ABSTRACT
On June 22, 1996, Keisha Thomas, an 18-year-old African American woman saved someone who many would not expect to do the same for her-a man thought to be affiliated with a White supremacist group. The Ku Klux Klan was holding a rally at a city hall building in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Thomas was among a crowd of anti-clan protesters. Someone noticed a man with a Nazi tattoo and confederate flag shirt among the protesters and began to chase him. Eventually, they caught up to him and the crowd began to hit him with sticks and kick him as he lay on the ground. To protect him, Thomas used herself as a human shield by throwing herself on the man. When asked to reflect on her motivations more than 17 years later, Thomas replied, “Someone has got to break the cycle,” (Stanton, 2013). Months after she saved the man, she ran into his son who thanked her for her actions. Remembering that exchange, Thomas noted, “Imagine what would have happened if they had killed his father out there. That would have just been another person filled with anger, hate and revenge.”
