The full story of how the Ahmaud Arbery 'lynching' became a national flashpoint for justice

James Woodall, the president of the Georgia NAACP, said in a statement that "the modern-day lynching of Mr. Arbery is yet another reminder of the vile and wicked racism that persists in parts of our country."

He also castigated Johnson's and Barnhill's display of "slothfulness and inaction," adding that the NAACP was pushing for both to be removed from office.

For some in the black community, Arbery's death struck a different note — one of racial terror, according to AP. 

It reminded them of the 1955 kidnapping and lynching of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago, who was ultimately tossed in a river amid false allegations of whistling at a white woman. The white men who killed Till were acquitted by an all-white jury.

A protester, Anthony Johnson, told the AP he believes Arbery "died because he was black like the rest of them did. For no reason."

Arbery's case has fueled widespread anger.

The supermodel Padma Lakshmi had tweeted the Glynn County Police Department's phone number so people could demand that Gregory and Travis McMichael be taken into custody.

A Change.org petition seeking #JusticeForAhmaud amassed hundreds of thousands of signatures.

And the hashtag #IRunWithMaud trended on social media, with thousands of people signing up to run 2.23 miles — marking the day of Arbery's death.

In an op-ed article in The New York Times, the columnist Charles Blow lamented the way laws in the United States worked toward "black people's detriment and sometimes their demise" but protected people like Travis and Gregory McMichael and George Zimmerman, who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

"It is men like these, with hot heads and cold steel, these with yearnings of heroism, the vigilantes who mask vengeance as valor, who ­cross their social anxiety with racial anxiety and the two spark like battery cables," Blow wrote. "Arbery was enjoying a nice run on a beautiful day when he began to be stalked by armed men.

"What must that have felt like?" he wondered, adding, "What must he have thought as he collapsed to the ground and could feel the life leaving his body?"

Rosie Perper, Haven Orecchio-Egresitz, Jacob Shamsian, and Sarah Al-Arshani contributed to this report.

This article has been updated.

• Read more:
• Travis McMichael used a racist slur just after Ahmaud Arbery was shot, according to the person who filmed the encounter
• Investigators who arrested a father and son in connection with the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery say 'probable cause was clear to our agents pretty quickly'
• Gregory and Travis McMichael arrested in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot dead while jogging unarmed in Georgia
• 2 men were arrested in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. The attorney for Arbery's father says if it were Arbery and his father who killed a white jogger they would have been arrested on the spot.
• Family and friends of shooting victim Ahmaud Arbery are honoring his life with a 2.23-mile run after public outrage over his death led to 2 arrests
• LeBron James enraged by the shooting death of an unarmed 25-year-old black man in southern Georgia, says: 'We're literally hunted everyday'