10 Outrageous Examples of White People Vandalizing, Threatening Safe Spaces of Black People

Emmett Till's Marker Back in October, the Mississippi’s Tallahatchie River memorial dedicated to 14-year-old Emmett Till was shot up by vandals. Pictures of the desecrated monument were plastered over social media, sparking discussions of how little has changed in America. On Aug. 28, 1955, Emmett was abducted by white men, beaten and shot to death three days after whistling at a white woman in a convenience store. The memorial was erected near the river where his body was recovered. Fred Hampton's Grave As early as March 6, horrible images surfaced online showing a litter of bullet holes defacing the grave of Fred Hampton, founder and leader of the Chicago branch of the Black Panther Party. The 21-year-old activist was a firebrand and a commanding figure in the fight for Black liberation before he was assassinated Dec. 4, 1969. The routine vandalization of the grave site in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, has been faithfully documented via social media by supporters. Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church The vandalism at the historic Greenville, Mississippi, church is one of many acts of hate that have been carried out in Donald Trump's name. On Nov. 1, the church was found engulfed in flames and covered in pro-Trump graffiti and the n-word. The "cowardly act," as Mayor Errick Simmons called it, was quickly determined to be a hate crime. Members of the congregation and the greater public raised nearly $206,000 for repairs in the days following the incident. Ashburn Schoolhouse A historic Ashburn, Virginia, schoolhouse built during the height of Jim Crow was vandalized with racial slurs, swastikas and phallic symbols. The Ashburn Colored School opened in 1892 and served as an educational haven for Black children. But on Oct. 1, an unidentified group came onto the property and left obscene images on the building, which was in the midst of renovations. Historic Indiana Black Church Liberty Missionary Baptist Church was built by former enslaved Black people in 1866 and served as the first Black Baptist church in Evansville, Indiana. On Nov. 24, Thanksgiving Day, vandals wrote "Kill all koons" in chalk on the church's backdoor and "Koons inside" on a van belonging to the historic church. All of this was discovered by members of the congregation the following Friday. This was not the first time the church had received threats. There were threatening messages on the sidewalk three weeks prior. Idaho Black History Museum On Dec. 7, Idaho Black History Museum Executive Director Phillip Thompson discovered the n-word drawn in snow on the roof of one of the museum's buildings. "I'm assuming the action was supposed to hurt my feelings, but it had the opposite effect," Thompson said. He told The Boise Weekly that no other vandalism had been found, but since the incident, a flood of donations have poured in from the public. Dockum Sit-In Vandalism Back in July, Kansas African-American Museum Executive Director Mark McCormick discovered unseemly graffiti defacing the memorial of the historic Dockum sit-in. The statue sits in downtown Wichita and stands as a reminder of the country's continued conflicts over racial equality. In 1958, teenagers staged a three-week sit-in at a Dockum drug store to force the owner to integrate and sell to all races of people. McCormick told KWCH on Dec. 1 that he isn't sure how to prevent future desecration of the statue, but he said the museum is planning another memorial at the actual sit-in site and that they are trying to come up with ways to keep it from being vandalized so easily. Redeeming Life Christian Center On Aug. 22, members of the historic Rock Hill, South Carolina, church housing the first integrated school in the state found the church burglarized and defaced with human fecal matter. A trailer on the property was broken into and parishioners also found a damaged cash register and money stolen. Prior to being called the Redeeming Life Christian Center, it was known as the St. Anne Catholic School. Back in 1954, the school opened its doors to five Black students. Photo by James Borchuck Historic Central Black Business District On May 1 in Tampa Bay, Florida, a Perry Harvey Sr. Park employee found the park's $100,000 public hologram installation dedicated to Black art and culture vandalized and cracked the display by unknown perpetrators. The historic Central Black Business District was once a prosperous area in the same vein as Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the piece stood as a reminder of Black prosperity. The tiles created by Rufus Butler Seder were blown-up photographs depicting street scenes and day-in-the-life moments. International Civil Rights Center and Museum In October, then GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump was denied an opportunity to visit the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina, due to his campaign's blatant racism. Subsequently, the museum holding the F.W. Woolworth whites-only lunch counter was besieged by death threats and acts of violence. This historic lunch counter was the site of the 1960 sit-in forcing the white-owned establishment to integrate and serve Black customers. Now, the counter rests in the museum. “The callers were threatening to come over and burn down the building and to shoot up the building," museum CEO John Swaine told the Raleigh News & Observer.

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