'Keep calm': A Georgia town calls for unity as it prepares for Black
jogger murder trial
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[October 18, 2021]
By Rich McKay
BRUNSWICK, Georgia (Reuters) - Community
leaders in Brunswick, Georgia, are preaching unity ahead of the trial of
three white men accused of racially motivated murder in the shotgun
death of a Black jogger, anxious it does not stir racial tensions or
violent protests in their small coastal city.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Monday for a trial expected to
draw hundreds of protesters outside the court building. The killing of
25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery on Feb. 23, 2020, sparked outrage across the
country.
"After the trial is over and the bus-loads of demonstrators and media
leave, we still have to live here. We still have to live with each
other," said Allen Booker, who represents Brunswick as the only Black
Glynn County commissioner.
Former police officer, Gregory McMichael, 65, his son Travis McMichael,
35, and William "Roddie" Bryan, 52, are charged with murder and other
crimes. All have pleaded not guilty. They face life in prison if
convicted.
Community leaders are proud that Brunswick, population 16,000, was once
dubbed a "Model City" for the collaboration by local Black and white
leaders to desegregate schools, grocery stores, bowling alleys and other
facilities even as racial conflict gripped other southern cities in the
1960s and 1970s.
But the issue of race is likely to be at the forefront of the trial.
Prosecutors have alleged that Arbery's death was racially motivated.
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Arbery's case, together with the high-profile killings of George Floyd
and other African-Americans in 2020 at the hands of law enforcement
helped fuel months of nationwide protests against racial injustice and
police brutality in the United States.
The McMichaels and Bryan say they suspected Arbery was a burglar and
chased him in pickup trucks as he ran through a suburban neighborhood.
Cellphone video shot by Bryan shows Arbery first tried to run away and
then grappled with Travis McMichael, who was armed with a shotgun and
shot him dead.
Defense attorneys will argue during the trial that McMichael fired in
self defense, but civil rights activists and Arbery's family say it was
another example of a targeted attack on a Black man.
"He was killed because he was a Black man in Brunswick," Marcus Arbery,
Ahmaud's father, told Reuters as he stood in his son's tidy bedroom
holding a portrait sent by a stranger to honor his son.
"There's a God who is watching and he will put this all right," said
Arbery, 58, who plans to largely shut down his landscaping business so
he can attend every day of the trial.
Arbery said he holds back "a feeling of rage," bottled in by the
religious axiom "love thy neighbor."
With a phone that never seems to stop ringing, Arbery's aunt, Thea
Brooks, 37, is organizing demonstrations to take place outside the
courthouse during the trial.
"We want justice, but we don't want conflict," she said standing in her
yard among a half-dozen signs that read "I run with Maud," and "Justice
for Maud."
As some townsfolk fear outsiders could use the protests to stir trouble,
Brooks says her message to everyone is "Keep calm."
KEEPING THE PEACE
Community leaders in Brunswick, a predominantly Black city that is one
of the poorest in Georgia, are embracing a similar message of peace,
conscious that the trial has the potential to rip apart a city that
avoided the violent protests that accompanied the police killings of
Black men last year.
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![](../images/101821PIX/news_a35.jpg)
Marcus Arbery is pictured in his son, Ahmaud Arbery's bedroom with
portraits that were given as a gift after he was slain in Brunswick,
Georgia, U.S. October 11, 2021. REUTERS/ Christopher Aluka Berry
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A group of about 20 white and Black clergy will stand
outside the courthouse every day to help keep the peace among
demonstrators, said community organizer and businessman Cedric King.
"We know that this is a tragedy, but what we don't want is angry
people in front of a camera for three minutes and the spotlight, and
then they leave town," he said. "We're mobilizing to discourage
that. We'll be there."
Among other preparations - the Glynn County school system has
brought in consultants to coach teachers on how to talk about the
trial with students, he said.
And a local group called Community 1st that was formed to work with
the county on social issues has joined the Chamber of Commerce and
business leaders to make a commercial for social media and local TV
with the theme, "We are better together."
'WE'RE PEACEFUL, STICK TO OUR OWN'
Brunswick is about 55% Black, while the surrounding Glynn County is
about 80% white. Economic segregation is acute. While the county is
prosperous, Brunswick has a median income of just $18,000 a year.
Away from the red-brick Victorian-era buildings that define
downtown, many neighborhoods are overrun with dilapidated houses
that have sagging roofs and boarded-up windows.
Across the East River in the mostly white neighborhood of Satilla
Shores, where Arbery was shot, residents are worried about how the
trial will portray their community. Many were reluctant to talk to a
Reuters reporter knocking on doors.
"The world is painting us as racist," said one resident, who
declined to give his name. "Anything I say will be taken wrong, but
we're peaceful, stick to our own."
Rabbi Rachael Bregman from the local Temple Beth Tefilloh synagogue
said that when the trial gets underway, Brunswick will face more
intense scrutiny and must rise to the challenge.
"We need to communicate to the world beyond Brunswick, we need to be
positive. This community is working hard to stand together," she
said.
She said this had been proved by the approach of residents who
demonstrated during bond hearings for the defendants.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Oct/18/images/ads/current/ccaonline_lda050208.png)
When one man came to a demonstration wearing a Confederate flag
T-shirt and seemed to be spoiling for trouble, she said, some in the
crowd went up and told him, "We love you."
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Brunswick, Georgia; Editing by Ross
Colvin and Daniel Wallis)
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