Volunteers fill in Boston Black Lives Matter mural
Holiday weekend sees protests, statue toppling
BOSTON — Volunteers using yellow paint began filling in a Black Lives Matter street mural on Sunday, a day after hundreds of people used the Fourth of July holiday to call for justice on behalf of Black victims of police violence.
Demonstrators carried signs saying “Defund The Police” and “Say Her Name” as they marched from Roxbury’s Nubian Square to the Boston Common on Saturday. The “Say Her Name March & Rallye” focused on Black women, including Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in her home in Louisville, Kentucky.
“We’re marching though to say your lives were not in vain. We’re saying you have dignity, you have worth, you have value, and you matter to us,” activist Karlene Griffiths Sekou told the crowd.
Black demonstrators noted that ancestors who were slaves weren’t free on the Fourth of July, a theme that was referenced by U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, who joined the demonstrators.
“We know that when Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, he did not mean to include Black men and Black women in our country,” Markey said. The country has “a long way to go to make sure that everyone is able to enjoy equal justice under the law,” he added.
The Black Lives Matter mural was being painted across a stretch of Washington Street near Nubian Square.
The stenciling of letters began Saturday, and volunteers began filling the letters with yellow paint Sunday. In other developments:
Twenty-one people were arrested or detained in Portland, Oregon, early Sunday after throwing fireworks and mortars as they clashed with police during the latest rally decrying police brutality.
Police used tear gas and crowd control munitions to stymie protesters who they say broke windows at a federal courthouse and nearby businesses in a protest that lasted until 4:30 a.m. Sunday, according to a news release from Portland police.
The 13 people arrested by Portland police ranged in age from 23 to 35 and were booked on suspicion of charges including rioting, disorderly conduct and attempted assault on an officer, police said in the release.
Eight more people were detained by officers from the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Services. Those people are facing possible charges of damage to government property, assault on officers and interfering with officers.
A statue of a Spanish missionary in downtown Sacramento, California, was toppled by demonstrators.
The Sacramento Bee reported that the statue of Father Junipero Serra in Capitol Park was brought down Saturday amid a protest focusing on the rights and historical struggle of Indigenous people.
The 18th-century Roman Catholic priest founded nine of California’s 21 Spanish missions and forced Native Americans to stay at those missions after they were converted or face brutal punishment.
The California Highway Patrol cleared the park after the statue came down. The CHP will investigate the statue’s removal as an act of vandalism, the newspaper said.