Two Trump-voting half-brothers in Pa. coal country, black and white, say they're on a mission to fight local racism

Andy Barrow and "Stosh" Webb Jr. (Photo by Matt Smith)

Andy Barrow and his younger half-brother Ronald Stanley "Stosh" Webb Jr. have much in common: They were born in Schuykill County, Pennsylvania, voted for President Trump, and are combat veterans and firefighters. But Barrow is white and Webb is black. And now the brothers say they're on a mission to combat local racism in their coal-country town, Jen Kinney reports for WHYY in Philadelphia.

Webb said he had overheard and seen racist behavior in Schuykill County, but had never been blatantly confronted with it until one night in July 2019. He and some buddies went to a firefighter bar for their weekly meet-up. Such bars are common in the region; they're semi-private bars that usually require a small membership fee to help fund volunteer fire departments. At the Port Clinton Fire Co. bar that night, the bartender recommended that Webb listen to a racist country music song whose title includes the N-word, Kinney reports.

Schuykill County
(Wikipedia map)

Webb and his friends left, he said, but noted that Port Clinton's volunteer fire chief was present and didn't intervene. Webb and Barrow were furious, both at the bartender and at the fire chief for not speaking up, Kinney reports. They complained, but the bartender wasn't fired.

"Now, these model 'Skooks' have become unlikely champions for so-called 'cancel culture,' on a mission to hold their neighbors accountable for racism they say has been too easily overlooked, both past and present," Kinney reports. "Their campaign has brought the issue into local public debate in an election year that feels, to many voters, like a referendum on President Trump’s treatment of non-white communities."