NORTH ELBA — Approximately three dozen participants took part in a silent snowshoe excursion through the woods of the John Brown New York State Historic Site in memory of Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, who was killed on Feb. 23, 2020, while jogging.
The event, titled “Snowshoe for Maud; We Remember Ahmaud Arbery” and sponsored by John Brown Lives!, is in its third year. The occasion is intended to draw attention to Maud and other Black people who have been unnecessarily killed.
One of the organizers, JBL Arts and Cultural Programming Director Anna Forsman, led the group in a moment of silence and reflection.
“It was so pristine, so peaceful,” she said of the day.
Another organizer, Ren Davidson Seward, created the Memorial Field for Black lives, which had been installed in 2021 around the farm’s statue of John Brown and an African American boy. The display contained placard-like tombstones, which depicted the names of Black men, women and children as well as civil rights activists killed at the hands of mobs or by those in law enforcement.
The memorials, dating back over a century, provide details of the incidents that prompted, in many cases, the gruesome deaths. Among the epitaphs was that of Maud.
MAUD’S DEATH
On Feb. 23, 2020, Arbery was jogging through Satilla Shores, a neighborhood close to the city of Brunswick, Georgia. Three white men, who later claimed to police they assumed he was a burglar, pursued Arbery in their trucks for several minutes, using the vehicles to block his path as he tried to run away. Two of the men, Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory McMichael, were armed in one of the vehicles, while their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, was in another.
According to evidence brought up at a trial, after overtaking Arbery, Travis McMichael exited his truck and pointed his weapon at Arbery. When Arbery approached him, a physical altercation ensued, resulting in Travis McMichael fatally shooting Arbery. Bryan recorded the confrontation and Arbery’s murder on his cell phone.
On Aug. 8, 2022, Travis McMichael and Gregory McMichael were sentenced to life terms for committing a federal hate crime. Travis McMichael received an additional ten years and his father an additional seven.
Bryan was sentenced to 35 years in prison.