Investigation Discovery has scheduled for Monday, Feb. 23, a new one-hour special Hate In America, hosted by Al Jazeera America anchor Tony Harris, produced with The Southern Poverty Law Center and NBC News’s Peacock Productions.
The special, exploring violence inspired by intolerance, fear and hate, features the racially charged murder of a black father in Mississippi who died after being beaten and run over; the gruesome mass shooting of a Wisconsin Sikh congregation; and a brutal anti-gay attack on the streets of New York City. Harris hears from a spectrum of advocates for change, including victims’ loved ones, community leaders, civil rights attorneys, SPLC’s founder Morris Dees and even a former white supremacist who now crusades for unity among the races, ID said in a release.
According to the SPLC, more than 900 active hate groups currently exist across the United States, from neo-Nazis to anti-government militias, targeting entire classes of people for their race, religion, and sexuality, among other immutable characteristics. Largely propagated by anger and fear over the nation’s ailing economy and the diminishing white majority, that number has been on the rise for over a decade, ID said. Harris travels to communities torn apart by violence, and comes face to face with its victims, to reveal what drives modern-day hate, ID said.
