In the summer, many people in Milwaukee opt for getting exercise outside. One of the easiest ways to get an outdoor workout in is to go for a run. It seems easy enough: lace up your shoes and head out the door. But runners of color have an additional checklist to go through to make sure they’ll be safe.
Ahmaud Arbery was killed in 2020 by white vigilantes, while running in a neighborhood near his home. The news of Arbery’s death elevated conversations in the running community about safety, especially for runners of color.
One running group in Milwaukee, Forget Everything and Run — also known as F.E.A.R., has created a safe space for runners of color.
Tenia Fisher, health and wellness director of SocialX and lead F.E.A.R. captain says, "We’ve become activists and very vocal about the lack of color in the running community. By just simply running and gathering to run and making that safe space to be our protest."
"Being a person of color running and knowing the dangers of that is not new to me," Fisher explains. "This has been going on. This is why F.E.A.R. was created seven years ago. ... We still live in a world where a person of color running is something that is not 'normal' so we need to find out what that person is doing."
Fisher continues, "We really wanna change that narrative and ... you have a group here in Milwaukee that is a big group of diverse individuals. A lot of people of color that are running."
F.E.A.R. meets every Tuesday and Saturday. To promote runner safety, they request that interested runners register beforehand.
