In Appalachia, United, We’re Not
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In the weeks leading up to Election Day, America watched as tensions rose in big cities and small towns across the country.
In Preston County, West Virginia, a summer of fairly amicable marches and rallies gave way to tense stand-offs between BLM marchers and counter protestors – like one in Kingwood on September 12.
The morning of the rally, West Virginia House of Delegates member Danielle Walker strapped on her body armor under a T-shirt that read “You Can’t Silence Love.” Walker put the vest on for the first time that day at the behest of her volunteer security team, who armed themselves to march alongside her.
Walker is from Monongalia County, next door to Preston, but was invited to the march by local activists and lifelong Kingwood resident Frank Goines. In the weeks before the march, Goines had called local law enforcement agencies to let them know what he was organizing, to assure them.
“I was just trying to make them comfortable, to let them know nothing illegal was going to happen,” Goines said. “I had no intention on doing anything illegal or inviting anyone that was having any intentions on doing anything illegal.”
But Goines’s group of about a dozen white women, a handful of Black locals and a few children weren’t the only ones who gathered near the baseball field in Kingwood that September morning. Across the field, some 50 armed counter protestors gathered with their Trump flags, Make America Great Again hats, loaded rifles in hand and pistols on their hips.
The BLM marchers only made it a block before being surrounded by counter protestors, who shouted racial slurs again and again. Below is what happened that day, as well as reaction from Walker, Goines and the incoming Sheriff-elect, Republican Mo Pritt.
Below is a segment from the November 14, 2020, episode of Reveal, “United, We’re Not.” You can listen to the entire episode here.
<figure class="wp-block-audio"><figcaption>This is a segment from the November 14, 2020, episode of Reveal, “United, We’re Not.”</figcaption></figure>
</figure>The September Black Lives Matter march in Kingwood started with gatherings on either end of the town’s baseball field, BLM marchers on one end, armed counter protestors on the other.
Photo: Jesse Wright/100 Days in Appalachia
</figure>Delegate Danielle Walker says the Kingwood march was the first time she wore her body armor in public, after her volunteer security team saw threats for potential violence that day. Here, she adjusts her hair while putting on the plated vest in her home later.
Photo: Chris Jones/100 Days in Appalachia
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</figure>“I wear [body armor] when I drive. I wear it when I check my mail. I wear it when I take out the dog. It felt like shackles and chains was being placed on my body once again. It breaks my mother’s heart, when she goes to give me an embrace.“
– West virginia delegate danielle walker
</figure>Walker speaks to her son while she wears the body armor that has become part of her daily routine.
Photo: Chris Jones/100 Days in Appalachia
</figure>Frank Goines invited Walker to the Kingwood event. Here, he stands in front of a chapel that was once the schoolhouse his grandmother attended in Kingwood. His family has lived there since his great-great-grandmother – who’d been enslaved in Virginia – moved in the 1890s.
Photo: Chris Jones/100 Days in Appalachia
</figure>Before the September march, counter protestors load their firearms. Many carried loaded rifles, shotguns, almost all of them with a pistol on their hip.
Photo: Chris Jones/100 Days in Appalachia
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