June 11, 2026
A Disturbing, 7 Foot Burning Cross In Chicago Has Police Searching For Answers
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RSS Feed A shocking and confusing story is emerging out of Chicago’s Grant Park. There is video everywhere of the large cross engulfed in flames, in broad daylight, along a busy street. Surveillance video captured a young man running from the scene wearing no shirt, dark pants and white sneakers. While police search for the mystery man, many have taken to social media claiming the cross burning is either a hoax or perpetrated by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks. It is Tuesday, June eleventh, and police in Chicago on the lookout for a man who is burning crosses in public places. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We got a cross burning in Chicago at the very park where President Obama made his speech on the night he was elected president. Yeah, that's the context of what we're talking about. But cross burning is still a thing. Apparently ropes and who knew?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: Yes, this happened in Grant Park in broad daylight, and honestly, I have a lot of questions. We got tons, How did someone and this was not just a small cross. If you all haven't seen the pictures of the video, it's everywhere, so please, please, please, when you get a chance, check it out. So minimum right, Yeah, it's it's taller than a human being. And so it is a huge wooden cross. That thing had to be heavy. It's propped up on a tree. It had to be I guess, doused in gasoline and then lit on fire. How did all of that take place with no one noticing beforehand?
00:01:10
Speaker 1: And so my thought was maybe somebody got dropped off or maybe carried it or excuse me, and that carried in on a vehicle, then I guess you would have had to have gotten out. But the thing is the person they're looking for seems to be completely on foot.
00:01:25
Speaker 2: Yes, because look, they haven't said this is the person who perpetrated the crime. But he was seen running from the park right after the cross was lit on fire, and they have good visuals of this.
00:01:39
Speaker 3: I say, kid, he looks young, very young.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: But look, we've got a picture of him from the side and a full front picture of him in he's running. He has no shirt, he has a backpack, dark pants, white sneakers, a dark haired guy.
00:01:54
Speaker 3: Look. People are saying he's white.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: He kind of looks. People have said he looks Asian. People have said he looks Mexican.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: How about this. Close your eyes and tell me what comes to mind when I say white supremacists.
00:02:09
Speaker 2: He does not look like what you would consider to be your stereotypical white.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: Supremacist card in even a stretch of the imagination beyond the stereo type, you wouldn't I don't understand. This might not be the guy. But if you were going to pick his ethnicity.
00:02:27
Speaker 3: He doesn't appear to be Caucasian.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: He doesn't so it's a little bit of a head scratcher, being that this is the guy. He might not have anything to do with it, but he is seen on surveillance cameras. There are cameras everywhere these days in major city. So yes, they have him on surveillance video running from the scene without a shirt and he yeah, he's in a hurry. And the timing is suspicious, yes, but it is also suspicious just looking at him and then seeing what he is allegedly connected to.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, this thing is in it's too in the afternoon. There is when this thing's propped up against a tree in a very busy area. So people started taking pictures of it, videos of it. Couldn't believe what they were seeing. All that stuff went online, and so here we are. Obviously that is a symbol of something in particular in this country that I don't know if folks need to be reminded or educated necessarily about it. But I asked, I meant to ask at least before she left. But I wonder if a generation of folks who are twenty and younger, twenty five and younger, thirty and younger see that and would get stirred up the way other folks might.
00:03:36
Speaker 3: I think, I don't know.
00:03:37
Speaker 2: I think they would be able to connect it to a symbol of hate and a racist gesture. And I use that word gesture in the loosest of terms, but certainly sending a message of hate. I think I think they definitely know that. They might not know the actual history of it. But I'm curious, as a black man, do you when you see that image?
00:04:00
Speaker 3: What what do you feel? What do you think?
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Fear? That's that's uh, I've had the N word thrown at me here that ware and keeping rolling. Not when I see that. When I see a noose, fear comes first. Maybe not fear if it's in the immediate area of mine. It's fear of what that is, what intent that person has that is putting that symbol out I it is. It's a that is my first and not the reaction fear.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. Were you shocked to see these images and shocked to see where they were or where this cross was placed?
