Demonstrations that began after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police have now spread beyond urban centers to outer suburbs and small towns in all 50 states. 

High school and college students, their academic pursuits slowed by the pandemic, are responsible for organizing many of the rural protests and injecting urgency into the cause. Their desire to promote racial justice in small towns—defying threats and derision from counterprotesters who they know as classmates, co-workers, and neighbors—reveals an audacity that experts in social movements predict could deliver historic change.

Around 350 students and 30 faculty members returned to Texas Tech University this week, resuming in-person classes for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic closed the campus in March. 

As one of the first major universities in the state to reopen its doors to students during the pandemic, Texas Tech is a test of what a large-scale collegiate return could look like this fall.

Led by infectious disease experts from its School of Medicine, the University of California San Diego has developed one of the nation’s most detailed plans to welcome some students back to its campus in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego.

But with virus cases rising across the state of California, administrators are unsure it will be enough.