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Rob Bliss, holds a Black Lives Matter sign in Harrison, Arkansas. Bliss posted a video of the reactions he received to the sign.(Photo: Rob Bliss)

Rob Bliss stood outside a Walmart Supercenter in Harrison, Arkansas - dubbed "America's Most Racist Town" - and held a sign for everyone to see.

The words on the sign? "Black Lives Matter."

Needless to say, it caused quite a stir.

Bliss, a 31-year-old white man from Los Angeles, endured abarrage of hate speech during his project, which is now a viral rage on social media.He went to Harrison shortly after Independence Day and recorded the reactions of townsfolk, condensed days of vitriol down to just over two minutes,and let it fly on YouTube.

The video, which has been viewed more than 920,000 times on Bliss page, is a bleak bombardment of hate.One person warns Bliss not to be around after dark. Anothercalled him a derogatory term for Jewish people. A few brought up the fact he was white and asked why he was holding the sign at all. Most looked like they were on their way to or from shopping, driving typical trucks, SUVs and compact cars, launching salvos of venom.

Federal agency: Supporting 'Black Lives Matter' isn't partisan or political

A lone man rolled down his window while driving by Blissand said, About 10 minutes I'm going to be back. You better be (expletive) gone. Bliss said he feared the man was going to get a gun.

Bliss, no stranger to viral video famewith videos like "10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman,"said videos like his help the conversation around the Black Lives Matter movement.

Protests against racial inequality and police brutality have continued across the country in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died at the knee of a former Minneapolis officer.

I think people assume that real racism doesnt really exist anymore, Bliss said. That its more like, its institutional or its implicit or its subconscious, when really, one of the reasons why I like this video is you can see this is very real. This is very present and its very visceral. Its like Level 1 racism and were still at this level in many places around the country.

Across the US: Black Americans report hate crimes, violence in wake of George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter gains

Bliss videofeatures a near-constant torrent of insults, threats and racial epithets directed at Bliss. The end features a solitary upbeat moment, in which a person gives Bliss a note saying, "Don't give up hope."

There were others who were kind, Bliss said. Some people offered Gatorade to help him beat the brutal heat and others gave the occasional thumbs up.

Bliss said most of the video was shot at theWalmart Supercenter. At one point in the video, Walmart employees confronted Bliss and asked him to leave.

As a company committed to racial equity, we stand in solidarity with the Black community, and are appalled some chose to express themselves in such a hurtful way, Walmart said in statement to USA TODAY in response to the video.

Still, Bliss was asked to leave the premises because we have a policy prohibiting solicitation and demonstrations on Walmart property for both individuals and organizations, the company added.

Fact check: Kroger is not charging customers a Black Lives Matter tax

Its important we come together during these difficult times and display kindness and understanding while respecting our differences, Walmart said in a statement. Respect for the individual is a core value at Walmart, and we will continue to demonstrate that principle in how we operate our business.

Bliss said hes received threats of legal action from people who dont want their faces in the video.

Leadership in Harrison responded to the video on Tuesday. In a joint statement, Boone County Judge Robert Hathaway, city Mayor Jerry Jackson and Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Bob Largent said, The video does not represent Boone County nor the City of Harrison.

While we cannot excuse the reprehensible behavior and words of individuals recorded in the video, we know for certain that they do not reflect the views of the majority of the good people of our communities, the group said.

Walmart: Walmart will stop selling 'All Lives Matter' merchandise

They added, It is obvious there is still work to be done in our area and across the nation. We must constantly strive to do better, and we pledge our continued efforts in that regard.

Harrison was recently featured in the Boston Globe after Black Lives Matter demonstrators marched to the Harrison town square in June. The protest, despite the presence of armed counter-protesters, was largely peaceful, the Globe reported. A single armed Black man led a march consisting mostly of white people, and police held back and quieted counter-protesters, according to the Globe.

Harrison is a town of just over 13,000 and is more than 95 percent white, according to U.S. Census data. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports the city is the headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. In 2019, the SPLC tracked 15 hate groups in Arkansas -- five were in Harrison.