00:04:37
Speaker 1: This is so confusing, like why are we Why are somebody burning across What is the point of doing it? And I wanted to go to the first thing is hey, come on, man, really you're going back to this, and I always almost dismissive of this is someone who doesn't have hate in their heart and might have some other something else up their sleeves. Do they want to get some attention?
00:04:59
Speaker 3: Do they social media like dislikes attention?
00:05:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if you want to be a racist, knock yourself out, go out there, proudly stand next to it, knock yourself out. So at that part to drop it there and run away, it felt like an attention seeking event.
00:05:17
Speaker 2: Yes, because look, I think we do have and it was actually hard to find and we'll get into it later. There are cross burnings periodically that continue to happen in this country, but oftentimes, and this makes a lot more sense, they're placed menacingly in someone's front yard to send a message to someone specifically. This was odd to see this just placed in a central, busy public space.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: And again this was not just smoldering. This was engulfed in flames. You could not miss it. How it was missed that somebody was caring and you were talking about I think earlier robes one morning run. It was almost you could see Jesus like someone would need to be totin it like that down the street.
00:06:04
Speaker 3: That's what. That's how big it was. That's what it looked like.
00:06:07
Speaker 2: And I just yes, it would look as if someone was imitating Jesus's walk before crucifixion.
00:06:16
Speaker 1: It was that big. That's I don't know. Hell if you carry So if somebody got dropped off to do this, then that certainly suggested it more than one person involved and coordination of staging this whole thing.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: But then why is he running? Like why was there not a pickup?
00:06:31
Speaker 1: Might not be the guy? Yeah, so confusedly looking for the wrong guy. But this thing was constructed. I don't. You can't just walk into home depot and buy a constructed cross. No, like this is Michael's or hobby lobby whatever. They don't know. I might have made this.
00:06:46
Speaker 3: Yes, and it took time, and it took planning.
00:06:49
Speaker 2: And look we're hearing from folks because look, we don't know the motive technically right now, but we can all speak to what that symbolism obviously means and has historically meant. So the governor, their governor put out this statement saying this symbol has one purpose to stir up intimidation and terror. We will not be silent those responsible must be held accountable. And a local church in the area is actually trying to encourage people to speak up and if you saw something or you know something, say something.
00:07:21
Speaker 3: They're offering a ten thousand dollars reward.
00:07:25
Speaker 1: Whoever is in that video those images is going to be identified. Whether or not that's the right guy, we don't know, but there is such a clear image I have my yearbook photo is not that good, you know what.
00:07:36
Speaker 3: That's what I said. As soon as you saw the photos.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: This person's face is very clear, it's very specific. If you know this person, you will recognize him in that photo. I would be willing to bet sooner rather than later we'll know who that person is and just how, if at all, he's connected.
00:07:54
Speaker 1: What did you I mean My reaction was I guess less of an emotional and I didn't get angry. I got fearful. But anybody else asking from a different perspective, You see that and think what I feel discussed?
00:08:09
Speaker 2: I feel discussed, disappointment, frustration because this is not what we need. I don't understand the purpose behind it. This is just about hate and division. Just makes me sick and I hate to think and I know it's naive to not recognize.
00:08:25
Speaker 3: But I just hate to.
00:08:26
Speaker 2: Think that that's in someone that young, if that's who's connected with it, and that's still alive and well, and it just it makes me sad.
00:08:36
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear about the intent, what the intent was of this person, if it really was hate in the heart, or is this some gag or whatever it may be. But Rodes, you got such a kick out of reading. Some of it was funny, but some of it's to be expected. But it's on social media, the debate over whether or not this was real, and I guess all the the other the alternative suspects that people are starting to name.
00:09:04
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, yes, So I'll just start going through some of these very cheeky comments. The Southern Poverty Law Center is back at it. This cross was burned in Grant Park on a Tuesday afternoon on a nice day in Chicago. Are you trying to tell me that nobody saw someone carrying a seven foot cross on Columbus Drive, setting it up against the tree and setting it on fire.
00:09:26
Speaker 3: Is this what you're trying to say? Effing kidding me? Right?
