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“What people have to understand is we say Black Lives Matter because it’s been evident that they don’t.”
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— Youth and College NAACP President Taylor Turnage at the June 6, 2020, Black Lives Matter march in Jackson
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Historic Protests For Black Lives Sweep Mississippi Over Weekend by Nick Judin
ling, Sandra Bland and many more—served as a constant backdrop to the protests. “We’ve been fighting the same battle for centuries,” one protester told the Jackson Free Press. “We’re tired, exhausted, and we’re not going to be passive.” “(People) need to understand that this is just the beginning. No justice, no peace,” another demonstrator said. His shirt displayed the words, “I can’t breathe,” the cry for help that has become symbolic of the oppression and violence in the black experience in America, especially since Eric Garner’s death by a police chokehold in New York City in 2014. The march passed the State Capitol, the Mississippi flag fluttering limply in the breeze beneath the Legislature’s dome.
Furled against its pole, the Confederate stars and bars were its most visible aspect. “Change the flag!” the crowd chanted as they rounded the street. No violence or provocations interrupted Saturday’s protests. Nor did a heavy police presence box the demonstrators in. The event unfolded as its organizers intended: peacefully, though on a much larger scale than they could have anticipated. As the march drew to a close, a hush fell over Capitol Street. Attendees observed eight minutes and 46 seconds of silence, the exact length of time a police officer’s knee pinned George Floyd’s neck to the pavement in Minneapolis. For many of the protesters, their demands were far-reaching but succinct: an
end to police brutality, through reform, defunding or outright abolition. A new social contract that prioritizes black lives. An end to 400 years of racism at the root level of the United States and Mississippi. Protest organizers had their own list of specific demands they shared at the end of the event. Organizers called for the removal of all Confederate symbols and memorabilia, including the state flag; the reopening of the case against Columbus police officer Canyon Boykin for the shooting of Ricky Ball; the resignation of Petal Mayor Hal Marx, who defended the actions of the police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck; a reduction in the state’s prison population and equitable health care for those more Jackson protest, p 8
June 10 - 23, 2020 • jfp.ms
‘This Is Just The Beginning’ Downtown Jackson roadways were covered in thick crowds of protesters, a multiracial coalition unified against systemic racism and the killing of black men and women. The names of those people— George Floyd, Mario Clark (of Jackson), Marc Davis, Ricky Ball, Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Akai Gurley, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Philando Castile, Alton Ster-
A protester at the June 6, 2020, Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Jackson holds a sign emblazoned with the names of some of the many police-violence victims in America in recent years.
Nick Judin
T
housands of protesters took to the streets across the state of Mississippi on Saturday, June 6, calling for freedom from racial injustice and an end to police brutality. From Gulfport to Oxford to Natchez, city squares and the halls of power echoed with cries of “black lives matter” and “no justice, no peace.” In Jackson, a Black Lives Matter protest at the Governor’s Mansion was expected to draw roughly 400 attendees, but swelled to possibly 4,000 or more. The action, a march in Mississippi’s capital city in honor of George Floyd and countless other victims of police brutality, is likely to be the largest protest in Jackson since Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. The protest began at 3 p.m. with a series of speeches from the organizers as well as progressive Mississippi leaders and politicians. A crowd that filled out Capitol Street quickly surrounded a stage erected in front of the Governor’s Mansion. Behind the stage, the face of Emmett Till emblazoned on cloth watched over the proceedings. Calvert White, vice president of the Alcorn State University NAACP, took the stage to share his own experience growing up as a black man in the South. “This existence, each of ours, has nuances, twists and turns,” White said. But not all of those experiences include the privileges whiteness affords, White explained, pausing to fight back tears as he noticed his mother, Candice, in the crowd in front of him. “America is only as free as the people of Mississippi are free!” White cried out.
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