PROTEST AT CNU
Christopher Newport University Students protested by laying face-down and kneeling on the ground for 8 minutes, 49 seconds — the amount of time it Derek Chauvin pressed his shin on George Floyd.
Hundreds face-down or kneeling for 8 minutes, 46 seconds
NEWPORT NEWS — Justin Wilson lay face-down, hands behind his back on the Great Lawn at Christopher Newport University shrieking the phase several times — “Say his name, George Floyd.”
Dozens others with Wilson sprawled out along the lawn, either lying face-down or kneeling, also alternating chants: “Black Lives Matter,” “Say her name, Breonna Taylor,” “I can’t breathe,” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.”
They were among the couple hundred students, faculty and alumni Saturday who held their positions for 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the same length of time George Floyd was held down by a Minnesota police officer in the final minutes of his life.
The demonstration was the culmination of a roughly hourlong march around campus protesting systematic racial injustice. The march at CNU was one of two scheduled for Saturday afternoon on the Peninsula
For Wilson, a 20-year-old rising senior who teamed up with fellow student Kyan HoSang, 19, to organize the demonstration, also was all about sharing the love.
“I felt a lot of love,” Wilson said, tears streaming from his eyes. “That everyone is coming together… they don’t fully understand what it means to be black, but they are all standing right here. That means a lot.”
George Floyd, a 46-year-old father, died May 25 while in custody in Minneapolis as a police officer knelt on his neck. His death set off waves of protests around the country with demonstrators calling on America to reckon with its racism and history of police brutality. In March, Breonna Taylor a 26-year-old black woman was shot and killed in her apartment by police in Louisville, Kentucky, while they were executing a search warrant.
Dozens of protests have been laced with vandalism, looting of businesses and other violence. Other events aimed at Confederate monuments around Hampton
Roads and elsewhere, with some scrawling the monuments with graffiti, in other cases tearing them down.
Wilson said he was inspired to do something at his campus after connecting with so many people at other protests he had not seen since high school. He believed that people could post on social media, but lot of negative thoughts get out there and people can feel alone.
“During this fight, I felt I was alone,” Wilson said, at the beginning of the march. “Look around you, there are people of all races and ethnicities. We are all here for the same thing.”
HoSang, who attended a protest in Norfolk, was scared at first, but came away feeling “rushes of adrenaline and straight love,” to let their voices be heard — together — and wanted the same for the CNU community.
“This was more than me or Justin could have imagined. ... I feel I just go off a roller coaster,” she said.
As marchers snaked their way through campus, homemade signs dotted the flow, with protesters alternating chants and phrases “Black Lives Matter,” and “No justice, no peace.”
The march was the first since university president Paul Trible Jr. issued a apology for a message he sent about protests against police brutality. In the message, Trible cited the burglary of his son’s luxury menswear store in Richmond as an example of destruction of property associated with the protests and condemned violence.
“I can’t sit especially as someone, I know, I’ve gone my whole life with … with privilege. I’ve never had to second-guess it. And every choice I make, whether I recognize it or not, is because of that,” said Thomas Garrett, 21, a political science major. “And so, if I were to sit at home every day and do nothing … Silence is violence … saying nothing is siding with the oppressor. And I believe that. If you can’t make your voice heard, what’s the point of having a voice? For those that don’t have a voice.”
CNU alumni Marckel Bonds also marched but felt an even stronger message could have been made.
“I think it would have been better to walk around Warwick or walk around university, rather than on campus… around the neighborhood, so people can see it, if you really want to make change,” Bonds said.