00:09:30
Speaker 1: Okay, there's some stuff in there that I have questions about like in the middle of the day, two thirty in the afternoon. Also, sorry, but cross burning show up in video much better at night.
00:09:44
Speaker 2: They do, So that's part of what the head scratcher is on this. Someone else said witnesses were shocked. They should be shocked. In twenty twenty six, the most likely explanation is either one it's just a hoax to the Southern Poverty Lass or paid for it.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: That was a theme.
00:10:02
Speaker 1: Okay, Southern probably lost and it's had some issues here lately.
00:10:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, then they okay, they said law sorry, Southern Poverty Loss Center is fund raising, must have taken a serious thing.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: This is the best crossburning they can afford, you know what.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Some there is something too, I'm not saying in this particular case, but there are and there had long been arguments, and there's been I guess plenty of you could even say evidence that stirring the pot is even good for fundraising, correct, that kind of a thing.
00:10:38
Speaker 2: And this came in the wake of the Carmelo Anthony trial verdict, and so some people are trying to connect that. Although that happened in Texas, this is Chicago. So not really sure how that is a possibility. Someone said this video of a burning cross in Grant Park, Chicago was all over the local news today, with local leaders of course calling it a racist attack. Before the investigation is complet I guarantee you this will turn out to be another Jessey Smolette hoax. And then on the video they have justse Smolette two point oh this is Chicago.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: We probably should have seen that one coming.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, they said this was without a shadow of a doubt, put up by a black person to uphold their oppression.
00:11:18
Speaker 3: Fantast Oh that was good. There were some fighting words. Yes, so people are at least on X not buying it.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: Okay, then the history lesson This is a coup Klux clan thing. This is historically in this country associated with the clan. They were the ones that used this. It has other meanings back in the olden days in Scotland, but they brought it here and it was specifically used as a form of terror, as a form of intimidation of black folks. Stone Mountain, Georgia, those down there roll You go down and say Stone Mountain to some people and they still will get chills.
00:11:59
Speaker 3: Right, And I didn't realize this. The birth of a Nation.
00:12:02
Speaker 2: The film back in nineteen fifteen, had the first scenes of a cross burning based on the novel The Clansmen, a historical romance with the Ku Klux Klan, less than ten months after that movie was released. Yes, the first recorded cross burning here in the United States happened in nineteen fifteen, ten months after that movie, on Stone Mountain, Georgia, And there were members of the clan around it, and it was an announcement basically that the clan was alive and well and back and ready for business and back in business. And anyone who knows Georgia and knows Stone Mountain, you can see it from miles away, the top of that mountain, so that I can't even imagine the imagery of that. And then I was actually doing a deep dive in realizing from the book and then the movie and then even some of these recent crossburnings that will get into a lot of it was about interracial relationships between black men and white women.
00:13:01
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a pretty big no.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: No.
00:13:04
Speaker 1: That is a pretty big no no. And or it is amazing And I don't know this historical and how important this stuff is to speak on in these days and Oftentimes you hear about everything is race and DEEI you want to remind people of some of the horrors of this country and its history. But man, this is we got a cross burning in Chicago and don't know why. I'd like to hear more. And if we take the opportunity to do a little I wish classrooms across the country would take a current headline like that and go sit in there and teach you lessons.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: Yes, because that would make it interesting and relevant and the kids would have context. That is what we want our kids to be learning about, to have a historical reference to something that's happening present day.
00:13:54
Speaker 3: We miss these opportunities all the time.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: And here is the thing though, folks, Okay, a cross is burning. Is that against the law? Not necessarily? Oh, let me say that differently. The answer is no, and the Supreme Court has answered that question more than once.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: Stay here, welcome back everybody to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are trying to get our heads around and understand what happened in Chicago in the middle of the day in Grant Park, a very busy area there in the heart of Chicago, a seven foot or so wooden cross burning.
00:14:47
Speaker 3: No one knows why.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: And we have some surveillance shots of a young man fleeing the scene moments after the cross was set on fire.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: He we can't tell what his ethnicity is.
00:15:04
Speaker 2: He doesn't look Caucasian, but he's got dark hair, no shirt on, a backpack, sneakers, and there's a really good.
