The increase of hate crimes against the Black community has been an ongoing concern. Though, to me, the most despicable aspect of the spike is that some of the most hateful acts used to threaten Black people during the Jim Crow era have now resurfaced.

Axel C. Cox, 24, certainly took inspiration from history when he attempted to terrorize his Black next door neighbors.

According to the DOJ, Cox admitted to gathering his supplies to put together a cross, propping it on his yard and dousing it in motor oil to set it on fire.

He pleaded guilty to burning a cross on his front lawn to intimidate his Black neighbors, per a Department of Justice announcement. The DOJ said he violated the Fair Housing Act and committed a hate crime as he used “racially derogatory remarks” during the commission of the crime.

The only argument in his defense was that he had “overreacted” following the fatal shooting of his dog, per the SunHerald. Were the Black people next door the ones responsible? There is no evidence so far of that.

Source: Man Pleads Guilty to Burning Cross on His Yard to Threaten Black Neighbors

American Civil rights activist Claudette Colvin pictured on April 7, 1998. | Source: The Washington Post / Getty

A civil rights icon who had been on probation since 1955 over her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Alabama has finally had her arrest record expunged following decades of outcry.

Claudette Colvin was 15 years old when she got arrested for not moving to the back of that bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on that fateful day when she and another Black teenager didn’t realize they were sitting next to two white girls, a big no-no in the south during the time.

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Colvin’s arrest came about nine months before the Montgomery bus boycott began following the arrest of Rosa Parks for the same Jim Crow-era offense.

Now 82, nearly 67 years later, a judge in Montgomery has granted Colvin’s petition to have her arrest record wiped clean, CBS News reported.

“My record was expunged,” Colvin told “CBS Mornings” in an exclusive interview on Thursday. “And my name was cleared. And I’m no longer a juvenile delinquent at 82.”

It was on March 2, 1955, when Colvin and her friend were told to move to the back of the bus. After Colvin refused, the bus driver immediately called the police. Once police arrived on the scene they began to physically remove Clovin from the bus. According to the police report, Clovin kicked and scratched an officer during the incident.

She was immediately arrested, charged with assault, and her case was sent to juvenile court. The judge found her delinquent and placed her on probation.

Before her record was expunged this week, Colvin said she still believed she was on probation. Colvin has never received info that states she has completed her probation and said her family constantly worries that police could come to get her at any time.

“My conviction for standing up for my constitutional right terrorized my family and relatives who knew only that they were not to talk about my arrest and conviction because people in town knew me as ‘that girl from the bus,’” said Colvin in an interview with the Associated Press.

Source: Freedom Fighter Claudette Colvin’s 1955 Arrest Record Finally Expunged After She Stayed Seated On Segregated Bus