The summer months were unrelenting for John Clair, a police chief in rural Virginia.
Clair’s normally sleepy town of Marion was the site of two Black Lives Matter protests where heavily armed militia members showed up in droves, alongside other counterdemonstrators, and engaged in tense standoffs with protesters.
“People would call me up and ask how I’m doing,” Clair recalled. “And what I’d say is, ‘I’m dealing with the most complex leadership challenge of my career in the midst of the most widespread social crisis in 100 years. But other than that, I’m doing OK.’”
Clair is now grappling with a different kind of leadership challenge: Election Day.