00:15:10
Speaker 3: Shot of his face.
00:15:11
Speaker 2: So it's highly likely this person, this man, this young man will be identified and maybe we'll get some more answers. But yeah, you were asking before the break or suggesting that just burning across isn't necessarily illegal.
00:15:27
Speaker 1: Yes, states have been trying to do it over the years by making these ordinances, and some cities have done it. States have done it, but it got challenged in court by folks who were taking on a city ordance in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and also in the state of Virginia and what it essentially boiled down to, and in both cases they ruled that those laws banning cross burning were illegal because they say, as a form of free speech, if you're only doing it to display your ideology, it is against the law if you're using it to intimidate, So there make this distinction that it is free speech ain't this a country.
00:16:11
Speaker 2: It's so because you'd have to prove that someone personally, individually felt targeted and intimidated.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: By this cross.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: So perhaps the way we saw it in public, not on someone's lawn, not directed at someone specifically, that it could possibly be legal to do what this person did by setting that, you got it.
00:16:36
Speaker 1: Wow, maybe they can hit them with some kind of littering charge for dumping.
00:16:43
Speaker 3: Some of the branches were singed.
00:16:45
Speaker 1: Something like that, and destruction of littering. Can you imagine rolls? But you cannot? It is does Supreme Court has settled this on one occasion?
00:16:54
Speaker 2: Now, there have been some recent cases here in this country where I guess it was deemed specific and intimidating, because wow, just a couple months ago, April twenty twenty six in Conway, South Carolina, I know that well.
00:17:08
Speaker 3: From my days reporting in Charleston.
00:17:10
Speaker 2: I know that town well and Clarendon County was the seat and the heart of the KKK, which is still thriving in that state. A man was federally indicted for burning across in his backyard with the intent to intimidate.
00:17:24
Speaker 3: His black neighbors.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: So that was just a couple months ago people. And then in Gulfport, Mississippi. That is crazy March twenty twenty three, So just three years ago, a Mississippi man sentenced to federal prison for a twenty twenty cross burning incident intended to terrorize his black neighbors.
00:17:42
Speaker 3: He wanted them to move.
00:17:43
Speaker 2: I believe that one was an interracial couple and he didn't like them living near him.
00:17:48
Speaker 3: Was the year on the most recent you s was in twenty twenty six, April.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: It was in April. This was a couple months ago, a couple of months ago.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: And then look, it's hard to find because they don't often list these as cross burning. It's either vandalism or a hate crime. So look, I did find something interesting from nineteen ninety six where four North Carolina men were charged with burning two crosses on the home of, yes, a racially mixed couple. Another situation like that. But the DOJ that year, actually I was looking at the document said since January they have found more than twenty cases stemming from cross burning incidents across this country.
00:18:24
Speaker 3: And that jumped out at me.
00:18:25
Speaker 2: So you really can't find a lot of numbers, but to know that in nineteen ninety six for whatever reason, the Department of Justice had a note in one of its files that there had already been twenty cross burning incidents.
00:18:38
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety six.
00:18:40
Speaker 2: I don't know what month that was, so, but that's disturbing. I didn't think they were that frequent. I'll be honest.
00:18:48
Speaker 1: I guess they don't always make headlines. Maybe they're not always put on display like this to make a point versus to intimidate. Maybe they are oftentimes, like you just described, rogues. They are person gestures of intimidation. We don't want you in this neighborhood.
00:19:03
Speaker 2: Maybe we shouldn't be buying any land south of the Mason Dixon lines.
00:19:07
Speaker 1: Oh oh, and good people down there, mostly overwhelmingly, of course they are. So we will keep our interracial asses up knocking.
00:19:17
Speaker 2: Ah.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: Yes, New York feels saved most days.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: We've got different things to worry about walking around New York. Oh, my goodness, are yes the burning crosses.
00:19:26
Speaker 3: That's insane.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Well, we'll hope to get some more information on the who and the why and the what next here in the coming days, but we'll keep our.
00:19:35
Speaker 3: Eye on the situation in the meantime, though, we do.
