Here are two stories that appear to illustrate backlash against Black Lives Matter, backlash arising in relatively rural places. The first, from CNN, is out of Marshalltown, Iowa, population 27,552, and the second, by CNN, is out of Price County, Wisconsin, population 14, 159.
Here's the lede for the Washington Post story, by Hannah Knowles:
Signs set the tone at the Embrace help centers and shelter for victims of domestic and sexual violence in rural Wisconsin. They declare a “safe space,” prohibit firearms and welcome people who are LGBTQ.
As of this summer, they also include “Black Lives Matter.”
In an overwhelmingly White and conservative stretch of the state, those signs of support for victims of color and their struggles with racism have triggered a firestorm — stoking tensions in towns a couple hours from Minneapolis, where George Floyd died in police custody, and north of Kenosha, where Jacob Blake was shot by officers.
Embrace executive director Katie Bement says she expected “tough conversations” but nothing like this: a parade of board resignations, the loss of $25,000 in funding, the end of valued partnerships with many police departments in the four counties where the nonprofit serves a population of about 90,000. Voters there in 2016 went decisively for President Trump, who has called the Black Lives Matter slogan a “symbol of hate.”
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