Protesters march in Wynwood on Stonewall riots anniversary
About a hundred Miami activists gathered in Wynwood for a “Pride riot” on Sunday afternoon, marking the 51st anniversary of the beginning of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New
York City to advance LGBTQ rights.
Sunday’s “Stonewall Ballroom Riot,” where participants also wrote letters to incarcerated women, was as much a demonstration against racism and police killings of Black transgender people. It was organized in part by Black Rose Anarchist Federation and (F) empower Miami.
On social media, organizers with Miami’s Democratic Socialists of America said the protest was also a way to return the Pride movement to its “disruptive, liberatory, anti-cop, anti-capitalist roots,” in Wynwood, which they called “the heart of Miami’s rainbow capitalism.”
“They keep on talking about Pride, and they whitewash that history. They don’t want you to know that Black and brown folks ... were being beaten by the cops, that’s why [Stonewall] happened,” said Joseph Martinez, an organizer with Dream Defenders. Protesters marched through the swanky shops of Wynwood and Miami Design District.
Pride events and parades have been canceled around the country in the last several months, including in Miami Beach, as some cities have replaced them with caravans to comply with social distancing guidelines.
Even as the rate of reported COVID-19 cases surged across the state, protesters have continued to gather throughout Miami-Dade county, calling for the defunding of law enforcement. The near-daily multi-ethnic demonstrations that began on May 30 were sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, after video of police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck was widely spread.
As activists prepared to march south on North Miami Avenue, organizers like Martinez told protesters to save a phone number they can call to access bail funds in case they were arrested. The group chanted, “Pride is a riot.”
Some protesters at Sunday’s demonstration showed Miami Herald reporters bruises on their bodies they said they got from rubber bullets shot by police the previous night.
“Do they want this to be a peaceful protest and everything or do they want this to be a riot?” said Janie Jackson, 51, who said she was at Saturday night’s protest and saw no one was inciting violence before police deployed tear gas.
“These are babies, some of them are young and they’ve never seen violence like that. That’s not right for them to display that type of sh-t. We’re not a threat to them at all,” Jackson said.
On Sunday evening, protesters repeatedly blocked streets through Midtown, telling cars that as long as there’s “No Justice,” there will be “No Peace.” But partly because of the unexpected police response on the previous night, some protesters were wary of taking more drastic actions.
Though they had an opportunity around 8 p.m. to climb on I-195 for the second consecutive night, the group decided there weren’t enough of them to safely block the highway.
Dozens of police on bicycles were blocking access to main highways as protesters continued to march.
TWO SIDES AT MIAMI LAKES PROTEST
When supporters of President Donald Trump caught wind of a Black Lives Matter protest planned for Sunday in Miami Lakes, they decided to counter it with their own event: a “caravan” of cars displaying American flags, Trump 2020 flags and “Blue Lives Matter” signs along the same street at the same time.
In a message circulated privately, the caravan organizers, led by a group called Cubans4Trump, said they would be “riding by in a massive caravan on opposite side of the street of a BLM sit in.” They asked people not to announce the event publicly, but word got out after someone posted the message Saturday on Twitter.
Around 3 p.m. Sunday, a group of about 25 Black Lives Matter protesters held signs along busy Northwest 154th Street at 79th Court and chanted, “Say his name, George Floyd,” and “no justice, no peace, no racist police.” About an hour later, eight Miami-Dade police cars that had been idling nearby pulled into the median of the two-way street directly across from the protesters. Officers got out of the cars wearing riot gear.
“There was supposed to be a group of BLM up there doing a protest, but apparently, from what I’m understanding, it’s a very small group,” organizer Ariel Martinez posted from the Cubans4Trump Facebook page shortly before the caravan started. “So this is gonna be quite the surprise because this is a lot of cars, folks.”
Minutes after that, the pro-Trump brigade began. Dozens of cars rode past the protesters on the opposite side of the street, some sticking their heads through their sun roofs, waving flags and leaning on their horns. They circled the block several times, one time driving on the same side as the protesters — which prompted shouting matches and exchanges of middle fingers between the two sides — before police blocked off that side of the road.
“Don’t agitate,” the organizer of the Black
Lives Matter protest, 19year-old Miami Lakes resident Nina Zamora, told one fellow protester who seemed to be challenging a Trump supporter to cross the street onto their side.
One man carrying a large American flag walked past the Black Lives Matter protesters on foot, even while that side of the street was blocked off to cars. But a group of police officers approached him and led him away.
Both sides ultimately remained peaceful.
“Please do not interact with them,” Zamora said later while addressing the protesters after the caravan had died down. “I know it got a little heated. We are using our First Amendment right.”
Zamora had organized a protest earlier this month in the same location, prompting a backlash in the largely Cuban, conservative-leaning northwest Miami-Dade town. The following week, members of Cubans4Trump and other Trump supporters held a rally in that location, touting a pro-police message and disparaging the Black Lives Matter movement and the nationwide protests against police brutality in the wake of Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis.
“This is not the easiest town to support this cause in,” Zamora’s brother, 18-year-old Nicolas Zamora, told his fellow protesters Sunday. “Think about your mental health,” he said. “Let these emotions fuel you to be an agent of change.”
After the pro-Trump caravan drove away, a group of about a dozen protesters continued to hold signs and chant along 154th Street until after 6 p.m. One held a sign that seemed to speak directly to Miami Lakes’ Cuban population: “You left Cuba for being oppressed. Now you are the oppressor!” it said.
An organizer with Black Lives Matter in Broward County, Sean Alexis, spoke to the protesters about specific changes to push for going forward. Urge elected officials to express their opposition to qualified immunity, he said, referring to a doctrine that often shields police officers and other government officials from civil lawsuits.
“We need to get rid of that law,” Alexis, 33, said, pointing to a recent move by state legislators in Colorado to expand residents‘ ability to sue police officers in state court. “That’s the first step of holding police accountable.”
Imani Lewis, 19, said the “entire judicial system” that has resulted in the mass incarceration of
Black men must be confronted.
“Nobody is doing anything about it,” she said. She praised the protesters for continuing to show up more than a month after Floyd’s death.
“I am so amazed by all that we’ve been doing,” Lewis said. “This is how we get stuff done.”