In Solidarity

We share the anguish of our families, our coworkers, and our community as George Floyd’s killing is added to so many others.  We urge all to listen to communities who experience the many forms of violence that have shaped our history and cloud our future.  

We express our gratitude to people around the world who have shared their pain and indignation, and we are reminded that the United States is not alone in its practices of racism and state violence, nor is it alone in the ways communities and individuals respond to it.  From Tiananmen Square 31 years ago to Hong Kong today, to the movements for democracy in South Korea, Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s, to the struggles for majority rule in Southern Africa, and the global struggle against colonialism in the last half century, two things stand out.  We see the boundless capacity for people, organized, to change their world.  And we see that progress is not permanent: the struggles against racism and authoritarianism can never rest.

Center for African Studies
Center for East Asian Studies
Center for Global Studies
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
European Union Center
Lemann Center for Brazilian Studies
Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Center
Program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security
Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program
Illinois Global Institute