On February 10, 2015, UNC students Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha were eating dinner in their home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina when they were killed by their neighbor Craig Hicks in 36 seconds. Before their families can grieve, they are forced to become activists to set the record straight — that these killings were a hate crime.36 SECONDS: PORTRAIT OF A HATE CRIME charts the families' agonizing overnight pivot from trauma to advocacy as they struggle to prevent their loved ones' deaths from being dismissed as the result of a random parking dispute as Hicks originally claimed, and local law enforcement and national media quickly parroted. They courageously speak the truth about the hate crime that destroyed their lives, the overtly insidious ways racism plays out in our society, and about the need to reform a hate crime system that is broken.