Tag: Black Lives Matter

17 West Virginia GOP Senators Condemn ‘Hate Speech’ In Letter To Marshall, WVU Presidents

Seventeen Republican West Virginia senators have penned a letter to the presidents of Marshall University and West Virginia University regarding controversies involving the coronavirus and protests of racial injustice.

In a letter dated Sunday, Sept. 20, Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, and 16 other Republicans from the upper chamber, addressed comments from a Marshall University professor on the coronavirus and the West Virginia University football team placing stickers on their helmets in support of Black Lives Matter. The letter was addressed to Marshall University President Jerome Gilbert and West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee.

“I find it disturbing that West Virginia University and Marshall University resources are being used to promote the very same hate speech that is inciting riots, asssassination of police officers, and denigration of our Republic,” Tarr wrote in the letter. “To this point, West Virginia has been very blessed that our citizens have not accepted this anarchist behavior. That does not mean we are immune to it.”

On Friday, Marshall University officials announced they were putting a professor on administrative leave after she made “overtly political” statements about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In a 44-second video posted to social media, College of Science assistant professor Jennifer Mosher said she hopes those who don’t wear masks die of the coronavirus before the election. Although little context is provided in the short clip, Mosher appears to criticize those who support President Donald Trump.

Controversy has also swirled at West Virginia University over its football team placing stickers with the letters “BLM” on helmets. The letters stand for Black Lives Matter, a protest movement that has swept the nation and world in recent years calling for an end to systemic racism and police brutality.

In the letter, the 17 senators outline the state funding received by each university — noting that West Virginia University receives more than $131 million annually and Marshall gets nearly $63 million each year. The senators go on to refer to Black Lives Matter as a “domestic terrorist group” and said the behavior from the West Virginia University football team and Mosher are “beyond any excuse.”

Dante Stills via Instagram
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A sticker in support of Black Lives Matter can be seen in this cropped photo posted by West Virginia University defensive lineman Dante Stills to his Instagram account.

Those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement have been accused of inciting violence and destruction of property across the nation, although research published in the Journal of Political Communication suggests that protest tactics related to the movement are often perceived differently based on a person’s political affiliation. Additionally, according to records kept by the U.S. State Department, Black Lives Matter has not been designated as a terrorist organization.

All members of the West Virginia Senate’s Republican caucus except three — Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha and Ryan Weld, R-Brooke — signed Tarr’s letter to the university presidents.

Tarr and the others who signed on asked that Gilbert and Gee take “a very public and very demonstrable stance against such use of taxpayer resources” that are meant to better the state.

“The Universities with which you are charged to lead are the flagships of the great State of West Virginia. Please treat them as such, not as vehicles for anarchy or political propaganda,” Tarr and the others concluded.

 

Administrators of both universities responded with statements directed at the letter from Tarr and the co-signing lawmakers.

Marshall University provided a statement from Gilbert, focused on Mosher’s comments and subsequent suspension.

“Marshall University will not tolerate our employees using the classroom or other platforms to express hate toward individuals or wish harm on them because of their political beliefs or other opinions,” Gilbert said. “I personally abhor the actions of individuals who spew hate, intolerance, and incivility. As a university, we believe in respect of all ideas and all people. In terms of this particular situation, as is our practice as a state entity, an investigation has been launched.”

Gilbert also said the university’s chief academic officer will make a recommendation in terms of further action on the matter involving Mosher.

In a joint statement from West Virginia University and the school’s athletic department, officials at the state’s flagship school defended the players’ decision to put the Black Lives Matter stickers on their helmets.

“West Virginia University and its athletics department must ensure a safe and equitable environment for our students and staff. We have an obligation to peacefully stand up against hatred, intolerance and racism,” university officials said in a statement. “Our student-athletes and staff are united to bring about a positive and peaceful change to our great country. As Mountaineers, we would not have it any other way.”

“It’s important for our fans to know that this helmet sticker is not advocating for any organization or any political stance, violence, rioting, looting or destruction. The sticker is a call for unity, safety and equality,” they added.

Officials at West Virginia University went on to clarify that no taxpayer dollars were spent on the Black Lives Matter stickers that were placed on helmets. They noted that each student-athlete on the team voluntarily chose to allow the stickers to be placed.

Retiring Jefferson County Principal Shares Wisdom, Advice After Decades On The Job

 

Debra Corbett always loved education. Coming from a family of educators, it was something she said she always wanted to do. Her mother, aunts and uncles were all teachers.

