Let justice for George Floyd be the beginning not the end.
Athletic teams from high school to college to the pros stepped up and out to condemn the death of Floyd by unwarranted police force back in May, flexing the most influential faction of American life.
Much of the public has given up on politics as an agent for change, and frankly there are fewer people holding public office that we truly look up to these days. That has fallen on professional sports.
When the NBA canceled the rest of the 2020 season as the pandemic broke out, it freed household names like LeBron James and stars from teams across the league to use their profile to help shape the Black Lives Matter movement in this country.
Hopefully, more and more coaches and athletes from American sports will also become star symbols for the fight against racial injustice and make their roles a permanent part of their professional and personal lives.
Locally, college coaches not only got their teams to make videos and use social media to express their feelings, they opened up their locker and meeting rooms to let the athletes share their personal heartaches, and most coaches learned things they never knew.
Groups of athletes from across the country joined ZOOM conferences, a first among opposing teams and players in all leagues and all sports. And these meetings need to continue because the sentiment cannot dull, only get stronger and force politicians to act.
Schools should build into their political science and history classes the story of 2020 when COVID 19 made people come together with creative ideas and technologies for the public good.
From Binkley Baptist in Chapel Hill, churches, schools, arenas and stadiums in all 50 states displayed BLM signs and if supremacist elements tore them down, they were back up soon.
It will be very important when schools open again this summer and football stadiums fill up for the first time in two years, those sentiments continue as part of the games through signage, cheers for heroes from all walks of life and silent prayer for those we lost.
Let the multi-racial, -cultural and -lingual faces of America be seen and heard while the heavier lifting behind the scene grows.
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