Newly released data from the FBI shows hate crimes in 2022 reached an all-time high since the agency began tracking such incidents, up nearly 7% from 2021.
Experts who spoke with the BBC say a host of factors, including aggressive political rhetoric and social media, have contributed to this uptick in violence - and they worry a heated upcoming presidential campaign season and violence in the Middle East could worsen the trend.
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Her son, Mr Whitfield, told the BBC her death left an indelible mark on his family and opened wounds of their previous experiences facing racism in America.
“To lose my mother - who lived her entire life never ever being completely free, never ever being accepted as a black woman in America - to have been killed by a white supremacist, it has been absolutely devastating,” he said.
The US saw a large spike in hate crimes after the 2017 Charlottesville white-supremacist rally, not in the immediate aftermath, but the following week, after Mr Trump said there were “fine people on both sides” of the protest.
The number of hate-crime incidents has risen every single election year since the FBI began collecting hate crime data, according to Mr Levin.
“Increasingly, social media is becoming so wild and unrestrained that it is creating a place where bigotry, stereotypes, conspiracy and lies go around the world seven times before the truth puts on its boots,” said Mr Levin.
Extremism researchers said the deregulation of social media platforms over the years has allowed threats and hatred to linger online for longer and reach more massive audiences.
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