“I heard a lot about, when the family got together, about school, about kids,” Corbett said. “It made me want to be in education … to somehow support parents and make a difference in student lives.”

Corbett retired this year after 31 years as principal of Ranson Elementary School in Ranson, Jefferson County. Prior to that, she was an elementary school teacher. She said her biggest takeaways in her career are the importance of compassion, to be gentle, to show support to teachers and students and help them see they can succeed.

As Corbett leaves her long career in education, teachers, parents, staff and students across West Virginia begin a new school year in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic.

Nine West Virginia counties started the new school year off virtually this week. The other 46 counties are offering in-person, virtual and hybrid schooling for, at least, the first week of school. That could change next weekend.

Every Saturday night, state officials will update a color-coded map found on the West Virginia Department of Education’s website. The map indicates what schooling options will exist in each county week-by-week. This is how West Virginia is tackling school this year in the face of the coronavirus – taking it one week at a time.

Corbett’s advice to teachers during this turbulent time is to offer comfort to students and be kind to themselves. 

“Just take a deep breath,” she said. “We can’t get everything accomplished in one day. It’s just going to take some time to go through this pandemic time and do the best that we can.”

But another global event has rattled the world this year – a reckoning in racial justice in the United States. People across the country and the world have taken to the streets to protest the treatment of Black people by police. Marches and rallies have been held in recent months demanding change following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police.

Corbett, who is Black, completed kindergarten through sixth grade when schools were racially segregated. 

Ranson Elementary School, Corbett said, is a culturally diverse school with a diverse demographic of students. She said many of her students are Black or English Language Learners (ELL). She said she has tried hard to create a safe environment for students at school. 

“Well, being a Black administrator, it has just opened up my eyes even more,” she said. “With everything going on at this time, I do think of the kids and what they’re seeing on TV, and even what they’re hearing and what they’re experiencing in their family and in their homes, too … [I want] to make sure that they can come to [school] and that they know that they’re in a safe environment, and that they know that someone is there to just listen to them.”

She said it’s more important than ever for teachers to use education to help bridge the gap created by systemic racism.

“Systemic racism – those inherited biases and prejudices of different policies and practices, you know, that have just been handed down, generation to generation – it just doesn’t go away overnight,” she said. “That’s why it’s so important for the teachers to expose the students [to] all types of cultures in their lessons and their reading and in class. And I think that’s one way that we can come together.”

Credit Jefferson County Schools
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Debra Corbett helps students get their breakfast during a summer program in July 2018 called Rising Rockets at Ranson Elementary School.

 

Corbett grew up in Jefferson County and attended Jefferson County Schools, graduating with the last class from Charles Town High School in 1972. Corbett earned her bachelor’s degree from Fairmont State University and began her teaching career at South Jefferson Elementary School in 1976 before teaching overseas for several years.

Corbett earned her master’s degree from the University of Toledo before returning to West Virginia and teaching at Wright Denny Intermediate School. In 1989, Corbett left Wright Denny and was named principal of Ranson Elementary School.

“This experience has truly made me a better person,” she said. “And I will miss it after 39 years with Jefferson County Schools.”

Q&A: How George Floyd Woke The Ohio Valley… For A Little Bit

A longtime community leader in the Northern Panhandle, Ron Scott Jr. was born and raised in a family of community advocates in Wheeling. He founded and directs the Ohio Valley African American Student Association — an organization that “encourages & promotes higher and continued education for Black and Bi-Racial students in the Ohio Valley.” Now he’s the Director of Cultural Diversity and Community Outreach at the YWCA in Wheeling. The mission of the YWCA is, “Eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all.” 

West Virginia Public Broadcasting met up with him to learn about some of the changes he’s seen in his community in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ron Scott Jr. is currently helping to coordinate a multi-year plan to address racial issues across public and private high schools throughout Ohio County. And since the killing of George Floyd began with an altercation over a counterfeit 20 dollar bill, the YWCA has also launched what they’re calling “Change for a 20 Challenge” asking community members to donate a 20 dollar bill and post why they donate in social media channels with #Changefora20. Funds are slated to go to scholarships, and programs and events designed to address diversity, human rights, race relations, and ultimately to cultivate unified community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NubR22EzwU

Glynis Board: The YWCA in Wheeling began in 1906, right? Talk to me about its history of dedication to diversity. 

