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ATL Track Club to host community conversation about running while Black

The event is being hosted by the Ahmaud Arbery and Atlanta Track Club Foundations on Friday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

ATLANTA — Editor's note: The video above is from a previous report. 

It's been a night and three years since Ahmaud Arbery was hunted down and killed by three white men, and Friday, his mother is heading a community conversation around running while Black. 

The event is being hosted by the Ahmaud Arbery and Atlanta Track Club Foundations on Friday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

"Ahmaud was gunned down in the middle of the street while he was doing not anything wrong," Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery's mother, said before the event. "I wanted to create this foundation so no other Black man would be face with those types of interactions while out on a run. "

Atlanta Track Club said that Arbery's tragic death made them rethink their programs and create a new 5k run in Ahmaud‘s honor. All the funds' race from the run will go to the foundation to be used for mental wellness programs for Black and brown men.

"We have hope in and expectation that will have thousands of people in downtown Atlanta on May 6," CEO of Atlanta Track Club, Rich Kenah, said. "Showing up to make a statement to Atlanta to run in communities around the world that we all stand together and we are recognized and understand the running while Black is a thing.

Friday's event will be held at The Stave Room on Armour Drive, and parking is free at the venue, next door at the Atlanta Track Club offices and on the street. To sign up and join the conversation, hear to the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation website. 

MORE ON THE CASE

In Feb. 2020, Arbery was jogging in a south Georgia neighborhood near Brunswick in Glynn County when authorities said he was chased, shot and killed. Arbery, a Black man, was pursued by three white men: Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan. 

They were convicted of murder just before Thanksgiving last year. While the state trial concluded, the men still had to face the federal charges. They were later imprisoned due to Georgia's minimum sentencing guidelines. 

Testimony in the hate crimes trial included the recollections of neighbors and investigators, forensic and autopsy evidence and the viciously racist and, at times, violent texts and social media posts of Travis McMichael, along with racist communications by Greg McMichael and Bryan.

Some of the evidence in the trial, including racially-charged texts and social media posts, presented during the federal trial wasn't included in the state trial.

Arbery’s family also filed a federal lawsuit on the first anniversary of his death, which also claimed the men violated his civil rights.

   

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