Shedding some of the towns racist reputation can start with getting rid of a billboard, Bliss said. The still image for the video is Bliss holding his sign in front of a billboard for White Pride Radio.

If thats not Harrison, Arkansas, then they as a city, as a town, need to take it down, he said. Go get a cherry picker, a ladder, whatever you need to do. If thats not you, then take that down and support each other in doing that. If it remains up, the whole town is complicit in allowing that to remain.

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A man held a Black Lives Matter sign in Harrison, Arkansas. He posted the racist responses to YouTube. - USA TODAY

The police have identified the protester killed Saturday night during a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin, Texas, as Garrett Foster, 28.

Chief Brian Manley of the Austin Police Department confirmed Foster's identity Sunday evening, the Associated Press reported.

Witnesses said Foster, who was armed, was shot by the driver of a car that had sped toward the gathering of protesters.

According to the police, the driver of the vehicle and other witnesses said Foster was shot only after he pointed his rifle at its driver.

Another witness disputed that, however.

"He was not aiming the gun or doing anything aggressive with the gun," Michael Capochiano, a 53-year-old accountant, told The New York Times. "I'm not sure if there was much of an exchange of words. It wasn't like there was any sort of verbal altercations. He wasn't charging at the car."

The driver who killed Foster is said to have driven off after the shooting amid a spray of return fire from at least one other protester. The police took the driver, whose identity has not been revealed, into custody before releasing the person.

Foster was transported to the local Dell Seton Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, a police representative said at a press briefing earlier Sunday.

Capochiano told the Austin-American Statesman that a person driving a vehicle honked their horn and sped down Austin's Congress Avenue, hitting an orange barrel and driving through the crowd.

"There were people around the car, yelling, and people sounding like they were frightened," he told the paper.

As the Austin-American Statesman reported, a car horn could be heard in the background of a video livestreamed to Facebook just before eight gunshots. The video shows protesters running away from the vehicle, screaming.

A vigil for Foster was held Sunday in Austin, drawing hundreds.

"I'm here to show solidarity for the movement that he died for and also to remember him and to continue the fight," one attendee, Mark Bell, told the local television station KXAN.

Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police violence have erupted across the US since the May 25 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. While most protests have been peaceful, they've sometimes turned chaotic and even deadly.

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Police reveal identity of man killed at Black Lives Matter protest in Austin, Texas - Insider - INSIDER

Do protests ever enact real change? Yes. But not all movements are created equal. Here's the ingredients of a successful movement. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON Nearly two-thirds of Americans support the recent protests againstracial injustice, a new Gallup poll released Tuesday revealed.

The nationwide protests were sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man whose neck was pinned under the knee of a white police officer for nearly nine minutes in May.

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The poll found that 65% of U.S. adults support the protests. Additionally, 53% said the protests"will help" public support for equality and racial justice versus 34% who said they would "hurt"and 13% who saidthey will "make no difference."

The poll also reports that approximately one in 10 respondentssaid they had participated in a demonstration in the last month. Among younger respondents, that number jumps to one in four.

In terms of support for the protests, 92% of Black Americans said they support the protests, while89% of Asian Americans, 70% of Hispanics and 59% of white respondents said they do.

Fact check: Kroger is not charging customers a Black Lives Matter tax

Additionally, 54% of those surveyed said the protests have changed their views on racial justice and equality in some way, while 47% stated the contrary.

Thesupport for the protests comes as the White Houseand Attorney General William Barr try to paint the protesters as"violent rioters."

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Barr offered an unmitigated defense of the deployment of federal officers to Portland, Oregon, where he said "a mob"hijacked legitimate demonstrations against police brutality.

A "Wall of Vets" joined the "Wall of Moms" group in downtown Portland, Oregon, to protest racism and police brutality. Storyful

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Barr called protestsin Portland"an assault on the government of the United States," countering Democratic lawmakers who have characterized federal officers' actions against protesters as unconstitutional, politically charged fearmongering.

