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Friday, May 21, 2021

Looking at the racial divide between Black Lives Matter activists and officials in Alamance County, North Carolina

A Confederate monument stands in front of the Alamance County Courthouse in Graham, N.C., on June 29, 2020. Nearby in 1870, the Ku Klux Klan lynched the town's first African-American official. (Photo by Julia Wall, Raleigh News & Observer)
After George Floyd’s death, movements for racial justice arose in places large and small, including North Carolina’s Alamance County, population 150,000, between Greensboro and Durham. "As the 2020 presidential election approached, Black community activists were stymied by law enforcement and targeted by pro-Confederate vigilantes," the Raleigh News and Observer reports. "On the last day of early voting, police used riot enforcement tactics on a crowd that included community elders and children as Confederates watched. Over the past year, dozens of Black Lives Matter activists were sent to jail. Many of the charges were later dropped or dismissed."

The News and Observer, with the help of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, has produced "Sound of Judgment," a video-enhanced report on the movement. Read and watch it here.

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