00:19:37
Speaker 2: Appreciate you all listening to us I made Robock alongside DJ Holmes.
00:19:40
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks. It is Tuesday, June eleventh, and police in Chicago on the lookout for a man who is burning crosses in public places. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We got a cross burning in Chicago at the very park where President Obama made his speech on the night he was elected president. Yeah, that's the context of what we're talking about. But cross burning is still a thing. Apparently ropes and who knew?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: Yes, this happened in Grant Park in broad daylight, and honestly, I have a lot of questions. We got tons, How did someone and this was not just a small cross. If you all haven't seen the pictures of the video, it's everywhere, so please, please, please, when you get a chance, check it out. So minimum right, Yeah, it's it's taller than a human being. And so it is a huge wooden cross. That thing had to be heavy. It's propped up on a tree. It had to be I guess, doused in gasoline and then lit on fire. How did all of that take place with no one noticing beforehand?
00:01:10
Speaker 1: And so my thought was maybe somebody got dropped off or maybe carried it or excuse me, and that carried in on a vehicle, then I guess you would have had to have gotten out. But the thing is the person they're looking for seems to be completely on foot.
00:01:25
Speaker 2: Yes, because look, they haven't said this is the person who perpetrated the crime. But he was seen running from the park right after the cross was lit on fire, and they have good visuals of this.
00:01:39
Speaker 3: I say, kid, he looks young, very young.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: But look, we've got a picture of him from the side and a full front picture of him in he's running. He has no shirt, he has a backpack, dark pants, white sneakers, a dark haired guy.
00:01:54
Speaker 3: Look. People are saying he's white.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: He kind of looks. People have said he looks Asian. People have said he looks Mexican.
00:02:01
Speaker 1: How about this. Close your eyes and tell me what comes to mind when I say white supremacists.
00:02:09
Speaker 2: He does not look like what you would consider to be your stereotypical white.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: Supremacist card in even a stretch of the imagination beyond the stereo type, you wouldn't I don't understand. This might not be the guy. But if you were going to pick his ethnicity.
00:02:27
Speaker 3: He doesn't appear to be Caucasian.
00:02:28
Speaker 2: He doesn't so it's a little bit of a head scratcher, being that this is the guy. He might not have anything to do with it, but he is seen on surveillance cameras. There are cameras everywhere these days in major city. So yes, they have him on surveillance video running from the scene without a shirt and he yeah, he's in a hurry. And the timing is suspicious, yes, but it is also suspicious just looking at him and then seeing what he is allegedly connected to.
00:02:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, this thing is in it's too in the afternoon. There is when this thing's propped up against a tree in a very busy area. So people started taking pictures of it, videos of it. Couldn't believe what they were seeing. All that stuff went online, and so here we are. Obviously that is a symbol of something in particular in this country that I don't know if folks need to be reminded or educated necessarily about it. But I asked, I meant to ask at least before she left. But I wonder if a generation of folks who are twenty and younger, twenty five and younger, thirty and younger see that and would get stirred up the way other folks might.
00:03:36
Speaker 3: I think, I don't know.
00:03:37
Speaker 2: I think they would be able to connect it to a symbol of hate and a racist gesture. And I use that word gesture in the loosest of terms, but certainly sending a message of hate. I think I think they definitely know that. They might not know the actual history of it. But I'm curious, as a black man, do you when you see that image?
00:04:00
Speaker 3: What what do you feel? What do you think?
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Fear? That's that's uh, I've had the N word thrown at me here that ware and keeping rolling. Not when I see that. When I see a noose, fear comes first. Maybe not fear if it's in the immediate area of mine. It's fear of what that is, what intent that person has that is putting that symbol out I it is. It's a that is my first and not the reaction fear.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. Were you shocked to see these images and shocked to see where they were or where this cross was placed?
00:04:37
Speaker 1: This is so confusing, like why are we Why are somebody burning across What is the point of doing it? And I wanted to go to the first thing is hey, come on, man, really you're going back to this, and I always almost dismissive of this is someone who doesn't have hate in their heart and might have some other something else up their sleeves. Do they want to get some attention?
