Annapolis demonstration draws more than 1,000
Protesters call for end to racism during downtown march
With shouts of “I can’t breathe” and “Black lives matter,” more than 1,000 people marched through downtown Annapolis on Saturday morning to protest police violence and racism.
Pastors prayed for officials to correct injustices while activists implored participants to register to vote in what they described as a consequential election. At the same time, leaders demanded that Black men step up to be the role models the youths in their community need.
Starting at Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, then proceeding down Rowe Boulevard to City Dock, the protest was organized by members of the Anne Arundel clergy and local civil rights activists in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who was Black, in police custody.
As the group began its final stretch, Carl Snowden, convener of the Caucus of African American Leaders, said Floyd, killed by a white Minneapolis police officer who used a chokehold to subdue him, wasn’t the first to say “I can’t breathe.”
“The first time Black people said they couldn’t breathe, it was on slave ships coming to Annapolis,” he said. “Today, we speak for them.”
Clergy asked for God to “arrest the hearts” of lawmakers and judicial officials. They prayed that if politicians don’t hear protesters’ message from God, they will hear the voices of those chanting in the streets.
“Justice and fairness is what we want to live in peace and tranquility. And the Bible asks us to pray for those in authority,” Bishop Antonio Palmer, pastor of the Kingdom Celebration Center in Severn and an organizer of the event, said Thursday.
Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman, Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley and Tim Adams, the first Black mayor of Bowie, were among public officials in the crowd. When the marchers reached Susan Campbell Park at City Dock, they were among the first to address the crowd filling the waterfront plaza.
Buckley acknowledged the “consequential” past of slavery in Annapolis — the park is footsteps from the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial commemorating thousands of Africans brought to the city as enslaved people — and creating laws that blocked Black people from full citizenship after emancipation.
Pittman, meanwhile, rejected “racist” trickle-down economics, which he said voters won’t stand for in November. He thanked protesters “for leading us towards justice.”
Both elected officials took moments to remember the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday. A historical figure in the advancement of equal treatment of women, Pittman said, she forced the country to realize “All Men Created Equal” was not good enough.
Among the coalition of groups that organized the march, the United Black Clergy played a key role.
Apostle Larry Lee Thomas, pastor of the Empowering Believers Church in Glen Burnie and chairman of the organization, asked those in the crowd why they came.
“Did you come here because you were treated like your life didn’t matter?” he asked. “Or maybe because Black participants saw police lights in the rearview and feared a horrible outcome?”
Drake Smith, student member of the county Board of Education, described the perils of some Black youths.
“We are scared that if we get pulled over we might not make it home. Some of us are scared that if we play outside, we might catch a stray bullet.”
Organizers said the rally was intended to focus on more than police violence, but also education gaps and health disparities that have only been magnified by the coronavirus pandemic.
But the protest was just the beginning, Thomas said, “Everywhere you see injustice, look over your shoulder and we will be there.”
The march was scheduled to align roughly with the 25th anniversary of the Million Man March on Oct. 16, when hundreds of thousands of people, maybe more, descend on the nation’s capital to promote Black unity and families. It was intended to instill in African American men a personal sense of responsibility for improving the condition of their communities.
Those same values were restated Saturday.
The Rev. Karen Johnson, pastor of the First Christian Community Church in Annapolis, said that Black men need to teach boys about being a father and to protect their communities from senseless killings.
While wide-ranging in substance, the protest provided a message that’s perhaps never rung louder in Annapolis, Palmer said. According to his account, it was a success.
He believes their voices were heard.