Trey Kay, Todd Melby, Brad Stratton Published

Kingwood March Gives A Unique Look At Racism In America

West Virginia Delegate Danielle Walker speaking with a counter protester at a Black Lives Matter Rally in Kingwood, WV in September 2020.
Chris Jones/100 Days In Appalachia
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2020 presented new levels of outrage over police killings of Black and Brown people in this nation. Police killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor which prompted protests, marches and rallies to denounce racially motivated police brutality.

A Black Lives Matter march in Kingwood, West Virginia set up a flash point for that tiny town. Black protestors and their allies faced off with white people who say Kingwood has no race problem. The angry white crowd outnumbered BLM marchers and showed the raw seam of rage that has come to define racism in this country.

In this Us & Them episode, host Trey Kay speaks with West Virginia Delegate Danielle Walker, a woman pushing back at the fear and outrage of racial hatred in America.

For this episode, Us & Them collaborated with Chris Jones and Jesse Wright of 100 Days in Appalachia, a non-profit news outlet at West Virginia University.
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This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio — tune in on the fourth Thursday of every month at 8 p.m., with an encore presentation on the following Saturday at 3 p.m.

Frank Goines and Danielle Walker

Chris Jones
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100 Days In Appalachia
Kingwood BLM March organizer Frank Goines walks with West Virginia Del. Danielle Walker. Walker wears body armor under her shirt.
Woman and Neo-Nazi

Chris Jones
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100 Days In Appalachia
BLM marcher at the Kingwood Rally passes a counter protester wearing a Nazi SS shirt with a swastika tattooed on his hand. Other counter protesters shouted insults and racial slurs at BLM marchers.
Kingwood Counter Protesters

Chris Jones
/
100 Days In Appalachia
As BLM marchers made their way through the streets of Kingwood, they passed armed counter protestors shouting racial epithets .
Danielle Walker arm in arm with counter protester

Chris Jones
/
100 Days In Appalachia
West Virginia Del. Danielle Walker marches with a BLM activist on one arm and a counter protester on the other in an attempt to deescalate tension during a Black Lives Matter march in Kingwood, West Virginia in September 2020.