While some of the demonstrations grew unruly, overall, the protests have been largely peaceful, according to researchconducted by the marketing firm Ipsos and teams from the Universities of Chicago and Oxford.

The poll also revealed partisanship in terms of support and participation for the protests, with 95% of Democrats supporting the demonstrations, compared with 69% of independents and 22% of Republicans.

Respondents who affiliated as being Republicanalso were only 1%likely to participate, and only 14%stated they felt a connectionto the protests' cause,according to the poll.

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The results were based from a web study of36,463 U.S. adults, conducted between June 23 and July 6. Ithas a margin of error of 1.4percentagepoints. "The margins of error for white, Hispanic, Black and Asian American survey respondents were 1.6, 6.6, 6.4 and 8.8 percentage points, respectively."

Contributing:Kristine Phillips, Kevin Johnson USA TODAY

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Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans support protests against racial injustice - USA TODAY

We dont really know when the economy will get better, but there are three directions it could go. We break them down and why the future of the largest economy in the world is virtually in the hands of Congress.

What is missed often about what these movements have in common is we may not be of a religious tradition, but we absolutely are of a spiritual tradition, Khan said, citing the examples of Lewis and Ella Baker, another civil rights forbear with ties to the church. There is something inherently supernatural and spiritual about the work of social justice and the work of change.

The goals of the Black Lives Matter movement also intersect with the objectives of many liberation-focused Black churches: self-sufficient, politically empowered Black communities, equal access to resources and deep regard for public safety.

Al Sharpton, Baptist minister and founder of the National Action Network, said that to suggest that the movements conflict with the church is a new phenomenon would be rewriting of the movement.

This is nothing new, Sharpton said. Martin Luther King used to call it 'creative tension.' We need the push and pull between different disciplines and different tactics to come up with the best way.

Sharpton pointed out that of the Big Six civil rights leaders of the 1960s who coordinated the first March on Washington James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, A. Phillip Randolph, Whitney Young, King and Lewis only one, King, was a preacher. Many, as in the case of Roy Wilkins, were often hostile to the church as an organizing tool and felt it got in the way of the movements goals. Its a pattern that repeats itself in the Black Lives Matter era, Sharpton argued.

It's not like you don't have church leaders that don't disagree with me, he said. And it's not like you don't have Black Lives Matter folks that say he ain't with us even though he's black, and he says he is. There's searching on all sides. Can we make it all work is the challenge.

Two of Black Lives Matters founders, Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza, have spoken at National Action Network events and gone on Sharptons show to show operational unity. Younger activists have deferred to Sharpton in their organizing, as was the case in Minneapolis during George Floyds funeral, where it was accepted that Sharpton would deliver Floyds eulogy.

Activists of all generations, genders and sexual and religious orientations are united, moreover, in their view of how Lewis civil rights record has informed the work they have done and continue to do. His legacy proves especially critical now, following the more than two months of protests against racism and police violence that have made Lewis quintessential phrase good trouble newly relevant.

Speaking at Lewis' funeral at Ebenezer Baptist Church, former President Barack Obama, weighed in from the pulpit on the biggest political issues of the day: Voting rights, fair Congressional representation and the presence of federal agents in Americas cities.

We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, Obama, the nation's first Black president, said.

Yet Lewis work, Obama continued, vindicated the faith in our founding.

Several organizers said Lewis legacy has helped them push the boundaries of what could be possible in their work.

Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, evoked Lewis words from his speech at the first March on Washington in her address to the Democratic National Committees platform meeting on Monday.

Hearkening back to Lewis, we are now involved in a serious revolution, Cullors said, borrowing language from his March on Washington address. Cullors encouraged the Democrats to embrace sea changes recommended by the Black Lives Matter movement, namely the BREATHE Act, which would limit federal ability to deploy police forces to cities and dramatically decrease the defense budget.

