Arbery death case unveils new concerns, old wounds for black joggers

‘I never have a time when I run in complete peace,’ one runner says

Ja'Ell Pope runs five miles about three days a week. Until recently, he jogged in South Fulton, where he said people would "throw up a hand to wave or nod" when they encountered him. He now lives in Forsyth County, and his regular jogs no longer feel so friendly. "People seem more aware of me. And they seem more afraid of me." These days, he and other African American athletes jog with the Ahmaud Arbery case in mind.- Asia Burns Reporter - Video by Ben Grey - Edit Tyson Horne/tyson.horne@ajc.com)

The Big Creek Greenway in Forsyth County is flat and easy on the knees. The path is wide, paved and teeming with life at this time of year. Ja’Ell Pope visits on average three times a week and runs up to five miles.

Just as the sun is rising, he stretches and begins an easy jog. Then, he explodes into a run.

“The track can be really lonely,” he said, “because it extends for miles.”

Until recently, Pope jogged in South Fulton, where he said people would exchange greetings with him as he went by.

“When you meet people in passing, you throw your hand up to wave and nod or something like that,” he said. “On the south side, it would usually be reciprocated.”

It is less so now, he said. Pope is one of many black joggers experiencing distress about navigating a world inundated with racial tension – distress he says is renewed by the death of Ahmaud Arbery.

AJC photo: Ben Gray

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Arbery was fatally shot Feb. 23 after encountering Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis McMichael, 34. The men, who are white, told authorities they suspected Arbery, who was black, of burglaries and that he became violent when confronted. Arbery’s family said he was jogging in the McMichaels’ neighborhood at the time.

The GBI announced the arrests of McMichaels, a father and son, on murder and aggravated assault charges within 36 hours of becoming involved with the investigation earlier this month. William “Roddie” Bryan, who filmed the cellphone video that captured the encounter that left Arbery dead, was charged last week with felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. The suspects are being held without bond at the Glynn County jail, with preliminary hearings scheduled for Thursday.

Pope says anxiety over the case follows him on jogs now, as palpable as the sound of his shoes smacking the pavement.

“I never felt dismayed by it,” he said. “But now there is more respect as well as more fear.”

Experts say Arbery’s death points to a troubling mindset that can separate white Americans from African Americans: the myth of where a certain category of people belong, and where they don’t.

“It comes from being in an environment where the legitimacy of your presence is a question,” said Morehouse College professor Illya Davis.

The mindset isn’t unique to joggers who are black, Davis contended, pointing to other recent incidents of what he calls “anti-black racism.”

George Floyd, a black man, died after he was pinned down by his neck for minutes during an encounter with a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A video of the incident pushed the case to the front of headlines and sparked widespread outrage.

The video shows the 46-year-old cuffed behind his back while an officer pushes his knee into Floyd’s neck. Later in the video, a limp Floyd is shown being lifted onto a stretcher by paramedics and loaded into an ambulance.

Outrage over the case has led to nights of rioting in Minneapolis.

A protester carries a U.S. flag upside, a sign of distress, next to a burning building Thursday, May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis. Protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody Monday, broke out in Minneapolis for a third straight night. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

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In New York, a white woman was fired from her job after a video emerged of her calling the police on a black bird-watcher in Central Park on Memorial Day. Christian Cooper said the exchange happened after he asked the woman, Amy Cooper, to put her dog on a leash. (The two happen to have the same last name and are not related).

Davis said the Central Park case points to a “socialized assumption of one’s own value as a white person, versus the lack of value of a black man.”

“Calling the police, that’s out of privilege,” Davis said. “That the person they are referencing doesn’t have a particular right to be where they are.”

Alan Campbell said that sense of being questioned has been present throughout all of his life.

“Growing up we saw a lot of stuff like that – not so much ‘in your face’ racism, but tension,” Campbell said.

Campbell grew up in Dixie, a Georgia city just 15 minutes north of the Florida state line.

“There was nothing to do but run and play basketball and do country stuff because we lived on a dirt road,” he said.

He and his brother and sister grew up running. He recalls being a teen, when he and his friends on the high school basketball team were training for a 5K run. While on a trail, a truck passed them.

“And there was a group of white guys in it with a Confederate flag,” he said. The teen athletes ignored it and continued running, Campbell said. But then the truck turned around, seemingly for no reason.

“When the truck turned around, we just scattered,” he said. “I heard about (Arbery’s death) and it just brought me back to that. I wondered if there are still things happening like that. Like if kids are having to scatter because they know they can be killed. We shouldn’t have to go through that Emmett Till-type of trauma.”

Campbell, who now lives in the Atlanta area, said he still feels the need to relieve tension when passing through predominately white neighborhoods for a jog.

“I slow down my speed to not make people feel like I’m a threat while I’m exercising,” Campbell said.

Pope said the paranoia that someone could assume he is up to no good because of his skin color is a running partner whenever he ventures to the trail.

“I never have a time when I run in complete peace. The thought that someone might just shoot me crosses my mind,” he said. “It is difficult because you never know who is who. You want to approach everyone equally, but you never know who could be radical.”

AJC photo: Ben Gray

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Davis wonders why it seems the onus of relieving racial tension falls so often on a black person’s shoulders.

“I’m not required to perform my humanity to prove it to anyone,” he said. “I’ve not seen people make a concerted effort through our institutions to address this as a serious matter. They wink at it, but nothing profound happens. It is always a response to it and thinking you can preclude future occurrences by saying ‘that’s not nice.’”

Campbell has a means of coping with such stress: Keep running.

“I exercise a lot,” he said. “That’s how I get my clarity.”