00:04:59
Speaker 3: Do they social media like dislikes attention?
00:05:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if you want to be a racist, knock yourself out, go out there, proudly stand next to it, knock yourself out. So at that part to drop it there and run away, it felt like an attention seeking event.
00:05:17
Speaker 2: Yes, because look, I think we do have and it was actually hard to find and we'll get into it later. There are cross burnings periodically that continue to happen in this country, but oftentimes, and this makes a lot more sense, they're placed menacingly in someone's front yard to send a message to someone specifically. This was odd to see this just placed in a central, busy public space.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: And again this was not just smoldering. This was engulfed in flames. You could not miss it. How it was missed that somebody was caring and you were talking about I think earlier robes one morning run. It was almost you could see Jesus like someone would need to be totin it like that down the street.
00:06:04
Speaker 3: That's what. That's how big it was. That's what it looked like.
00:06:07
Speaker 2: And I just yes, it would look as if someone was imitating Jesus's walk before crucifixion.
00:06:16
Speaker 1: It was that big. That's I don't know. Hell if you carry So if somebody got dropped off to do this, then that certainly suggested it more than one person involved and coordination of staging this whole thing.
00:06:28
Speaker 3: But then why is he running? Like why was there not a pickup?
00:06:31
Speaker 1: Might not be the guy? Yeah, so confusedly looking for the wrong guy. But this thing was constructed. I don't. You can't just walk into home depot and buy a constructed cross. No, like this is Michael's or hobby lobby whatever. They don't know. I might have made this.
00:06:46
Speaker 3: Yes, and it took time, and it took planning.
00:06:49
Speaker 2: And look we're hearing from folks because look, we don't know the motive technically right now, but we can all speak to what that symbolism obviously means and has historically meant. So the governor, their governor put out this statement saying this symbol has one purpose to stir up intimidation and terror. We will not be silent those responsible must be held accountable. And a local church in the area is actually trying to encourage people to speak up and if you saw something or you know something, say something.
00:07:21
Speaker 3: They're offering a ten thousand dollars reward.
00:07:25
Speaker 1: Whoever is in that video those images is going to be identified. Whether or not that's the right guy, we don't know, but there is such a clear image I have my yearbook photo is not that good, you know what.
00:07:36
Speaker 3: That's what I said. As soon as you saw the photos.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: This person's face is very clear, it's very specific. If you know this person, you will recognize him in that photo. I would be willing to bet sooner rather than later we'll know who that person is and just how, if at all, he's connected.
00:07:54
Speaker 1: What did you I mean My reaction was I guess less of an emotional and I didn't get angry. I got fearful. But anybody else asking from a different perspective, You see that and think what I feel discussed?
00:08:09
Speaker 2: I feel discussed, disappointment, frustration because this is not what we need. I don't understand the purpose behind it. This is just about hate and division. Just makes me sick and I hate to think and I know it's naive to not recognize.
00:08:25
Speaker 3: But I just hate to.
00:08:26
Speaker 2: Think that that's in someone that young, if that's who's connected with it, and that's still alive and well, and it just it makes me sad.
00:08:36
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear about the intent, what the intent was of this person, if it really was hate in the heart, or is this some gag or whatever it may be. But Rodes, you got such a kick out of reading. Some of it was funny, but some of it's to be expected. But it's on social media, the debate over whether or not this was real, and I guess all the the other the alternative suspects that people are starting to name.
00:09:04
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, yes, So I'll just start going through some of these very cheeky comments. The Southern Poverty Law Center is back at it. This cross was burned in Grant Park on a Tuesday afternoon on a nice day in Chicago. Are you trying to tell me that nobody saw someone carrying a seven foot cross on Columbus Drive, setting it up against the tree and setting it on fire.
00:09:26
Speaker 3: Is this what you're trying to say? Effing kidding me? Right?
00:09:30
Speaker 1: Okay, there's some stuff in there that I have questions about like in the middle of the day, two thirty in the afternoon. Also, sorry, but cross burning show up in video much better at night.
