MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- A local student has completed a map that details the geographic distribution of hate groups found here in Tennessee and across the Southeast.
This past semester Middle Tennessee State University’s Dr. Patricia Boda asked her cartography class to create maps for a project she entitled the “Geography of Hate.”
One student created maps detailing the forced eviction of Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the 1830s Trail of Tears exodus. Others focused on the Holocaust and more recent instances of genocide in Sudan and Rawanda.
A student we’ll simply call Daniel created a map that locates hate groups in the American Southeast using information provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Everyone needs to be aware that hate still happens and that racism is a permanent issue. It’s not a historical problem.”
Dr. Boda says that on the day her students presented their projects in class, the pervasiveness of hate took them by surprise.
“They were absolutely overwhelmed by the scope, the breadth, and the depth of this and impressed how much hate is everywhere. It hurts and it wastes; wastes resources, money, energy…and of course lives and they were just absolutely touched.”
Dr. Boda says the Geography of Hate maps will be on public display April 1 on Legislative Plaza during Tennessee’s official Holocaust Remembrance Day.