Massive turnout in D.C. as movement sparked by Floyd death grows wider
WASHINGTON— Tanya DeLeon was standing by the new, fortified fencing at Lafayette Square near the White House on Saturday afternoon, wearing a shirt that read “Black Mom Magic.” Asked why she came to join the racial justice protests, she just pointed to her son Nicholas.
“We’re here to protest all the injustice in this country,” 13-year-old Nicholas said. “We want to bring awareness to everyone — all the Black people that have been killed by bad cops, even ones that haven’t been recorded and justice hasn’t been brought to them.” And how did Nicholas feel right now? “Powerful,” he said. If there is strength in numbers, then Saturday’s crowds on the streets of Washington were by a fair measure the largest and most powerful yet. An estimated 200,000 people, outraged by George Floyd’s death 12 days earlier at the hands of Minneapolis police, gathered in the newly renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House, before the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and on the grounds of Capitol Hill. They marched through residential and commercial neighbourhoods all across the city, in a movement against police brutality and in favour of racial justice, chanting “Black Lives Matter.”
April Phillips, a 47-year-old navy veteran, drove three hours from Norfolk, Va., to join the call for change.
“It’s too much and I needed to be part of it. Make my voice heard,” Phillips said. “The police violence, the racism — I grew up in the South, racism is nothing new. I kept thinking it would change. Honestly, I wanted to come to D.C. because since Trump was elected, it’s gotten far worse.”
“Hey Police, let me speak to your manager,” read the sign she carried — a nod, she said, to the “Karen” memes that have been going around. As a selfdescribed middle-aged white woman, she hoped to channel her privilege into the rising movement. “I’m very proud of my service in the navy. But I am ashamed of America for electing the racist in chief,” she said. “But I am proud of this. I’m proud of what’s going on across America and across the world, where people of all colours and all ages are getting together to just say, this is not who we are.”
In a contrast to the scenes of armed troops liberally using pepper spray and charging crowds alongside broken windows and burning buildings that defined the media image of protests on the same site less than a week ago, the mood on the street near the White House in the hot sun of the afternoon was almost like that of a concert festival. A giant “Black Lives Matter” mural had been painted in yellow on the road, and on it a man played a guitar and sang into a microphone. People at tables handed out bottled water and snacks, and local restaurants distributed free sandwiches and halfsmoked sausage dogs. A public address system a block north pumped hip hop near portapotties and food trucks. People snapped selfies in the street near unarmed soldiers in combat fatigues. These may be the symptoms of a movement going mainstream — and the question on some minds is whether this softer, family-friendly form of demonstration would ramp up or relieve the momentum toward addressing racial injustice. A poster near where D.C.
Mayor Muriel Bowser had unveiled the new road mural, and the Black Lives Matter street signs that came with it, reminded those present of an upcoming city meeting to address racial injustice in the city’s Metropolitan police force.
Elijah Devine spoke loudly to remind everyone they were protesting a man’s death — and too many other deaths.
“Someone literally put the foot on a Black brother’s neck, and we are right here walking around cool, singing Kumbaya?” he said. “Just remember what you’re here for. Remember the purpose. George Floyd got killed. Sandra Bland got killed, right? Say their names! People are just walking down the street, like this is a party. Like this is a festival. This is not a festival OK? This is talking about life.
“It’s about changing legislation, right? It’s about police reform, right? It’s about prison reform,” he continued. “It’s about putting your foot on the necks of the oppressor, not being oppressed anymore. People are too happy with being out here. This is not a happy moment. I need people to understand.” Even as some nearby were singing along and dancing to a rendition of “Sweet Caroline” played by a street performer, many others at the protest were keeping their focus on Floyd’s memory, and on the change the protest movement was calling for. “My body is not a target,” read a shirt pinned to the fence blocking the route to the White House. Overheard conversations dealt with the concept of defunding police departments, an idea once only heard among activists that is suddenly part of the national conversation (and the international one — Toronto city Coun. Josh Matlow tweeted support for the idea this week).
Many in the crowd were eager to comment to a Canadian reporter about Justin Trudeau kneeling with demonstrators in Ottawa.
Throngs of demonstrators near the fence were chanting, “No good cops in a racist system!” Seemingly every few minutes, new marches spun off from the crowd into different areas of the city, chanting George Floyd’s name.
At one point in the afternoon, a group of Black children — some waving Black Lives Matter flags while others held handmade signs reading in primary school hand-lettering, “Don’t shoot us” and “Black is beautiful” — ran through a series of chants and pumping their fists as a growing crowd around them took notice, calling out the names of Floyd and others killed by police. They stood in the middle of the road, facing the vista of the White House and the Washington Monument beyond the fence.
“Where’s the future?” They chanted. “Right here!”