MARYLAND, USA — A name that rings bells will sound off alarms in Maryland in a new alert system initiative to bring awareness to racially charged hate crimes.
The "Emmett Till Alert" is named after a 14-year-old boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The lynching ignited a flame in the civil rights movement after Till's funeral had an open casket to show the brutality of the incident.
The new alert system is set to work similarly to an Amber Alert, which allows the community to know when a child is considered endangered missing or abducted. The "Emmett Till Alerts" allow for African American leaders in the state of Maryland to be alerted when there has been any racial incident or hate crime in the state. Currently, the alerts are sent to 167 Black elected officials statewide, national civil rights organizations, clergy and other key people.
The first-of-its-kind in the nation alert was announced Monday afternoon at a press conference held at a church in Gambrills, Maryland.
"Starting today, when there is a hate crime in Maryland, no matter whether it occurs in Annapolis, Baltimore, Cumberland, Districts Heights, Easton, Federalsburg, Glenarden, Hagerstown, Indian Head, Kensingston, Laurel, Manchester, New Carrollton, Ocean City, Perryville, Queen Anne, Rockville, Somerset, Takoma Park, Westminster, Upper Marlboro or your neighborhood we will know it," Carl Snowden with the Caucus of African American Leaders said in a Facebook post.
The alerts will have three different levels: low, medium and high. The highest level means there is a high possibility of violence or death.
"When the FBI director says, as he has said often, that the greatest domestic terrorism threat is white supremacists, we should take that very, very seriously," Snowden said.
In recent months, historically Black colleges and universities across the country, including in Maryland, were targets of bomb threats. At the beginning of this year, in March, three students at a Frederick County middle school made social media posts threatening to shoot their Black classmates, which lead to them facing hate crime charges.
Awareness about these types of incidents will now have a platform in the state. The first alert was sent out to users Monday to notify them that the system was officially up and working.
According to Snowden, this project is privately funded through donations. The cost is around $6,000 per year to run the system.
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