There were 7,759 hate crimes involving 10,528 victims reported in the U.S. in 2020, the highest annual tally in the last 12 years (since 2008, when 7,783 hate crimes were reported to the FBI), according to an FBI report released this week.
But as NPR notes, experts and advocacy groups say the real number is likely higher than that. The NPR report says the 2020 numbers follow a recent upward trend in hate crimes, and that it was a 6 percent increase over such incidents reported in 2019.
Some 64 percent — or nearly two out of every three — of hate crimes reported in 2020 were motivated by bias against race, ethnicity or ancestry: 36 percent were anti-Black or anti-African-American, 10 percent were anti-white and 9 percent were anti-Jewish.