Ron Scott Jr.: I’ve never seen an agency that has “eliminating racism” in their mission statement. That’s it. And it’s before “empowering women.” “Eliminating racism, empowering women…” They did something — they called it the Blue Triangle, during segregation. There weren’t services for black women and children and families. It just didn’t exist. So they went out of their way to make a separate agency called the Blue Triangle that was affiliated with the YWCA and it just served black women and children and families. It was around for a while through segregation stuff through Jim Crow. And I’m amazed that I never learned anything about that. Or it’s never been celebrated — the bravery of an agency like that back then. Because you weren’t getting rewarded for that sort of stuff, then. You weren’t considered a visionary for doing that. You were just breaking the rules. And now they were on the right side of history. So it’s kind of cool to be affiliated with an agency that has historically been on the right side of history. 

Board: Have you seen an uptick in interest and in people been coming to you for guidance in the wake of George Floyd’s killing?

Scott: Definitely. And me and a good friend of mine, Jermaine Lucius, we’ve been trying to figure out why this is so different, because the act itself — this isn’t new. Especially not to us. This isn’t a new thing. This isn’t a new phenomenon. I think it may have been the combination of the quarantines from the virus, people just being at home, just watching TV, and it dominating the news stories, and nothing else can take your eyes off. There’s no football games and basketball games; there’s nothing to distract you. So they kind of got to see it, and really let it soak in this time. 

And the outpouring and outcry has been incredible to me. I’ve never experienced this kind of outrage from the white community for an issue that, in essence, doesn’t affect them. It’s not like George Floyd was a white guy that was just doing this thing and got murdered. But I’ve been just inundated with, “What can I do?” “How can I make my agency better? My community better?” 

I thought originally I was going to get a week out of this. And so I’m jumping on whenever I can. Whoever asked me anything, I’m on it. And a week passes, and then two weeks pass, and a month passes and people are still asking me, “What can I do?” And they don’t just want to put a little bandaid on. They’re like, “What can we do that is sustaining?” “How can we change the culture of this agency or this hair salon?”  I’ve been speaking to groups that I just didn’t even know, had those kind of concerns.

There was a local hair salon who had an issue that was race related because people were speaking out we’re seeing these things happen and play out in front of us right on TV. So folks bean to speak out and made it tense and uncomfortable in the salon. And the owner asked me to come and speak to all the staff and we just had a great conversation about their views. 

Because I don’t ever go into the situation with, “You’re wrong. Let me tell you why.” And so we just kind of flesh out whatever it is they already think, what they already feel, and who they want to be, and how they want to be perceived by other people. So once we fleshed all that out, we then realize places like salons are social hubs. People come there and get more candid than they do in doctors offices and therapists offices. And so being able to do that kind of a presentation and talk at a place like that, it has a ripple effect. And that’s how real change happens. You know, it’s not me standing in front of the city building with a megaphone. It’s having presentations at like hair salons or community centers, places like that. And all these places are asking, they’re saying, “What can we do?”

Board: Is there a common theme in these conversations?

Scott: Well, there’s an underlying theme that a lot of people that reach out to me seem to be working with: the issue of them being perceived a racist sometimes seems to be worse than being one. So what they want to make sure happens is — I don’t want to do or say anything that might make folks believe that I’m a racist, or I just have no real sensitivity or tolerance to anyone different than me. So it’s almost like they want me to come in and we do some assessment of the idea, like, “I’ve been in the city for a long time, and I’ve had a few black employees, and my roommate in college…” So we go through all of that sort of stuff. And it’s like they’re unsure because they’re seeing how the systematic racism has permeated almost every institution that they’ve loved. And now, it’s like — and I don’t know why now — they just seem to see it clearly. And some of them it scares them; some are in denial about it; and others just want to go to action. They’re like, “We got to fix this. I didn’t realize this is how you felt every day.” And they’re ready to go. So I’m like, let’s go then! I’m not slowing down. Not until they are.

Board: I hesitate to use the word “hope,” but how do you feel about the future? Do you think that with this more substantial sort of movement afoot, that there will actually be tangible policy changes and cultural shifts?

Scott: Right now, I think I’m hopeful for attitude shifts, paradigm shifts in thinking, and  thinking and personalities — those kind of shifts are definitely happening. And I think we’re gonna to be able to see more of it. But I have begun lately to lose some of the hope because there are certain narratives that are like comfortable shoes to people, you know. And the newest one is the idea that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization that has an agenda that just kill random and innocent white people. I’ve had folks tell me that places are just like war zones now like Beirut and, you know, people don’t want to drive through them anymore. And that narrative, people have adopted it. It’s finally given me a little bit of pause where I can see this starting to lose some traction, because people are believing stuff that they haven’t seen. They haven’t experienced it. No one’s even telling them second or third hand. This is just an abstract idea someone’s just saying and they’re like, “Yes. That’s the case. Let me get back to being comfortable and live in my life. And just give me a few blinders. We need some leagues to come back, we need some games to start, we need something. So I could put these blinders back up and go back to business as usual.” 

