#PicnickingWhileBlack

Submission 6,629

Part of a series on Walking While Black. [View Related Entries]

Overview

#PicnickingWhileBlack is a hashtag used to call attention to a viral video of a white campground employee approaching two black customers who arrived without a reservation.

Background

On May 26th, 2019, Facebook ^[1] user Jessica Richardson posted a video of herself and her husband being approached by the employee of Kampground of America (KOA) who was holding a gun. In the video, Richardson states that they had arrived at a lake in Starkville, Mississippi, not realizing that it was a private campground. The two had begun to picnic when a woman bearing a gun approached. According to the woman, they had arrived without a reservation and were trespassing.

Richardson says, "This lady literally just pulled a gun because we’re out here and didn’t have reservations, for a lake that we didn’t even know we had to have reservations for." To the woman, she says, "The only thing you had to do was tell us."

Within four days, the video received more than 1.1 million views, 16,000 shares, 10,000 reactions and 7,900 comments.

Developments

KOA Response

A Mississippi CBS^[2] affiliate reached out the corporate offices of KOA who released a statement:

Kampgrounds of America does not condone the use of a firearm in any manner on our properties or those owned and operated by our franchisees. The employee involved in the incident has been relieved of her duties at the Starkville KOA.

Media Coverage

On May 28th, 2019, a Mississippi CBS affiliation published an article about the incident. In the article, Richardson says, "You can feel the intent behind it. I felt it. I felt the heat from it. I felt it in her eyes. I knew exactly what it was. She jumped out and the gun was pointed at me, my husband, and our dog. It was just pointing at us. One finger was on the trigger and one finger was on the lever of the revolver[…]She was just like, ‘get, get, you don’t belong here, you don’t belong here, you don’t belong here."

Over the next week, other media outlets covered the incident, including the Washington Post,^[3] The Daily Dot, ^[4] The Root^[5] HuffPost^[6] and more.

Online Reaction

On May 29th, Twitter^[7] user @_SJPeace_ tweeted the video. They captioned the video "THIS IS NOT OK!." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 8,500 retweets and 16,000 likes (shown below, left).

Over the next 24 hours, people used the hashtag #PicnickingWhileBlack to discuss the incident and share their opinions on the video (examples below, center and right).