Oprah sends gift, makes phone call to Ahmaud Arbery’s family

The family shared a message of support from the media mogul

May 12, 2020

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Ahmaud Arbery’s family has found another high-profile supporter. TMZ reports that the Arbery family received a call from none other than Oprah Winfrey who offered her support to the grieving family.

Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother, told the website that Winfrey reached out to her on what would have been Arbery’s 26th birthday last Friday. That’s the same day that supporters celebrated his birthday with a #Irunwithmaud campaign that asked people to run 2.23 miles in support of the Brunswick, Ga. native.

He was killed by two white men, father and son Gregory and Travis McMicheals while running in the neighborhood of Satilla Shores, Ga. The armed men appeared to be laying in wait for Arbery. When he swerved to run around them, one of the men came around the truck with a shotgun. After a tussle over the weapon, Arbery was fatally shot.

The campaign was based around the date that Arbery was killed and reflected his love of running. The former high school athlete was living at home in Brunswick with his mother. Although he was killed in February, the case came to national attention first with a New York Times piece.

The piece was initiated by Arbery’s cousin, who emailed someone he knew at the Times to ask that the shooting be looked into further as the men who killed Arbery were not initially arrested. A story was done and then an explosive video that showed the moments leading up to the shooting and the shooting itself was released. The outrage over that video led to the arrest of the McMicheals.

Cooper-Jones said that Winfrey expressed her condolences and hoped that justice would be done. She also said that Winfrey told her the family would receive a gift but was not told what it would be.

Other celebrities have expressed their support for the Arbery family. Cooper-Jones says that Gayle King, Oprah’s BFF has reached out to express her sympathies and that the Rev. Jesse Jackson wants to visit with the family once it’s safe to do so.

Other celebrities that have offered their support and expressed their outrage include LeBron James, Tracee Ellis Ross, Naomi Campbell, Taylor Swift, Viola Davis, and Justin Timberlake, among others.

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