00:09:44
Speaker 2: They do, So that's part of what the head scratcher is on this. Someone else said witnesses were shocked. They should be shocked. In twenty twenty six, the most likely explanation is either one it's just a hoax to the Southern Poverty Lass or paid for it.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: That was a theme.
00:10:02
Speaker 1: Okay, Southern probably lost and it's had some issues here lately.
00:10:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, then they okay, they said law sorry, Southern Poverty Loss Center is fund raising, must have taken a serious thing.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: This is the best crossburning they can afford, you know what.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: Some there is something too, I'm not saying in this particular case, but there are and there had long been arguments, and there's been I guess plenty of you could even say evidence that stirring the pot is even good for fundraising, correct, that kind of a thing.
00:10:38
Speaker 2: And this came in the wake of the Carmelo Anthony trial verdict, and so some people are trying to connect that. Although that happened in Texas, this is Chicago. So not really sure how that is a possibility. Someone said this video of a burning cross in Grant Park, Chicago was all over the local news today, with local leaders of course calling it a racist attack. Before the investigation is complet I guarantee you this will turn out to be another Jessey Smolette hoax. And then on the video they have justse Smolette two point oh this is Chicago.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: We probably should have seen that one coming.
00:11:11
Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, they said this was without a shadow of a doubt, put up by a black person to uphold their oppression.
00:11:18
Speaker 3: Fantast Oh that was good. There were some fighting words. Yes, so people are at least on X not buying it.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: Okay, then the history lesson This is a coup Klux clan thing. This is historically in this country associated with the clan. They were the ones that used this. It has other meanings back in the olden days in Scotland, but they brought it here and it was specifically used as a form of terror, as a form of intimidation of black folks. Stone Mountain, Georgia, those down there roll You go down and say Stone Mountain to some people and they still will get chills.
00:11:59
Speaker 3: Right, And I didn't realize this. The birth of a Nation.
00:12:02
Speaker 2: The film back in nineteen fifteen, had the first scenes of a cross burning based on the novel The Clansmen, a historical romance with the Ku Klux Klan, less than ten months after that movie was released. Yes, the first recorded cross burning here in the United States happened in nineteen fifteen, ten months after that movie, on Stone Mountain, Georgia, And there were members of the clan around it, and it was an announcement basically that the clan was alive and well and back and ready for business and back in business. And anyone who knows Georgia and knows Stone Mountain, you can see it from miles away, the top of that mountain, so that I can't even imagine the imagery of that. And then I was actually doing a deep dive in realizing from the book and then the movie and then even some of these recent crossburnings that will get into a lot of it was about interracial relationships between black men and white women.
00:13:01
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a pretty big no.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: No.
00:13:04
Speaker 1: That is a pretty big no no. And or it is amazing And I don't know this historical and how important this stuff is to speak on in these days and Oftentimes you hear about everything is race and DEEI you want to remind people of some of the horrors of this country and its history. But man, this is we got a cross burning in Chicago and don't know why. I'd like to hear more. And if we take the opportunity to do a little I wish classrooms across the country would take a current headline like that and go sit in there and teach you lessons.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: Yes, because that would make it interesting and relevant and the kids would have context. That is what we want our kids to be learning about, to have a historical reference to something that's happening present day.
00:13:54
Speaker 3: We miss these opportunities all the time.
00:13:57
Speaker 1: And here is the thing though, folks, Okay, a cross is burning. Is that against the law? Not necessarily? Oh, let me say that differently. The answer is no, and the Supreme Court has answered that question more than once.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: Stay here, welcome back everybody to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are trying to get our heads around and understand what happened in Chicago in the middle of the day in Grant Park, a very busy area there in the heart of Chicago, a seven foot or so wooden cross burning.
00:14:47
Speaker 3: No one knows why.
00:14:50
Speaker 2: And we have some surveillance shots of a young man fleeing the scene moments after the cross was set on fire.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: He we can't tell what his ethnicity is.
00:15:04
Speaker 2: He doesn't look Caucasian, but he's got dark hair, no shirt on, a backpack, sneakers, and there's a really good.
00:15:10
Speaker 3: Shot of his face.
