The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Demonstrations across metro Atlanta remain peaceful; Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms cancels curfew Saturday night,
Mayor cancels city’s Saturday curfew due to no arrests Friday.
Protests across metro Atlanta entered their ninth day Saturday, as peaceful demonstrations against police brutality and racial injustice stretched from downtown Atlanta deep into the suburbs.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ office said Saturday she had canceled the city’s curfew after no arrests were made the day before, ending seven straight overnight lockdowns. A decision on whether the city will cancel a scheduled curfew today starting at 8 p.m. hasn’t been announced, but a spokesman for Bottoms said the city would monitor Saturday’s demonstrations before making that decision.
A strong police and National Guard presence remained in the city, but as dusk approached, tensions were not as high as on previous nights. Protesters were still gathered on city streets as the sun was setting, and at least one police helicopter circled overhead.
Protesters shouted, “Say his name! George Floyd!” and chanted the names of others killed by police.
Floyd’s death sparked protests across the nation, including in Atlanta, where a peaceful demonstration May 29 turned into vandalism in downtown and Buckhead. Bottoms instituted a curfew the next night, which had continued each evening since.
But the demonstrations have been largely peaceful for days, and the number of arrests has declined dramatically.
Protests Saturday in the Atlanta area were echoed from coast to coast, including thousands on the streets of Washington, D.C.
Dionisio Tabora, 27, one of the organizers of Saturday’s march through downtown Atlanta, said he expected about 75 protesters, but hundreds gathered.
“It fills me with joy to see people not worry about the National Guard and stand up for what is right,” he said. One African American officer in an unmarked vehicle raised his fist in the air to cheers from marchers.
Demonstrations have filled streets in places with starkly different politics, from the thousands who gathered Saturday downtown in liberal Athens to the many hundreds in conservative Forsyth County, known for an infamous outbreak of whiteon-black violence in 1912 that forced out the entire black population of the county of more than 1,000.
As afternoon temperatures soared into the upper 80s, the mood was festive near Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta. The park has been the epicenter of demonstrations in the city.
Atop a parking deck, a group of young African American men and women who are band members at various historically black colleges and universities gathered for a jam session.
As others yelled, “No justice, no peace,” the band played. Terrell Guerra, 20, a Bethune-Cookman University
student, played the tuba.
“With all the police brutality and negativity, we wanted to do something positive,” said Guerra, a graduate of Miller Grove High School in DeKalb County.
The first June weekend in Virginia-Highland would typically bring the community’s annual Summerfest. But the lively summer gathering, canceled by the coronavirus pandemic, was replaced by 1,000 or more marching with their children in the streets.
Families lined a 2-mile stretch of North Highland
Avenue. Many held “Black Lives Matter” signs and chanted “No justice, no peace” as people drove by in cars, honking with fists raised. Most of the protesters were white.
One white man held a sign that said, “I will never understand, but still I stand.”
A white woman held a sign that said, “Breonna Taylor should be 27,” a reference to a Louisville emergency medical worker killed in her home by police who entered her house with a no-knock warrant.
Sergio Tuberquia, 22, helped organize a march in Freedom Park that drew several hundred more protesters than expected.
“The big goal today is to start branching out to other places,” he said.
Tuberquia and the other organizers said they hope protests will lead to a governing body for the police.
Police brutality has continued, protesters said.
Last week, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office charged six Atlanta police officers in connection with an arrest of two college students in which officers deployed Tasers. Separately, an Atlanta police officer has been placed on administrative duty after video showed him throwing a woman to the ground during an arrest last weekend in Buckhead.
As the crowd in one demonstration stopped in front of the Fulton County Government Center, several speakers urged them to vote in Tuesday’s elections.
“This is where the change takes place,” organizer Keith Strickland told the crowd.