Seniors, doctors, students call for justice
Black protesters notice more white marchers
On the third Saturday of protests against police treatment of Blacks, the death of George Floyd and systemic racism, three events in southeastern Wisconsin highlighted the diverse range of voices eager to be heard.
On Milwaukee’s south side, high schoolers organized a march of 200 people, many of them white, to march from the Mitchell Park Domes to City Hall.
On the north side, more than 100 people, mostly senior citizens, lined the corner of North King Drive and West North Avenue with folding chairs for a sit-in that supported marchers that went by.
In Madison, about a thousand medical professionals marched on the State Capitol in a demonstration dubbed “White Coats for Black Lives.”
There were other peaceful demonstrations on Saturday as well, but after three weeks of marching and chanting, one thing is clear: a range of Wisconsinites, and Americans in general, are eager to show their solidarity with the Black community and other people of color. Demonstrations just in Milwaukee have featured people with disabilities and professional athletes, Muslim students and the Hispanic community.
“We have a lot of diverse people in our community that support our movement, that support justice, support change,” said Tynetta Jackson, an organizer with Solomon’s Outreach and Urban Learning Sessions (SOULS), which operates out of King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church. “We’re excited that every walk of life came out to support the protesters that are going down North Avenue.”
The sit-in provided an opportunity not just for people with limited mobility to participate, but in some respects for them to pass the torch to a younger generation.
“These older people that are out here fought the same fight in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and they’ve done this before and they’re now passing on the baton to the younger generation,” Jackson said. “They’re still in our fight and they still have something to say.”
Carl Munson said he came out to the protest because he has seen racial inequities persist throughout his lifetime and recognizes the privilege he experiences as a white person that those without his skin color do not.
“I guess with age, you see this more and more, and you keep thinking: Oh, that’ll change. Oh, give it a couple years and it’ll get better. … Well, it never got better,” he said.
Munson said he was involved with the 1967 housing marches in Milwaukee, which lasted for 200 consecutive days. This time around, he said, participation among non-Black Milwaukeeans was much higher. Back then, he could count the number of non-Black protesters “on probably one hand,” he said. But from what he saw, the majority of protesters at the rally Saturday were not Black.
“It was very refreshing talking with some of the older people around about change, and their feelings are somewhat the same as what I’m saying: that there is a belief and a hope – sometime the changes will be coming, and what those are, I don’t know,” Munson said. “I believe it’ll be for the benefit for all people. And I think it’s a start.”
The march to City Hall was mostly organized by high school students from North Division High School, in particular, the student group Youth Rising Up.
One of those students, Kimora Caldwell, a soon-to-be sophomore, said she felt encouraged by the turnout of white protesters because Black people can often feel vulnerable during demonstrations.
“We love when they come out because most Black people are scared,” Caldwell said. “They’re scared that they’re going to get shot by rubber bullets or they’re going to get tear gassed or tased or arrested by the police. That’s why most Black people don’t come out.”
Karen Spiewak and her two adult daughters joined Caldwell on the march. Spiewak said she showed up because of the story of Tamir Rice, a Black 12-yearold who was killed by Cleveland police in 2014 while playing with a toy gun in a park.
Spiewak, who is white, said someone called police on her 14-year-old son in 2001 when he was playing in the backyard “in the same way.” That didn’t escalate to a shooting, she said. But in Rice’s case, an officer shot the boy almost immediately after arriving on the scene.
In Madison, the “White Coats for Black Lives” march focused on systemic changes needed to curb racism in the medical field, and the massive disparities in health outcomes for Black patients compared to their white counterparts.
Black Wisconsinites have a much shorter life expectancy than whites. They are more likely to have higher rates of chronic illness, and more likely to develop more than one illness. The Black infant mortality rate is much higher than the rate for white infants.
“The police are in the hot seat right now, but we know there are disparities in the medical field,” Kevin Izard, a doctor and president of the Cream City Medical Society in Milwaukee, told the crowd. “We are standing here about a mile from the medical school. The number of black doctors hasn’t changed since the ‘70s. Where’s the progress in that?”
Contact Elliot Hughes at elliot.hughes@jrn.com or 414-704-8958. Follow him on Twitter @elliothughes12.