Activists Under Surveillance

Not long after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, a building at the Highlander civil rights center in northeastern Tennessee was set on fire. The same racist symbol painted on a firearm used by the Christchurch shooter was found spray-painted in the parking lot. But when police arrived to investigate, they interrogated Highlander staff about their political work — as if they were the ones under investigation. On the other side of the state, a lawsuit against the city of Memphis has cracked open a sweeping police intelligence operation targeting racial justice activists. Alice Speri reports from Tennessee on the unsolved fire at Highlander, surveillance in Memphis, and the criminalization of black dissent.