NC documentary shows how BLM activists confront a divide in small town with bloody past

After George Floyd’s death, a racial justice movement emerged in central North Carolina’s Alamance County. Protests brought to light the city of Graham’s bloody past as people chanted the name of Wyatt Outlaw, the city’s first Black elected official who was lynched by the KKK in 1870.

As the 2020 presidential election approached, Black community activists were stymied by law enforcement and targeted by pro-Confederate vigilantes. 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.

Alamance County’s long history of violently suppressing Black political action makes it a bitter battlefield with an uncertain future and provides a rare view into the fight for justice in small-town America.

Read Sound of Judgment here.

This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 9:30 AM with the headline "NC documentary shows how BLM activists confront a divide in small town with bloody past."