The Los Angeles School District has dismissed a high school teacher who was deemed to be too Afro-centric. Karen Salazar was a second-year English teacher at Jordan High School in Watts. Her course material included the writings of Malcolm X, Langston Hughes and the hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. Last week, Salazar spoke at a rally organized by dozens of her former students.

Karen Salazar: “My students are out here, not because of me, you know, and I think that that point was made really clear, that it’s not about me. It’s about them recognizing that this school system for too long has been not only denying them human rights, basic human rights, but doing it on purpose, in order to keep them subservient, in order to subjugate them in society.”