Us & Them

On November 21, 2016, William Pulliam, a 62-year-old white man, shot James Means, a 15-year-old African-American boy, after the two had an argument outside of a Dollar General Store in Charleston, WV. The shooting conjured memories of the death of Trayvon Martin after it was reported that in his confession, Pulliam told police, “The way I look at it, that’s another piece of trash off of the street.” In this episode, Us & Them host Trey Kay works to understand who are Means and Pulliam, but moreover, what can this senseless killing tell us about race relations in small town America in 2017.