (The Bigger Picture)

by Lauren James When I was little, I had plenty of fears: monsters under the bed, the dark, spiders, and, honestly, a lot more.

But one of my biggest fears was history, specifically, the history of Black people in America. My mom and dad often bought children’s books that told stories of civil rights heroes and slavery, but these books terrified me. Bad dreams came after reading each one. Knowing that the color of my skin — the same color as Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks — could one day be my worst enemy was terrifying for my five-year-old self. Eventually I got over this fear and began to embrace African-American history because, unfortunately, our school systems fail to teach it to us.

George Floyd’s death sparked a revolution. After I sat down with my family to watch the gut-wrenching 10-minute video, I escaped to my room and cried. As a Black girl who attends a mostly-white private school in the heart of the south I 8