Justice for Ahmaud Arbery Rally: ‘We’re Here To Unify’

By Kelton Brooks Published: October 16, 2021

Justice for Ahmaud Arbery Rally: ‘We’re Here To Unify’

People hold a rally to protest the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man in Brunswick Ga. Georgia's attorney general on Sunday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the handling of the killing of Arbery, who authorities say died at the hands of two white men as he ran through a neighborhood. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

In Summary

About 100 people attended a ‘Justice for Ahmaud Arbery’ rally at the Glynn County Georgia Courthouse to support the family of the 25-year-old killed by three white men while jogging.

The jury selection in the trial for the three men charged in the death of Ahmaud Arbery begins on Monday, but a justice rally for Arbery took place Saturday at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, GA.

At the rally, Arbery’s family and activists insisted that all people unite against the justice system and unite against those who choose to use race as an excuse to kill Black and Brown men, women and children.

About 100 people attended the rally on Saturday, led by Arbery’s aunt, Thea Brooks.

“Today is about us,” Brooks said. “Coming together and fighting for the same thing, and that’s justice for Ahmaud and unity in our community.”

On Feb. 23, 2020, Arbery, 25, was killed while jogging by Travis McMichael and his father Gregory, who were armed and driving a pickup truck near Brunswick in Glynn County. The third person who filmed the incident, William “Roddie” Bryan, followed Arbery in a second vehicle. Arbery was stopped, confronted and fatally shot by Travis.

Arbery’s death was captured in a harrowing video recorded by Bryan as he and the McMichaels chased Arbery.

The three men are charged with nine counts each, including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and other crimes. They told police they chased Arbery in the pickup trucks to keep him within the Satilla Shores neighborhood.

Arbery was recorded on a security camera inside a neighborhood home under construction, which led them to believe he was stealing.

Brooks told ABC News her nephew’s death was a “modern-day lynching.” She said the security cameras at the same construction site Arbery was looking had also recorded others looking around — including white people and children.

“It really makes me feel like, on that day, it was a racially profiled situation,” Brooks said.

The U.S. Justice Department brought federal hate crimes charges against the McMichaels and Bryan in April.

A separate trial for the federal hate crimes is scheduled for February.

“Race will be all over this case,” said Lee Merritt, a civil rights attorney for the Arbery family. “The nation is going to get a front row seat into where culturally Glynn County, Georgia, is in 2021, or where it was in 2020 at the very least.”