Photo Courtesy of Twitter (@citybwkga)
Ahmaud Arbery’s family, friends, supporters and local city officials gathered Tuesday for the unveiling of new street signs that honor the life and legacy of Arbery, who was murdered by three bigoted white men in a neighborhood nearby.
Officials in Brunswick, Georgia, Arbery’s hometown, have it to where more Honorary Ahmaud Arbery Street signs will be placed at intersections along the entire length of Albany Street. The first two signs unveiled Tuesday are located by the Brunswick African-American Cultural Center, where a massive mural of Arbery is painted on the side of the building.
The unveiling came the day after Arbery’s murderers, Greg and Travis McMichael (father and son), and accomplice William “Roddie” Bryan all were sentenced to serve time in state prison for engaging in federal hate crimes. The McMichaels were sentenced to life in prison, and Bryan was sentenced to 35 years.
Arbery’s parents, Marcus Arbery Sr. and Wanda Cooper-Jones participated in revealing the new signs, which Marcus said gave his son life.
“It gave my son life,” Marcus said. “When I pulled that sign down, I just think about his whole life. Every time I look at that sign me, and my family, we just going to have to think about his whole life.”
Cooper-Jone’s lawyer Lee Merritt said that the street signs symbolized steps toward healing in the community.
“It also is an acknowledgment that the city had a role in this both as victim and victimizer because it was Glynn county officer, as I mentioned, who empowered these men, these vigilantes, to go after Ahmaud in the first place,” Merritt said. “So, to see the city begin to take steps to begin to try to rectify that means the world to me.”
Brunswick’s former mayor Cornell Harvey said that the signs would remind people of Ahmaud’s tragedy and promote change.
“We did this because we want to always remember what happened,” Harvey said. “You say, ‘Why would you want to remember such a tragedy?’ Because sometimes it takes that to make a change. I am so sorry for the family…but history has seized us.”
Cooper-Jones said she hopes her son’s name and legacy would live on.
While the Arbery family obtained justice through the heft prison sentences, another chapter that remains unopened is with the former Georgia District Attorney Jackie Johnson, who was charged with a misdemeanor for obstruction of a police officer.