Protest grows in Washington
Peaceful demonstration is largest yet on 9th day
WASHINGTON – Thousands of protesters from all walks of life poured into downtown Washington, D.C., on Saturday to demand an end to police violence against African Americans.
It was the ninth – and by far the largest – day of demonstrations demanding justice for George Floyd, the black Minneapolis man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, and the many other black victims of police abuse.
Protesters gathered peacefully across Washington at the city’s most iconic sites – the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial and near the White House – for simultaneous marches and mass demonstrations.
“I’m a single mom with a black son,” said Kim Cuthbert, 45, who lives in the Washington suburbs and was attending her first-ever protest Saturday.
She said her son is smart and knows what to do if he has an encounter with police, but she no longer trusts that his caution will be enough. “Whether he knows what to do and what not to do, it doesn’t matter. So it’s important for me to be down here today.”
In another part of the city, Randy Talley, 58, a producer at a Washington marketing firm, held aloft a sign that read: “Silence is no longer golden.”
“I got to the point where I could no longer sit on the sidelines, watching on TV,” said Tally, who is white and said he typically doesn’t attend protests.“I think this time, we all said, ‘Enough.”
Next to him was Jeighdeane King, a 46-year-old native of West Virginia with a “Hillbillies support Black Lives Matters” placard. King, who now lives in Washington, said she’s been horrified by the accounts of African Americans being killed at the hands of police.
“They’re human beings that are being treated in some of the most horrible ways you can imagine in 2020,” said King, who is white and works as a facilities director.
Demonstrators protest Saturday near the White House over the death of George Floyd, who died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers on Memorial Day.
People marched into downtown from Washington’s suburbs, and the city buzzed with a festive energy, a contrast to a gathering on Sunday night where some activists clashed with police and looters smashed up local businesses – leading to mass arrests. There was no sign of that on Saturday, as protesters sang, danced and chanted.
Morgan Hubbard, 13, said she came out to protest because “it really matters to me how the future turns out.”
“I can’t help but think ‘Am I next?’ and I don’t want that to happen,” she said. “I don’t want my little brother to be next, he’s seven years old. I don’t want that to happen.”
The scenes differed from one spot to the next across the city. After marching down Constitution Ave., thousands of protesters knelt at an intersection north of the Lincoln Memorial.
Around Lafayette Square near the White House, the gathering was downright jovial with live DJs and protesters who brought their own rap and reggae music. Some protesters danced while one played Marvin Gaye’s “What’s going on?” On Friday, the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, renamed that area “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” and muralists painted “BLACK LIVES MATTER” in large, yellow block letters on the street.
The tone was more somber outside the Smithsonian National African American Museum.
“I feel the gravity of this moment now more than I ever have before,” Phillip Malcolm, 26, told a crowd of several dozen of protesters there. “All I want is to wake up in the morning and not feel like someone’s knee is on my neck.”
The DC metropolitan police declined to provide a crowd estimate, and with thousands of protesters gathered at multiple sites across the city, it was difficult to get an accurate assessment.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told reporters on Friday that local officials were projecting between 100,000 and 200,000 protesters.
Kerrigan Williams, a 22-year-old graduate student at Georgetown, told a crowd through a megaphone that they would be marching to City Hall with a message for the mayor: “Sidewalk chalk with Black Lives Matter is not enough.”
Williams said she and others wanted more substantive action, including a defunding of the local police department and that money redirected to mental health, food aid and housing security in DC.