Thread by @NBCNews

A year after Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot while jogging in Georgia, Black runners all over the country are still feeling the effects.

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"I used to run for health reasons," says Akeem Baker, a longtime friend of Arbery who now wears bright clothing during jogs and only runs familiar routes through neighborhoods where he's known.

"Now I run for a sense of therapy, as if I am chasing some sort of freedom."

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"His tragic death changed everything for Black runners," says Kevin O. Davis, a member of the Plano Running Club in Texas, which has 2,000 members, almost all of them white.

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"I have changed everything. I've seen people in their car slow down as I run and look at me in their rearview mirror to make sure I was not robbing their house. I have come up on white ladies who scream just because they see me run by them," Kevin O. Davis says.

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"We, as Black runners, have to worry about what we wear and where we go," says 55-year-old Kim Backey of Buffalo.

"I wear more bright colors now. I have told my sons to not wear a hoodie because they will be judged.”

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"It's sad to think that every day we have to think about the shoes we wear, times we run, the colors we choose, where we run. And now, during a pandemic, wearing a mask, a hoodie, running at 6 a.m. ... it can be problematic," says Tyrone Irby of Durham, North Carolina.

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"Ahmaud and I ran together a lot," Baker, Arbery's friend, says.

"He kept a better pace than me, but he always encouraged me and pushed me to go harder. He may have had dark skin, but he was the brightest light ... And we have to make sure people always know that.” (7/7)