Because real change is uncomfortable. And for a minute there people were just ready to get uncomfortable. They were ready to hear this conversation. But with this idea that there’s a terrorist group called Black Lives Matter that’s just killing people, randomly and innocent people for no reasons. It just is a ridiculous notion but people are clinging to it. And I think that might slow us down. 

I’ve been explaining to people, the Black Lives Matters and it isn’t even an organization in a sense. It’s a movement. It’s a sentiment. It’s an idea. I mean, yeah, they got a website. They got principles. There’s a founder. But so does #MeToo, but there’s not a #MeToo office or a board of directors for the #MeToo movement that could organize… No it’s the idea of it. And it’s one that resonates when you get it. When you understand that what you’re saying is black lives matter as well, too. Just like my life matters Black Lives Matter as well. Once you wrap your mind around it is such a simple sentiment and it’s so easy to get behind. But when you throw a little dose of fear in there people are ready to put the comfortable shoe back on, like, “Okay, they’re killing people. We’re good. We’re gonna stay in the house.”

Board: Well, what about here in West Virginia? I’m curious… I don’t even know what I’m curious about now. Now I’m just like, sad.

Scott: Don’t be sad. There’s good stuff. There’s still people — like tonight at five I’m speaking to a group in St. Clairsville. That didn’t exist maybe a month ago. All the stuff was going on. One woman had an interest, so she gathered up people who had an interest, and they want to … they just want to have a conversation to see if there’s more that they can learn, or if they can do better, and I love the idea that someone can still be teachable, nowadays. You can be a grown adult with kids, a successful job, and still say, “There’s stuff, I just don’t get still, and you might be able to help me get it.” And that’s fantastic. Because they’re not looking at that as a weakness. They’re just ready to go.

ACLU Receives Documents Regarding Recent Treatment Of BLM Protesters In Martinsburg

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia received documents from the City of Martinsburg Friday afternoon — all related to treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters in late May. 

The ACLU-WV filed a freedom of information act request more than a month ago, and having not received the documents within the legally mandated time frame, filed a lawsuit earlier Friday. The documents arrived thereafter. 

The ACLU-WV filed a lawsuit against the city of Martinsburg in Berkeley County Circuit Court because city officials had notresponded to a public records request submitted more than 50 days ago, according to an ACLU spokesperson. 

Within about an hour of filing the lawsuit, the City agreed to provide the requested documents. The ACLU-WV said they received documents late Friday afternoon related to police treatment of 11 protesters. 

The organization required such records as bodycam and dashcam footage from Martinsburg Police officers involved in the arrest of 11 Black Lives Matter protesters on May 30 and 31. The request asks for names and badge numbers, official procedures when interacting with protesters, and use-of-force policies. 

The request was submitted by the ACLU-WV on behalf of the Berkeley County Unity Coalition, a newly formed group of civil and human rights organizations, educators and faith leaders. 

The group said the 11 arrested protesters were forced to sit in jail with excessively high bails amid a health pandemic, and that officers used excessive force and escalated tensions.  

The ACLU-WV said they aren’t prepared to dismiss their lawsuit until the documents are reviewed.   

The Martinsburg Police Department did not immediately respond for comment.

In an emailed statement from Kin Sayre, Martinsburg’s city attorney, he states the City of Martinsburg replied to the ACLU-WV’s FOIA on Jun. 23, 2020 acknowledging the request and indicating “the City would need time to assemble the data.” 

Sayre also noted “the City has not been served on the lawsuit.”

Kanawha School Board Votes Unanimously To Rename Stonewall Jackson Middle School

The Kanawha County school board voted unanimously to remove Stonewall Jackson’s name from a Charleston middle school.  

Before the 5-0 vote Monday, more than a dozen speakers asked the Board of Education to change the school’s name, including middle school student Camdyn Harris.

 

“I’m speaking for myself, my family, future generations, the West Side and the greater Charleston community as a whole. We are not trying to take away history, but we are moving forward starting today, starting now, for my future, my classmates’ future and future generations,” he said.

