Demonstrators vow to sustain momentum
WASHINGTON — Protesters stirred by the death of George Floyd vowed Friday to turn an extraordinary outpouring of grief into a sustained movement as demonstrations shifted to a calmer, but no less determined, focus on addressing racial injustice.
By early afternoon, demonstrations resumed for an 11th day around the country with continued momentum as the mood of the protests largely shifted from explosive anger to more peaceful calls for change. Despite the change in tone, the country’s most significant demonstrations in a half-century — rivaling those during the civil rights and Vietnam War eras — showed no signs of dissipating. Formal and impromptu memorials to Floyd stretched from Minneapolis to North Carolina, where family were gathering Saturday to mourn him, and beyond.
Josiah Roebuck, a Kennesaw State University student and organizer of a demonstration that drew about 100 people Friday in an Atlanta suburb, said he was confident that momentum will be maintained.
“Once you start, you’re going to see this every day,” said Roebuck, who has attended multiple other Atlanta-area protests. “I just want minorities to be represented properly.”
Demonstration leaders have employed various organizing tools including social media, which Roebuck said he used to gather people for the demonstration outside a Kennesaw store selling Confederate memorabilia. “Social media is a big influencer today,” he said.
Protests around the country had initially been marred by the setting of fires and smashing of windows, but Friday marked at least the third day of more subdued demonstrations, including a heartfelt tribute to Floyd in Minneapolis that drew family members, celebrities, politicians and civil rights advocates on Thursday. The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a fierce eulogy and outlined plans for a commemorative march on Washington in August, vowing the movement will “change the whole system of justice.”
Floyd’s body was taken to North Carolina, the state where he was born 46 years ago, for a public viewing and private service for family on Saturday. Then in Texas, where Floyd lived most of his life, services culminating in a private burial will take place over two days next week.
In Washington, city workers and volunteers painted “Black Lives Matter” in enormous yellow letters on the street leading to the White House in a sign of local leaders’ embrace of the protest movement. The mural that also includes an image of the city’s flag stretched across 16th Street for two blocks, ending just before the church where President Donald Trump staged a photo-op earlier this week after federal officers forcibly cleared a peaceful demonstration to make way for the president and his entourage.
“The section of 16th street in front of the White House is now officially ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza,’” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a tweet shortly after the mural was completed Friday.