It's not enough just to have a seat at the table, we want to create a table or we want to flip the table over, said Angela Peoples, an organizer and director of Black Womxn For, an organization that aims to galvanize the political power of Black women and gender non-conforming folks. But even being able to name that as something that we want or that we even think is possible is only because those that have come before us have pushed their existence and their reality to see beyond what's possible.

This was true even in the face of bodily danger, something that has been associated with Lewis legacy as a protester. Jesse Jackson, former presidential candidate and founder of the multiethnic organizing Rainbow Coalition said that Lewis became immortal on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday in 1965. During that day, Lewis skull was cracked by a state trooper with a billy club.

John never stopped fighting, Jackson said. He had no fear and was always a really gentle and tough-minded person.

He also had his eyes on the future, even in his final days: one of the last pieces of legislation Lewis supported was the Justice in Policing Act, which aims to limit police violence. The bill, which would establish a national standard for police tactics and limit officers use of force, passed in the House on June 25, exactly one month after Floyd was killed.

Kayla Reed, director of the organizing group Action St. Louis and co-creator of the Movement for Black Lives Electoral Justice Project, said Lewis legacy inspired her career of activism.

I think it highlights what is possible, Reed said. When we think about how some people put a beginning and end to movements, that movement [work] is actually a lifelong commitment.

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From Bloody Sunday to Black Lives Matter, the role of the Black church is shifting - POLITICO

DARLINGTON, S.C. Former Major League Baseball All-Star second baseman Orlando Hudson says he will not wear a Black Lives Matter shirt.

Hudson, a native of Darlington, spoke alongside South Carolina Highway Patrol Col. Chris Williamson, also a Darlington native, at a conversation on policing event held Thursday evening at the Dominion Church.

"I've been asked to wear that shirt," Hudson said. "The reason I won't wear that shirt is not because black lives don't matter but because we have lost our identity as a black culture. We leave our women [and children] fatherless. We rape our women. We sell drugs to our own people. And it hurts."

"It seems black lives only matter when you have a Caucasian cop killing a young black man, then everybody wants to march for injustice," Hudson continued. "Where's the [march for] injustice when our mothers are raising two or three kids and the father is running around doing what he have to do?"

Hudson asked where was the march for injustice when gang-bangers were killing each other over a street corner or a block.

"They call that street cred," Hudson said. "When the white man kill us, they call that injustice."

No one in the room, Hudson said, created the injustices that African American people face today. Those have been going on for 400 years.

Hudson said most people have virtually unlimited opportunities for education.

"Now, we're in a time now where an African American brother can get an education but we'd rather see how many likes we can get on Snapchat," Hudson said. "We'd rather see how much love we can get on Instagram."

Instead of reading books, it's TikTok videos, Hudson added.

Hudson also expressed a desire for African Americans to desire to become doctors and lawyers and not focus all their efforts on becoming professional sports athletes.

Hudson imagined a conversation between Christ and God in which Christ tells God not to get angry about the lack of unity in the world because Christ was going to send a pandemic to force people to become unified.

Hudson also expressed a desire to see more people put God first in their lives. He implied that people needed to spend less time waiting in line at Walmart and more time in church.

Hudson also spoke about NBA forward LeBron James. He said he absolutely adored James both on and, particularly, off the court. Hudson said he admired James for making it to the NBA despite being the child of a teenage single parent.

James was born on Dec. 30, 1984, to 16-year old Gloria James.

"He understood being a young black man, playing this game that he loved playing, 'I can't make too much noise right now because they got an opportunity or a chance to run me out of here. I've got no leverage,'" Hudson said, partially speaking as James. Now that James has achieved success and the financial security that comes with it, Hudson said, "they can't shut him up."

Others speaking during the conversation included Williamson he showed a video of what to expect during a traffic stop and also talked about unity and togetherness South Carolina state Rep. Robert Q. Williams, Darlington County Schools Superintendent Tim Newman, Darlington Police Chief Kelvin Washington, and Darlington Mayor Curtis Boyd.

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Orlando Hudson says he won't wear Black Lives Matter shirt - SCNow