By: DaJuan Edwards

Dr. Ricky Jones’ Project Progress examined race relations at a panel of experts in the Louisville community at an event entitled “Before Bombingham and Beyond Trayon” last Tuesday.

The panel consisted of Anthony Smith, Louisville’s Project Safe Neighborhoods director, Brandeis School of Law’s Professor Enid F. Trucios-Haynes and Louisville Metro’s Chief of Police, Steve Conrad. University of Louisville students, mostly law and mostly African-American, Central High School students and U of L professors and staff attended the packed room in the Brandeis School of Law.

The turnout was great, some people jokingly blamed the free lunch that was provided being responsible, and the words spoken were very impressive. Moderator Professor Laura McNeal, set the mood of the event with a quote that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote while serving time in a Birmingham Jail. King wrote, “Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust on its application.”

A problem that has existed in United States since its creation is laws and people of the minority being abused to benefit the majority.  Though this country has seen a lot of change on the surface that most citizens felt could not have happened, like the electing of President Barack Obama, times really haven’t changed much.

While only briefly covering the Birmingham church bombing in 1963 and Trayvon Martin’s case 50 years later, they mainly focused on remedying the problem. With Professor Trucios-Haynes and Smith being non-white and not cops, they came under less fire then Chief Conrad, yet he handled himself and the topics posed with understanding and empathy towards those feeling the realities of our unjust society.

Conrad mentioned that with 1500 employees, and roughly 1200 being police officers, they don’t always do the right thing. But, all of the panelists believed that the change has to come more from the community than the government. Conrad said “We have unacceptable levels of crime in our community and we’re going to keep doing what we do. And if all we do is what we’ve always been doing, what we are going to get is what we’ve always had. I’m convinced that we can do better in our community.”

Racial equality and crime may always be a problem, yet we still can improve and this event proved it to be possible.