The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A protest lifts a small town and leaves it better
PLAINFIELD — I held a lit candle for the dead and beaten on Saturday afternoon. I walked with a sign that read, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Alongside my wife and son, we stood in silence and we chanted in unison. This was not in New York or Washington or Hartford or New Haven or Bridgeport. This was not among thousands. This was among maybe 100 folks. There were no television cameras.
I walked because Plainfield is my hometown. I walked because I am a voter, a homeowner, a taxpayer in a town of 15,000 in eastern Connecticut. A town that is 96.15 percent white, one whose reputation is not one of racial sensitivity.
I walked because a 22-year-old woman named Julia Campagna had the courage, the heart, the soul, to put together a vigil and peaceful protest that, love is greater than hate and, hell, yes, black lives matter.
We gathered next to the Town Hall around the picnic tables in a roofed area, out of the hot June sun. Nearby the hoops of the basketball court were still down because of COVID-19 regulations. Nearby was the track that had led some townsfolk a few months earlier to argue about social distancing.
We held our signs.
“I Can’t Breathe”
“We Stand With You” “Color Is Not A Crime” “Black Lives Matter”
A woman held a sign, “At what point do my BLACK SONS stop being cute and become a threat?”
Next to her a young boy held the sign, “My Life Matters.”
There were 75 candles available. They were all handed out and they were lit. I counted a dozen people of color, two white men above 40.
Julia Campagna stood among us. She asked for 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence.
You don’t realize how long that is until you stand there without a word. A little one lets out a noise. A bird tweets. The silence continues.
It seems like forever. That’s how long Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had his knee buried in George Floyd’s neck. That’s how long it took to change America for the better.
Around the six-minute mark, there are sounds. Barely audible at first, then a little louder. It is our townspeople sniffing back their tears.
When 8 minutes, 46 seconds finally, mercifully, elapses, it has been an eternity.
This past week a woman posted the idea of such an event on a Plainfield residents’ Facebook page and she was met with considerable blowback.
We don’t need outsiders destroying property and looting our businesses!
All lives matter! Not just black lives!
Why not a protest for white people killed by cops?
Why don’t you talk about George Floyd’s criminal record?
Posts and threads were taken down, but there was at least one comment about the N-word. And another about being locked and loaded. I smelled hatred.
“Everyone seemed super-negative about it,” Campagna said. “I commented on the page I’d like to do something. One of my friends (Alyssa Kondratowicz) said, I’ll do it with you.”
So they did. And when the event was over, shortly before a hefty thunderstorm hit, I was left not only moved but convinced. Convinced that as powerful and effective the massive protests against police brutality may prove to be, we, too, need the gatherings in smaller places. In our hometowns, at the grassroot level, to pull out the seeds of racism before they are nurtured and the ugly weeds of our existence grow.
The comments on the residents’ page that had got to me the most were the ones about how we live in a small town, in the quiet corner of Connecticut, and let’s keep it that way. We don’t need trouble. We don’t want outsiders.
I understand fear and the human response to avoid problems, yet those words also spoke to a core principle of my own beliefs. Those are the words I carried on my sign. We are in this together.
Julia Campagna does not pretend to be a great movement organizer or educated in every nuance of the police system. She attended a recent protest in Norwich, the things people said, the gravity of a beautiful day moved her to action. She made it clear that she does not speak for black voices nor pretend to have walked in their shoes. She does recognize we all walk down the same road. Julia is what we should all aspire to be: an ally of justice for all Americans.
“It all started with a little inspiration, and I hope what I did gives a little more inspiration to some others for the movement,” she said.
I wasn’t afraid of the protesters. I wasn’t afraid of what the police would initiate. They posed for a photo with the protesters. I was afraid of what anti-protesters might do. There would be only a handful of people watching from their trucks and cars. The keyboard warriors remained at their keyboards. I heard no heckling as many of the protesters walked around the track chanting: “Black Lives Matter!”
“No Justice! No Peace!” “Say his name! George Floyd! Same her name! Breonna Taylor!”
Campagna had read the situation beautifully and she did it all in 48 hours. She talked to her mom and decided a candlelight vigil would be a unifying force. Unlike many towns in the area under State Police jurisdiction, Plainfield has its own police department. So she went to the station. She called First Selectman Kevin Cunningham. If they were to close off any roads, a parade permit would be needed. In a small town, she was told, closing roads can cause havoc. Yet, Campagna said, their anxiety was accompanied by support for the event.
“I wanted to make it easy on everybody,” Campagna said. “I know there were a lot of upset people in town and I didn’t want to make them more upset or have some people blend in as a protester with us and all hell breaks loose.”
Plainfield was splashed across the state media in 2014 after racial taunts from fans at a home high school football game led to a brawl with New London players. The New London Day quoted a former Fitch-Groton coach and player as saying they had heard similar things from fans. Others said the same. As far back as the ’90s, the Bloomfield coach said Plainfield players had racially taunted his players in a state playoff football game.
After several law enforcement agencies spent hundreds of hours investigating the alleged assault of a black teenager, the Rev. Cornell Lewis, from Members of the Men of Color of West Hartford, called Plainfield an insular racist town more interested in sweeping an assault under the rug than seeking justice.
We can argue all those things, but we all can agree a good reputation is hard to regain if it’s lost.
“We’ve been known for some terrible things,” Campagna said. “That’s not what our community should be known for. I know yesterday obviously didn’t add too much to an overall movement, but it created so much awareness around here. Go vote. Go protest. Make things happen. There are so many good people in our town. There also are so many negative people who love to share their negativity. Let’s break the stigma.”
After the 8:46 of silence had ended and Campagna had spoken, she asked if anyone wanted to speak. Ariel Owens, a black woman, stepped up and thanked everyone.
“My family has been in this town for a really long time,” she said. “They have gone through a lot of things here. It has been really difficult.”
Owens turned her attention to what she, too, had read on Facebook. She called to some of those voices, evil, having hatred.
“If you don’t love somebody that is different than you,” she asked, “do you love yourself ?”
Owens thanked the Plainfield police. There were two in uniform. The chief of police also was there.
“They have always been kind to me,” she said.
At that moment, Ariel Owens did something extraordinary. She went around and handed the cops roses. Roses.
“I thought the community needed to come together,” Julia Campagna said. “And that was beautiful.”
I want to believe Plainfield was a better place when the sun went down Saturday than it was when the sun came up.