Born in 1824 in present-day Clarksburg, Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” was a Confederate general who owned slaves and became one of the most recognizable figures of the Civil War. Sites in more than a dozen states bear his name, including several in West Virginia. 

Nearly half the students at Stonewall Jackson Middle are Black. Discussions are ongoing about renaming the school after influential Black educator Booker T. Washington, a Virginia native, or NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who was born in West Virginia, but the board has until October to formally decide.

The vote came one week after the City of Charleston quietly removed the face of Riflemen Memorial at a park Downtown. The bronze plaque listed the names of local men who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

But in Clarksburg, Jackson’s birthplace, the Harrison County Commission rejected a motion last month to remove a statue of him in front of the downtown courthouse.

Across West Virginia, roughly 20 statues, memorials and other markers still stand, honoring Confederate generals and soldiers, according to data compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

Even two weeks ago, it was unclear whether the school board’s vote would be unanimous. Member Becky Jordon last month said “maybe this is a knee jerk option,” when asked about the proposal. But on Monday, she acknowledged that “times are changing,” while imploring the community to invest time and resources into the school.  

“I had been the most vocal about not wanting this change, I know that,” she said.  Later she added, “let’s step up what’s inside that building. Yeah, we’re gonna change the outside of the name, but we have a lot more changes to do, and you all need to step it up.”

 

Meet The Teen Leading This Kentucky Town’s Discussion of Racism In Appalachia

The courtroom was silent as 19-year-old Dayjha Hogg approached the lectern at a Letcher County fiscal court meeting, stared down a panel of county magistrates, and spoke.

“I know COVID’s going around right now, so just imagine, there’s no COVID, normal society, and imagine you walk around and it’s like you have the plague.” 

Hogg is biracial, and her entire county leadership is White. The Berea College student gripped the lectern to steady herself, and continued.

“People look at you and it’s almost as if, if they stare too long, if they breathe the same air, they’re scared that they’re going to catch the plague. That is just a small, small glimpse of what it was like growing up here in eastern Kentucky as a minority.”

Conversations about police brutality and racial equity are happening across the nation, and rural communities are no exception.

In Letcher County and Whitesburg, its county seat, a racial reckoning is unfolding that is at once peculiar to this rural Appalachian community and inextricably tied to the one unfolding across the nation.

This reckoning came after a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in Whitesburg.

Hogg helped organize the protest, and she had been a little afraid not many people would show up. But roughly 200 people attended in a town of just 1,800 —  in a county where 80 percent of the vote went to Donald Trump in 2016. Democratic State Representative and U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker visited from Louisville to speak at the Friday evening event.

“It was amazing before and afterwards,” Hogg recalled. “We were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we pulled it off, we really did it!”

But the following Sunday, the county’s highest elected official, Judge-Executive Terry Adams, posted on his personal Facebook page denouncing the local event and the national Black Lives Matter protests.

“This is a strange new world we live in today!!!” the executive wrote. “You have a small group of far leftists who want to stir the pot on racism that rarely exists anymore but in their minds. Then you have the majority of the people that have common sense that get pushed into a corner on these nonsense issues.”

“I believe the ones that are always pulling out the race card are the racists,” he said, comparing those who wanted to remove Confederate statues to Hitler.

Dozens of people commented on the Facebook post, defending Black lives, defending Confederate statues, debating whether looting was justified.

When Hogg saw the post, her heart sank. She wasn’t surprised, she said — she had lived with racism all her life. But this time, something was different: Her White friends, even White people she barely knew, stood with her.

At the regularly scheduled fiscal court meeting the next day, about 20 Letcher Countians filed into the bare and echoey courtroom. For a local governmental body that primarily concerned itself with paving roads and repairing water lines, it was an unprecedented crowd, and it touched Hogg that they had shown up in her defense.

The soft-spoken judge-executive looked uncomfortable as he brought the meeting to order.

“I suppose you all are here because of the Facebook post I posted,” Adams said. “I’m sorry if anything I said offended you. I’m just one man.”

And he ceded the floor.

“This is my hometown, so all my life I’ve always empathized with everyone around me,” Hogg said. “I’ve always understood, they’re just uneducated, this is how they were raised, this is how they grew up. But today I have these people here supporting me and wanting me to speak up. And for years, me and my family, and so many people in the Black community, have had to hear these derogatory terms and take them, and accept them, and lay down with them, and day by day it belittles you until you feel less than anyone in your community.”

