Suzanne Barakat lost three of her family members last year when a man named Craig Stephen Hicks fatally gunned them down .

Hicks lived in the same Chapel Hill apartment complex as Barakrats brother Deah Barakat, 23, and Deahs new wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21. On Feb. 10, 2015, Hicks walked into the couples apartment, shooting Deah multiple times, including one shot through his mouth. He killed Yusor and Yusors 19-year-old sister Razan Abu-Salha, who was over for dinner execution-style.

They were murdered by their neighbor because of their faith, because of a piece of cloth they chose to don on their heads, because they were visibly Muslim, Barakrat said in a powerful TED speech last month, a video of which was posted online Monday.

Barakat recalled the anger she felt after hearing Hicks claim that the murders were over a parking dispute, and the anger she felt hearing that claim being parroted by police and the media.

Some of the rage I felt at the time was that if roles were reversed, and an Arab, Muslim or Muslim-appearing person had killed three white American college students execution-style, in their home, what would we have called it? A terrorist attack, Barakat said.

When white men commit acts of violence in the U.S., theyre lone wolves, mentally ill or driven by a parking dispute.

Hicks, after all, had once allegedly told Yusor he didnt like the way she dressed. He posted anti-religion remarks on Facebook . Plus, there was no parking dispute that day, Barakat said. Nothing to set Hicks off.

Bakarat said she wanted the world to know: this was a hate crime .

Thats when she said a neighbor of her parents, a man named Neal, stopped by the house. Neal was a journalist and offered to set up a press conference for the family. Not as a journalist, but as a neighbor who just wanted to help.

Within a day after the press conference Neal set up, Barakat was interviewed on CNN . All the major newspapers picked up on the story too, Barakat said, allowing us to reclaim the narrative and call attention to the mainstreaming of anti-Muslim hatred.