Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway released a statement the following day, calling the incident a hate crime.

"The City received a report of a violent racially-motivated hate crime that occurred downtown around 1:00 am on June 24, where a group of pedestrians used a racial slur and then lit a woman on fire through her car window as she stopped at an intersection. This is a horrifying and absolutely unacceptable crime that I will not tolerate in Madison," Rhodes-Conway said.

The mayor also said the attack "may have been a premeditated crime targeted toward people of color."

Johnson said Bernstein was moved to tears after the call with Markle.

“She’s struggling. It’s a challenge for her, it’s very, very emotional. I talked to her three or four times today, and I’ll tell you Meghan lifted her spirits,” Johnson told Channel 3000.

Markle recently spoke at the virtual graduation ceremony of her alma mater in Los Angeles, telling students “the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing.”

"I wanted to say the right thing, and I was really nervous that I wouldn’t, or that it would get picked apart, and I realized the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing," Markle said. "Because George Floyd's life mattered and Breonna Taylor's life mattered and Philando Castile's life mattered and Tamir Rice's life mattered. And so did so many other people whose names we know and whose names we do not know. Stephon Clark, his life mattered."

Markle and Prince Harry have been distributing meals in Los Angeles and working with social justice advocates to help formerly incarcerated people. The couple is also in the midst of launching their nonprofit Archewell, which aims to provide various types of charitable services, The Telegraph reports.

Althea-Bernstein

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