Hogg shared the daily discrimination she faced in school, saying that her mother always tried to speak to the principal about it, but Hogg wouldn’t let her. Hogg knew that if she was seen protesting the abuse she faced, she would be accused of playing the race card to get special treatment. She said whenever the cafeteria had watermelon, she never took a slice, because it wasn’t worth the taunts she would receive.

“If I have to rip open a scab, dig into an old wound because my friends are here to support me and that’s what it takes to prove that there is racism in Letcher County, then that’s what I’m willing to do.”

Credit SYDNEY BOLES/ OHIO VALLEY RESOURCE
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Letcher County Judge-Executive Terry Adams faced criticism after a Facebook post that was critical of Black Lives Matter protests.

Letcher County is 98 percent white, according to the 2018 American Census Survey, but art and media about Appalachia too often erases the experiences and contributions of Black Appalachians and Appalachians of color. It’s too easy, Hogg said, for racism and discrimination to be swept under the rug.

Tanya Turner, a local white resident and a co-host of the popular Trillbilly Workers Party podcast, also spoke, asking the court to remedy the damage caused by Adams’ post.

“I think since words have been used by people on this court to divide people, I hope that there are some real solid actions taken by this court to change that narrative,” Turner said. “This court could release a statement of solidarity in support of Black lives. That is the minimum that we could do.”

The court has not yet released such a statement.

Small-Town Policing

Turner also raised concerns about the police presence, a touchy topic in the small community.

“This is a town with six police officers, yet there were probably 20 police officers downtown Friday night [at the protest,]” Turner told Adams and the other magistrates. “Now, I don’t know why that was, or what the expectation was, but that did not make people feel safe.”

While protestors in many cities, including Kentucky’s largest city of Louisville, have been met with tear gas and rubber bullets, the Whitesburg protest was held with the blessing of local police chief Tyrone Fields, who is biracial.

Still, heads turned when Turner finished speaking and Fields stood up from a bench in the back of the courtroom. “May I follow up, please?” he asked the judge-executive.

Whitesburg had four police officers, actually, he corrected Turner, and he had called in help from other local forces to make sure all the streets to downtown were blocked off after other peaceful protests in Kentucky and around the country faced aggression from right-wing counter protesters.

But Fields also wanted to take a stand.

“It’s safe to say that George Floyd was ⁠—  and I’ll say this as the chief of police ⁠— it’s safe to say that he was murdered. We do know that. They might as well have hung him from a tree. Any police officer that thinks he was not murdered should immediately turn their badge in.”

Adams Responds

Following nearly two hours of comments from the community, attendees reiterated their demands for a statement in support of Black lives and for members of the court to denounce the words of their superior. One by one, each magistrate said he or she disagreed with what Judge-Executive Adams had written.

Adams finally responded with “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

One woman, who had been silent for the duration of the meeting, interrupted. “I’m sorry, I just have to. You’re saying you’re sorry if you offended anyone, but are you sorry for what you actually said?”

Adams’ repeated the same statement, so I pushed him on it in his office a few days later, on Juneteenth.

He chose his words carefully.

“I’ve got a son that’s got Downs Syndrome,” he explained. “And after I get to thinking about that, people say things that sometimes bother me because of him. And I could see the same thing in racism now.”

He became emotional, swallowing back tears.

“If I’ve hurt people’s feelings, I’m sorry. I should not have brought what’s national, going on nationally, and combined it with people wanting to speak out locally.”

Hogg doesn’t think Judge Adams really gets it, but she says the conversation was productive. For now, Hogg says, that feels like justice.

“This little town is making big moves, just like all these other places,” she said.

Behind This Story

Sydney Boles produced this story as part of the America Amplified initiative using community engagement to inform and strengthen local, regional and national journalism. America Amplified is a public media initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Q: What did the people you talked to say about the experience of being interviewed for public radio?

With the exception of Judge-Executive Adams, who seemed very uncomfortable having me in his office, everyone I spoke to for this story was elated to share their experience confronting racism in their hometown. Dayjha Hogg, the protagonist of this piece, said something that stuck with me: “I never thought my experience was that important or interesting, but now with all these other people listening to me, I guess it must be.”

Q: What surprised you about this type of community engagement?

It was joyful! The vast majority of the stories any journalist writes are negative— which makes sense. It’s our job to make sure people know what’s going on in their communities, whether it’s political corruption, environmental harms, or any number of things. But when the status quo is the silent acceptance of injustice, joy becomes newsworthy.

Q: What lessons do you have for others who want to do the same?

Local governance meetings remain a timeless method of taking the pulse of your community.

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