Abstract
The questions that this chapter addresses have their origins in the murder of a young man. Stephen Lawrence was killed on 22 April 1993 as he waited at a bus stop in South London with his friend, Duwayne Brooks. What prompted a group of White youths to attack him was the colour of Stephen’s skin. Stephen was stabbed to death because he was Black (Macpherson, 1999). Although the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence is by no means unique, there is no doubt that it is this case which has received the greatest media attention and resonated most with people across ethnic boundaries (Cottle, 2004). This is due in no small measure to Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, who exhibited extraordinary resilience in seeking justice for their son and mounted a campaign to that end. While they faced innumerable obstacles, including a flawed police investigation that prevented Stephen’s murderers from being successfully prosecuted, their patience and persistence did eventually pay off. They persuaded the incoming Labour government in July 1997 to set up a judicial inquiry into the police investigation of their son’s murder, and subsequently two people have been convicted of Stephen’s murder and been sent to prison.
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Pilkington, A. (2014). The Sheer Weight of Whiteness in the Academy: A UK Case Study. In: Race, R., Lander, V. (eds) Advancing Race and Ethnicity in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137274762_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137274762_13
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