How hate groups target vulnerable people. [inaudible conversations] welcome, everyone, to the Commonwealth Club california. Just a quick housekeeping, of course, if you have anything that mix noises cell phones, beepers, husbands, whatever if you could just put them on silent for the rest of the program. Of course, recording this for tv and podcast, so we appreciate the nonbeepingness. And now i would like to turn it over to our, my ecohost and the person whose name is on the show, michelle meow. [laughter] thanks so much, john. Thank you. Welcome to michelle meow show. If youre here for the first time, its your az covering the ag, l, m, n, o, p and everyone in between. [laughter] our special guest tonight is the finder of the free radicals prompt, a Global Network of former extremists who work on deradicallizing others trying to lee the movement leave the movement hes a proud father of two, a husband and an author, and here to talk about his new book, braching hate confronting the new
When Alexis Charles Newton set off toward home late one night in July 1988, the 33-year-old Black man couldn’t have known he’d end up recounting the evening in detail to a courtroom later that fall. Sure, he had seen the bands of young white men with shaved heads, swastika tattoos and combat boots stomping around Dallas’ Lee Park that summer. But Newton had kept his distance. He had made it home safely every time before, and nothing about that night seemed to suggest a different outcome.
Newton grew up nearby, and as a boy, he swam in the public pool at the park. Later, as an adult, he jogged its trails. Even in his thirties, he sometimes met his friends there for football games, to toss a baseball or to throw a Frisbee. He’d attended concerts at the park. It was his neighborhood.