In late August, a group of Black and white civil rights marchers stopped along a highway in rural Bedford County. They were making their way from Milwaukee to Washington, D.C. to mark the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. 

But that night in Schellsburg things went very wrong.

The incident made national news for a day, another thread in the country’s ongoing struggle with racism. But a closer examination by Spotlight PA and Pittsburgh City Paper reveals a changing narrative by law enforcement authorities and how local community members took up arms in response.

The Context: Pennsylvania State Police at first said an “argument” between residents and the marchers “culminated in gun fire.” But by the end of the day, the official story had changed twice more. Police finally said property owners had called them about a gathering of people in a private business parking lot. Before troopers could arrive, police said, the property owners confronted the marchers, the confrontation escalated, and “gun shots were exchanged.”

Police say the investigation is ongoing and wouldn't talk about the incident. The district attorney in Bedford County said the same thing. 

But interviews with nine marchers and a review of four videos from the scene do not support those official accounts — namely, the contention that there was some form of confrontation with the marchers before the shots, and the possibility that a marcher had fired first.

Regardless, the narrative took hold. As the marchers continued their trek toward Washington, D.C., they were met by racial slurs and insults chalked on local roads. At the same time, white vigilantes with firearms gathered in town squares, convinced that "Antifa" was coming to burn down their communities.

“This uptick in violence is a perfect storm of things … violence is just an expression of all the things that have been happening under the surface."