Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The defendants readily agreed to go looking
for Mexicans
to beat up
The gunman walked into the crowded museum early this afternoon and immediately began shooting
We received a call of shots fired near the church
Nine people were injured during the course of this incident
A hate crime occurs nearly every hour of
every day
While hate violence makes headlines
the actions of people in communities across the country
are creating a different story
They are part of a movement called
Not In Our Town
When they attack one of us, they attack all of us. We will protect our friends, our neighbors, our community, and we will do it together
Coming up in this program
stories from Not In Our Town and lessons learned from the filmmaker who was chronicling it
plus new online tools for connecting people who are making their towns safe for
everyone
Thousands of people are victims of hate crimes every year in this country
and for every documented attack
dozens more go unreported. "Our main concern
is public safety, and your
safety is..."
Attacks based on bigotry not only harm the victim
they can have a terrorizing affect on the whole community
"You can't go around living in fear every day
and I refuse to do it
This is the why I see that people are starting to realize the importance of
banding together and saying
'We will not have this.'"
In town halls, schools
and houses of worship
people are joining together to make their communities safe from hate violence
The story of Not In Our Town
began with a series of hate crimes in Billings, Montana
when skinheads intimidated an African-American church
Local residents took turns to standing watch over the congregation
When the home of a Native-American family was targeted with racist graffiti
members of the local painter's union volunteered their time to paint over it
And when a brick was thrown through the window of a 6-year-old Jewish boy's room during
Hanukkah
10,000 people displayed menorahs in their windows
After viewing the Billing story in the PBS documentary, "Not In Our Town"
people across the country were inspired to find their own ways to deal with
intolerance in their communities
"We could never have predicted the power of
the story
The people of Billings laid out a model
for what you can do to address hate and bigotry
and then communities around the country decided to build on that."
Patrice O'Neill and her film team
have been covering the positive stories of communities uniting for over fifteen years
"I saw what was happening and
we realized we had to document these stories
and share these new and innovative actions from these communities
They showed us that it's possible to address the damage of hate
and it is possible to create an atmosphere where people can feel safer