A look at Orlando demonstrators raising their voices, demanding change,
Portraits of Orlando’s demonstrators raising their voices
Around Central Florida, activists are raising their voices and demanding change following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Some are participating in protests and walks for the first time in their lives.
They come from different backgrounds, have different stories to share and different motivations for taking to the streets. But they are united by pain, grief and a burning desire for change.
Some didn’t even want to be out protesting but felt compelled to join the movement following the death of Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while he was lying on the street, face down and handcuffed.
After that, the local activists say, they didn’t see another choice. Here are some of their stories.
Aston Mack
Aston Mack has been protesting in Orlando every night since May 30. And he didn’t even want to be out in the streets.
“I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to do this, and this is not my path. But you’ve left me no choice but to do what I don’t want to do,” he said. “I happened to see this [protest] passing by on Saturday. Then over the days, I was seeing so many people and not a lot of organization, but a lot of passion. I was like, ‘Let’s get together, let’s do this.’”
Inspired to organize and channel the passion of other demonstrations, Mack started a group called Orlando Freedom Fighters, O.F.F. for short. The group’s demands include an investigative body to hold police accountable, minimum training and education requirements, and an “absolutely necessary” doctrine for using lethal force.
Mack said the demands come from a sense of injustice that he and fellow demonstrators are feeling.
“When people saw George Floyd die and they wanted to protest and they were met with riot gear, that’s where this anger comes from. That’s where this escalation comes from,” he said. “It goes all the way to the White House. We’ve never seen this level of escalation from a president, from the executive branch, from anybody in this country.”
For the Orlando activist, this movement is personal. He remembers his father being taken away in handcuffs when Mack
“I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to do this, and this is not my path. But you’ve left me no choice but to do what I don’t want to do.”
Aston Mack, Orlando demonstrator
was six years old, and he recounts being slammed against the hood of a police car himself at age 12.
“We’re going to put all of this energy to good use. We’re going to make positive suggestions for policy. We’re going to document the injustices. We are going to organize and we are going to make sure that we’re heard, and if you guys don’t make a change, we’re gonna take your jobs,” Mack said.
Cori Sims
Cori Sims has never felt as inspired to take to the streets as she does now. Joining a small group of fellow activists on the corner of Orange Avenue and State Road 50, she held an intentionally ironic sign reading, “Stay in line you will be fine.”
“People sense that something’s wrong, something is just totally wrong. Even if you couldn’t see it in the beginning, the reaction to the unrest by the government is unacceptable, inhumane — it’s terrible,” she said. “Why does there need to be a cop at every corner, exactly? That’s intense. People are peaceful.”
And while this is the first time Sims has taken to the streets in protest, she said there are other ways to make a change.
“Activism is in your choices. It’s in what you do, it’s in how you conduct yourself in the decision-making of your daily life. That’s why you have so many spans of activism. It’s all needed, you can’t do it all,” she said. “Go volunteer and help homeless people. Go out, distribute food that you have left over, supplies you have in excess.”
Sims said that this moment, during such divisive times, is about unity and realizing how people are more similar than they think.
“People are waking up,” she said. “We’re the same. Families go through the same struggles, go through the same problems. We have the same stressors. You just eat different, you might talk different, you live different, but that’s OK.”
Pastor Tim Johnson
While many are in the streets to express their anger and frustration, Pastor Tim Johnson of Orlando World Outreach Center saw the opportunity for a different approach — one to help people come together. He said people must first mourn together before they can heal.
That’s why he organized the Walk of Mourning and Restoration, in which faith leaders, public officials and community members came together without signs or chants to remember lives lost at the hands of law enforcement and to pray.
“It’s not a march, it’s not a protest, it’s not a boycott. It’s a walk, and no signs are allowed at all,” Johnson said. “Because us being together should become a sign of what we should be as a community.”
This isn’t the pastor’s first time helping the community through outreach. He previously organized “He Got Up,” a three-county bus tour helping the homeless and poor with health services, jobs, education, legal services and personal care.
As a man of faith, the killing of George Floyd has weighed on Johnson as he reckons with this painful moment in America’s story.
