#BlackHistoryReimagined, Day 23 — Ahmaud Arbery
In this series, I re-imagine the lives of Black folks gone too soon.
#BlackHistoryReimagined, Day 23: Ahmaud Arbery was born on May 8, 1994, in Brunswick Georgia. A very athletic person, Arbery played football at Brunswick High School where he was known as a star on the field. Upon graduation, he began training as an electrician at South Georgia Technical College. While working on his electrical certifications, he took a job at his father’s car wash and landscaping businesses. A family-centered person, his mother calls him a kind-hearted mama’s boy, but he’s also known as a jokester who can light up any room. Although he did not continue on his sports pathway, he maintains his athletic condition by jogging regularly and playing (and watching) basketball and football with his friends.
On February 23, 2020, Arbery was out jogging when two suspicious armed men began to follow him in a pick-up truck as another man followed in his own vehicle. The men caught up with Arbery and began shouting at him before making direct contact. A struggle ensued before one of the suspicious men fired his shotgun three times. Fortunately, Arbery was not hit. The men fled the scene, but they were later identified and arrested. That June, motivated by the incident, Georgia enacted new hate crimes laws. During his time lobbying for the new laws, Arbery worked on an advocacy project to promote safe outdoor exercise for other Black men. Launched on his 26th birthday, just ahead of his successful legislation-lobbying victory, the campaign, #RunWithMaud, sparked an international wave of Black men (and women) jogging throughout their neighborhoods. The campaign also created a “safe buddy” component that allowed for athletic allies to run with Black folks to serve as detractors in the event of such incidents that Arbery had faced. The project also seeks to raise funds for wrongful suspicion cases, as well as creating a lobbyist group to reform hate crimes laws in states that do not have clear distinctions in those areas.
[#BlackHistoryReimagined is a series of posts that re-imagines the lives of Black folks gone too soon, by writing a story that does not end in their deaths. Throughout this month, I implore you to go on this imaginary journey with me and think of what could have been. The stories are based on the people’s real lives; the ending has been altered to allow them to live out whatever they were actually working on or could have done had they been given more time on earth.]
