Black Lives Matter: Ahmaud Arbery "would never have imagined that her life would come to a halt"

"Losing Ahmaud in this way devastated me", confides, moved, Wanda Cooper-Jones, mother of Ahmaud Arbery.

On February 23, 2020 in Brunswick (Georgia), the young African-American added his name to the long list of victims of alleged ordinary racism in the United States. Since then, an anti-racist protest movement, Black Lives Matter (Black Lives Matter), has joined the presidential campaign. "I am happy that this mobilization has seized his memory", explains Wanda Cooper-Jones at the microphone of France 24.

"Up there, he is happy to participate in the movement"

His son was shot dead while jogging, a few miles from the house where he grew up. The face of the young man aged only 25 then invaded the screens and his story fueled the mobilization that seized the country, even more since the death of George Floyd a few months later.

“I think my son is in heaven and that up there he is happy to participate in the movement,” adds Ahmaud Arbery's mother. His name, like that of George Floyd, and many others before them, resonates in the protests.

“When we were kids, we all got along well, blacks and whites, and there was never a problem,” says Akeem Becker, his childhood friend. “But as you grow up, you become aware of certain things, and then a kind of separation begins,” he continues, while in the American South, ordinary racism has been part of the background of their childhood.

"Ahmaud and I have talked a lot about racism, but he never imagined his life would end like this."

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