[Editor's note: This story was reported and written by ESPN reporters David Hale, D'Arcy Maine and Alex Scarborough.]
The tweet popped up in Tia Kiaku's timeline on June 2. It was a simple message from the Alabama gymnastics program featuring a plain, black square marked with the word "unity," part of a nationwide response to bring awareness to social and racial injustice and similar to the hundreds of other tweets posted from college programs across the country. But for Kiaku, this one felt personal.
Alabama gymnastics coach Dana Duckworth preached a mantra of "one heartbeat," the team's de facto motto that was part of what lured Kiaku to Tuscaloosa as a walk-on gymnast less than two years earlier.