Black Rural Lives Matters: Ethnographic Research about an Anti-Racist Interfaith Organization in the U.S. South

The non-indictment of Michael Brown's killer in fall 2014, the castigation of Blacks during the Baltimore uprising following Freddie Gray's death in police custody, and the death of Sandra Bland in a Texas jail further solidified the notion of the expendability of Black life in the United States. But while larger urban areas like Cleveland, Ferguson, and Staten Island mobilized around anti-Black police brutality, African Americans in smaller rural towns struggled to manifest their opposition to anti-Black violence in ways that were meaningful to their communities. Many turned to the Black church, which emerged once again as a site of struggle and resistance. This essay charts the rise of an anti-racist, interfaith organization created to combat anti-Black racism in the South: Blount County United (BCU) organized by Reverend Dr. Willa Estell, head pastor of Saint Paul African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Maryville, Tennessee. Our focus on BCU renders problems that Blacks face in non-urban contexts visible and demonstrates the systemic nature of racism in the 21st century as it is articulated in rural contexts thereby highlighting the hidden transcripts of anti-Black violence.