Running while Black is a sardonic description of racial profiling experienced by Black runners in the United States [1] and Canada. [2] In the United States, jogging gained popularity after World War II, and has largely been portrayed by American media as an activity typically engaged in by White people; joggers of color are treated with suspicion. [3] Black runners report taking precautions such as wearing bright colors to appear non-threatening, avoiding running outside of daylight hours, running in groups for safety, and avoiding running fast enough to appear to be "running away from something." [4]
In 2021, Lyndsey Hornbuckle found that the issue was particularly common when Black people were running in White neighborhoods, and especially higher socioeconomic White neighborhoods. [5]
Sonia Sanchez's 1968 play The Bronx is Next includes a scene in which a White police officer arrests a Black person for running while Black. [6] The 2001 US Supreme Court case Illinois v. Wardlow , which upheld the legality of a police search of a person based on the person running from police, has been described by civil libertarians as creating a new criminal offense of "running while black." [7] [8] Examples of racial incidents due to "running while Black" also include the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, [9] [10] [11] the 2015 arrest of Jimmy Thoronka in London, [12] a 2019 incident in Vancouver, Canada, [13] and the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, U.S. [14] [15] [16] [17]
The Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is the municipal police department of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Dating back to 1784, the BPD, consisting of 2,935 employees in 2020, is organized into nine districts covering 80.9 square miles (210 km2) of land and 11.1 square miles (29 km2) of waterways. The department is sometimes referred to as the Baltimore City Police Department to distinguish it from the Baltimore County Police Department.
Opened in 1969, Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison (GDCP) is a Georgia Department of Corrections prison for men in unincorporated Butts County, Georgia, near Jackson. The prison holds the state execution chamber. The execution equipment was moved to the prison in June 1980, with the first execution in the facility occurring on December 15, 1983. The prison houses the male death row, while female death row inmates reside in Arrendale State Prison.
Benjamin Lloyd Crump is an American attorney who specializes in civil rights and catastrophic personal injury cases such as wrongful death lawsuits. His practice has focused on cases such as those of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, George Floyd, Keenan Anderson, Randy Cox, and Tyre Nichols, people affected by the Flint water crisis, the estate of Henrietta Lacks, and the plaintiffs behind the 2019 Johnson & Johnson baby powder lawsuit alleging the company's talcum powder product led to ovarian cancer diagnoses. Crump is also founder of the firm Ben Crump Law of Tallahassee, Florida.
The American city of Baltimore, Maryland, is notorious for its crime rate, which ranks well above the national average. Violent crime spiked in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray on April 19, 2015, which touched off riots and an increase in murders. The city recorded 348 homicides in 2019, a number second only to the number recorded in 1993 when the population was nearly 125,000 higher.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people and to promote anti-racism. Its primary concerns are police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people. The movement began in response to the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Rekia Boyd, among others. BLM and its related organizations typically advocate for various policy changes related to black liberation and criminal justice reform. While there are specific organizations that label themselves "Black Lives Matter", such as the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, the overall movement is a decentralized network with no formal hierarchy. As of 2021, there are about 40 chapters in the United States and Canada. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" itself has not been trademarked by any group.
On April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr., a 25-year-old African American, was arrested by the Baltimore Police Department for possession of a knife. While in police custody, Gray sustained fatal injuries and was taken to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center. Gray's death on April 19, 2015, was ascribed to injuries to his cervical spinal cord.
On April 12, 2015, Baltimore Police Department officers arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African American resident of Baltimore, Maryland. Gray's neck and spine were injured while he was in a police vehicle and he went into a coma. On April 18, there were protests in front of the Western district police station. Gray died on April 19.
Marilyn Mosby is an American politician and lawyer who served as the State's Attorney of Baltimore from 2015 to 2023. Mosby gained national attention following the killing of Freddie Gray in 2015, after which she led a highly publicized investigation and unsuccessful murder prosecution of the police officers who arrested and transported Gray.
"Hell You Talmbout" is a 2015 protest song by Janelle Monáe and the members of her Wondaland artist collective, including Deep Cotton, George 2.0, Jidenna, Roman GianArthur, and St. Beauty.
Brittany N. Packnett Cunningham is an American activist and the co-founder of Campaign Zero. She served as executive director for Teach for America in St. Louis, Missouri, then as a member of President Barack Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
S. Lee Merritt is an American civil rights lawyer and activist, most known for his work on racial justice issues.
On February 23, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was murdered during a racially motivated hate crime while jogging in Satilla Shores, a neighborhood near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia. Three white men, who later claimed to police that they assumed he was a burglar, pursued Arbery in their trucks for several minutes, using the vehicles to block his path as he tried to run away. Two of the men, Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, were armed in one vehicle. Their neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, was in another vehicle. After overtaking Arbery, Travis exited his truck, pointing his weapon at Arbery. Arbery approached Travis and a physical altercation ensued, resulting in Travis fatally shooting Arbery. Bryan recorded this confrontation and Arbery's murder on his cell phone.
The Talk is a colloquial expression for a conversation black parents in the United States feel compelled to have with their children and teenagers about the dangers they face due to racism or unjust treatment from authority figures, law enforcement or other parties, and how to de-escalate them. The practice dates back generations and is often viewed as a rite of passage for black children.
This is a list of protests related to the murder of George Floyd that took place in Maryland, United States.
A series of George Floyd protests took place in Georgia, United States, following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. 11 consecutive days of protests and rallies occurred in Atlanta through June 8, 2020. Through July 2020, protests occurred in twenty various cities and communities in the state.
Devin Allen is an American photographer, photojournalist, and activist based in Baltimore, Maryland. He gained national attention after the Freddie Gray protests in 2015, when his documentary photograph entitled "Baltimore Uprising" was published as Time magazine's May 2015 cover photo. His documentary photo of the George Floyd protests was published as Time's June 2020 cover.
Many artworks related to the Black Lives Matter movement were created in Portland, Oregon, United States, during local protests over the murder of George Floyd and other Black Americans. Oregon Arts Watch contextualized the artistic works, stating that a "whitewashed pre-COVID lens" on American life, which obscured systemic racism, had been "cracked", and describing artists' response to racial violence being brought into the public eye was a "marathon, not a sprint".
We Stand With You is a 2020 mural of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor by artist Christian Grijalva, installed in Portland, Oregon.
A mural of George Floyd was painted by Emma Berger outside Portland, Oregon's Apple Pioneer Place, on June 1, 2020, a week after his death, against the background of the ongoing protests against police brutality. She expanded the mural to show Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and phrases associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. The work was vandalized in August, and repaired by the artist. It was covered by Apple Inc. in December for preservation, then removed in January 2021 to be donated to Don't Shoot PDX.
Linda Jeanne Dunikoski is an American lawyer and prosecutor who serves as a senior assistant district attorney in Cobb County, Georgia. She was a prosecutor of the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal in 2014–2015 and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in 2021.