June 16 — Youth Day in South Africa — commemorates the day in 1976 when black youth in Soweto rose up against the apartheid regime.

In the U.S., it is stunning that we are still dealing with racial issues that should have been resolved a long time ago. On the education level, despite the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, schools remain lopsidedly racially and ethnically segregated. The black-white achievement gap remains unacceptably large.

Is it because, unlike South Africa, the United States has never had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that forced the nation to confront its past?

Is it because the victories of the civil rights period, and laws ostensibly guaranteeing racial equality, have allowed the majority of Americans to convince themselves that racism has ended, absolving themselves of having to do anything further?

Now, modern technology is making it impossible to ignore some of the most obvious manifestations of racial bias and raw racism in the U.S. — most blatantly in the confrontations that have taken the lives of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd in recent weeks.

One of the most positive developments in the U.S.  is that young people are emerging as a prominent force in the most powerful protest movement since the 1960s.

If young people had not risen up in 1976, Nelson Mandela might have never become president, and apartheid might still be in place, or its demise at the very least delayed.  I am hoping that young people, less burdened by entrenched attitudes and vested interests than their parents’ generation and those before them, will similarly take the lead here. And that, one day, we will also celebrate a Youth Day to commemorate their contributions to achieving racial justice in the United States.

Read the full article about youth-led protests by Louis Freedberg at EdSource.