“How are we still here? That a man can be publicly, cold-blooded killed. Murdered. Lynched. In public. And [the officer] walked around for two or three days before he was arrested. If that was a black man with his knee on the neck of a white man, would that have been the case?” he asked. “God made us in His image. We have innate dignity and respect that has been stripped, in America, from black people.”
After organizing the walk that brought together Central Floridians from all walks of life, Johnson said his plan is to talk with law enforcement and public officials about the black community in a productive way, while including protesters so that they may be heard.
He said it’s time to what God is telling us.
“God is saying, ‘You want to see clearly. I’m going to show you not just the good, I’m going to unveil what has been in the culture of America for 400 years: oppression, discrimination, prejudice, profiling, housing discrimination, mass incarceration, name it, against black people,” the pastor said. “We’ve been asphyxiated for 400 years, we’ve had a knee on our neck. And it took a knee on a neck, literally, for America to say, ‘Enough is enough.’”
Zach
Joining other peaceful activists holding signs at the busy intersection of Orange Avenue and State Route 50, Zach, who declined to give his last name, said it’s important to hold police accountable.
“I’m supporting hear the cause. There needs to be some oversight into what goes on with the cops,” he said. “You can’t be the one that upholds the law and then just break it whenever you want without any kind of consequence to that.”
Zach said he had worked with Food Not Bombs and had demonstrated years ago, but that this was his first protest in a while. He hopes that the broader public understands why people are hurting right now.
“If they don’t get it by now, what else is it going to take? Literally every state in the country and all over the world, people are protesting this exact thing,” he said.
Jennifer
While some nurses aid people suffering from COVID-19, others help demonstrators in an auxiliary role as protest medics.
Armed with baking soda in water, a stethoscope and bandage wraps, Jennifer, who declined to give her last name, took to the streets to admininster first aid.
“This is only my second day. This cause has been really important to me. As a nurse, I’ve seen patients who are a minority treated differently. Sometimes their concerns are dismissed, sometimes there’s stigmas and stuff placed upon people,” she said. “We provide immediate medical aid. It’s sometimes difficult for EMS to get to areas where protesters are because the roads are blocked, so we just make sure people are safe and taken care of.”
Jennifer also said that her code of ethics, as set by the American Nurses Association, obligates nurses to be allies to advocate and speak up against racism, discrimination and injustice.
“There are so many injustices going on in the world. This man [George Floyd] begged for his life continually. Police take an oath to protect the public and not listening to this man’s pleas for help, ‘I can’t breathe,’ and ‘Don’t kill me’ … Something needs to change in our society,” she said.
The registered nurse said that an important way to speak up is at the ballot box, though minority groups may have a difficult time getting there.
“We’re a democracy, and the way for our voices to be heard is to vote. I think voting is one of the most powerful things we can do,” Jennifer said. “I think the obstacle to that is a lot of people who come from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds have these barriers to even access voting or may not know how to sign up to vote. If truly all the numbers were represented by voting, I think there would be change.”
Windu Jaxon
Sometimes all it takes is one sign-holding man to start a small movement, as Windu Jaxon proved at the corner of Orange Avenue and State Route 50 in Orlando.
On June 3, he first started holding up signs at the busy
intersection reading Racism” and “Black Matter.”
“I came out here, I was real angry. I bought a whole bunch of these poster boards, I bought a bunch of markers,” Jaxon said. “I stood here for like two hours by myself, and then a dude came over and he’s like, ‘Hey, mind if I stand here with you?’ A whole bunch of other people started coming over.”
He hasn’t participated in other movements recently, but experienced discrimination following 9-11. Born and raised in Palm Beach, Jaxon has Pakistani heritage.
“I hope everybody gets aware of what’s happening, that’s the most crucial part. From there, we have to start punishing the bigots,” he said.
He said the fact that people have been struggling and out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic has only added fuel to the fire of this movement.
“People are pissed. People don’t know who’s lying, who’s not lying. We’re misinformed all the time. Everybody’s in their houses. People aren’t making money. I didn’t even get my stimulus or unemployment,” Jaxon said. “That anger is coming out of people, and I feel it. I just want to blast Rage Against the Machine for the next three months.”
“End Lives