Biker returns to Winnetka pier, this time to a welcome

Friendly people at Saturday’s bike ride kept saying, “Welcome.”

In truth, Otis Campbell didn’t feel unwelcome, even after a white woman — who was arrested and later charged with a hate crime — accosted him on the Winnetka pier where he and friends ended a long bike ride on Aug. 17. In the now widely circulated video Campbell took of the encounter, the woman tells him to “go back to where you’re from.” He lives in Skokie.

“I went to Niles North,” the 25-year-old said on Saturday, standing among a crowd of cyclists gathered to ride with him to the pier and make the point that Campbell, and Black people generally, are welcome in Winnetka. He regularly rides his Schwinn through the North Shore suburbs. He has a specialty sneaker business, has a background in computers and likes anime.