00:15:11
Speaker 2: So it's highly likely this person, this man, this young man will be identified and maybe we'll get some more answers. But yeah, you were asking before the break or suggesting that just burning across isn't necessarily illegal.
00:15:27
Speaker 1: Yes, states have been trying to do it over the years by making these ordinances, and some cities have done it. States have done it, but it got challenged in court by folks who were taking on a city ordance in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and also in the state of Virginia and what it essentially boiled down to, and in both cases they ruled that those laws banning cross burning were illegal because they say, as a form of free speech, if you're only doing it to display your ideology, it is against the law if you're using it to intimidate, So there make this distinction that it is free speech ain't this a country.
00:16:11
Speaker 2: It's so because you'd have to prove that someone personally, individually felt targeted and intimidated.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: By this cross.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: So perhaps the way we saw it in public, not on someone's lawn, not directed at someone specifically, that it could possibly be legal to do what this person did by setting that, you got it.
00:16:36
Speaker 1: Wow, maybe they can hit them with some kind of littering charge for dumping.
00:16:43
Speaker 3: Some of the branches were singed.
00:16:45
Speaker 1: Something like that, and destruction of littering. Can you imagine rolls? But you cannot? It is does Supreme Court has settled this on one occasion?
00:16:54
Speaker 2: Now, there have been some recent cases here in this country where I guess it was deemed specific and intimidating, because wow, just a couple months ago, April twenty twenty six in Conway, South Carolina, I know that well.
00:17:08
Speaker 3: From my days reporting in Charleston.
00:17:10
Speaker 2: I know that town well and Clarendon County was the seat and the heart of the KKK, which is still thriving in that state. A man was federally indicted for burning across in his backyard with the intent to intimidate.
00:17:24
Speaker 3: His black neighbors.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: So that was just a couple months ago people. And then in Gulfport, Mississippi. That is crazy March twenty twenty three, So just three years ago, a Mississippi man sentenced to federal prison for a twenty twenty cross burning incident intended to terrorize his black neighbors.
00:17:42
Speaker 3: He wanted them to move.
00:17:43
Speaker 2: I believe that one was an interracial couple and he didn't like them living near him.
00:17:48
Speaker 3: Was the year on the most recent you s was in twenty twenty six, April.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: It was in April. This was a couple months ago, a couple of months ago.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: And then look, it's hard to find because they don't often list these as cross burning. It's either vandalism or a hate crime. So look, I did find something interesting from nineteen ninety six where four North Carolina men were charged with burning two crosses on the home of, yes, a racially mixed couple. Another situation like that. But the DOJ that year, actually I was looking at the document said since January they have found more than twenty cases stemming from cross burning incidents across this country.
00:18:24
Speaker 3: And that jumped out at me.
00:18:25
Speaker 2: So you really can't find a lot of numbers, but to know that in nineteen ninety six for whatever reason, the Department of Justice had a note in one of its files that there had already been twenty cross burning incidents.
00:18:38
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety six.
00:18:40
Speaker 2: I don't know what month that was, so, but that's disturbing. I didn't think they were that frequent. I'll be honest.
00:18:48
Speaker 1: I guess they don't always make headlines. Maybe they're not always put on display like this to make a point versus to intimidate. Maybe they are oftentimes, like you just described, rogues. They are person gestures of intimidation. We don't want you in this neighborhood.
00:19:03
Speaker 2: Maybe we shouldn't be buying any land south of the Mason Dixon lines.
00:19:07
Speaker 1: Oh oh, and good people down there, mostly overwhelmingly, of course they are. So we will keep our interracial asses up knocking.
00:19:17
Speaker 2: Ah.
00:19:17
Speaker 3: Yes, New York feels saved most days.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: We've got different things to worry about walking around New York. Oh, my goodness, are yes the burning crosses.
00:19:26
Speaker 3: That's insane.
00:19:27
Speaker 2: Well, we'll hope to get some more information on the who and the why and the what next here in the coming days, but we'll keep our.
00:19:35
Speaker 3: Eye on the situation in the meantime, though, we do.
00:19:37
Speaker 2: Appreciate you all listening to us I made Robock alongside DJ Holmes.
00:19:40
Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon.