‘Breakdown In Bennington’: Protected — And Racist — Speech

Note: Some of this reporting is disturbing. This story contains racist language.

It’s been more than a year since the lone female African American representative in Vermont’s Statehouse stepped down.

Kiah Morris resigned after becoming the target of a white nationalist who lives in her district. She was only the second black woman to be elected to the legislature in Vermont.

Vermont Public Radio and VTDigger have teamed up to look at what happened, and to try to understand why Morris’ case was so jarring for many African Americans in Vermont.  We’ll have stories all this week, under the title Breakdown In Bennington, that examine the case from many angles.

In VPR’s first story, we walk through what exactly happened. We recommend listening to the audio story above, but we’ve also provided a transcript below.

Read the rest of this story at VPR’s website.