Kudos to Philly police for sending recruits to Smithsonian African American Museum | Jenice Armstrong
Kudos to Philly police for sending recruits to Smithsonian African American Museum | Jenice Armstrong
Relations between the cops and black America have always been dicey.
Certain recent, highly publicized fatal encounters between African Americans and law enforcement have only made things worse. That’s why it’s such a good idea that the Philadelphia Police Department now makes a point of sending recruits to visit the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. They’ve taken five classes so far. The hope is that by helping recruits understand the black experience, they can do a better job of policing.
“I’ve always said we don’t always get it right. What we strive to do is to get it better,” said Police Commissioner Richard Ross when I asked him about last week’s trip. “I believe this trip can help some folks understand that.”
A photographer and I tagged along on this visit, which is how we ended up on a lower level of the two-year-old museum last Tuesday as a tour guide detailed the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery. At one point, she began singing the Negro spiritual “Wade in the Water,“ which was used by enslaved Africans to communicate among themselves about their escape plans without letting slave owners know.
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