This post has a lot of pictures from the Black Lives Matter protest I went to Saturday afternoon and evening. I'm going to outline my observations and learning. This is not a standard blog post, and will be shared publicly here.
First march
I found out about this protest through an Instagram post. I don't think I hooked up with the people specified in that post because they were starting on W 7th St in Fort Worth at 3pm. The people I found were on Taylor between Weatherford and Belknap and it was around 4pm when I found them at the start of their march. Between marches, I learned that the people organizing this March were local lawyers and law students. When I hooked up with them, the police had the block shut down to accommodate the group gathering together. They were saying an opening prayer for peace, guidance, and safety.
Opening prayer.
After the prayer, the woman in charge of organizing the group led us down to the corrections center. The tall buildings in the downtown area made good acoustics for our chants. The woman in charge, I believe her name was Nikki, stood with a man named Stephen that carried her megaphone while she led the chants. There were 100-300 people there from my guessing. Not a big crowd compared to the second march, but easy for me to estimate by comparing the crowd to a church service.
Stephen and I had a good opportunity to talk between marches. We each spoke on our background, on liberty and injustice, and on why we were each there. He seemed like a good young man, and I appreciated his time, effort, and story.
We made a couple other stops along the way before ending up at the Fort Worth (FW) courthouse, about a quarter mile from where I parked and after what I'd estimate was a half mile of marching. I may be estimating that on the long side, but I wasn't recording the route very well.
As I've noted before, I wanted to go to the protest to get my own answers. What the atmosphere was, how organized things were, how police reacted, and other things.
Second march
Time between marches was from 4:15pm to 6pm. I met and talked with a lot of people. Networking and sharing stories. I did talk to a lot of people about Duncan Lemp, the Boogaloo/Liberty Movement's George Floyd. I approached people with humility and openness and only brought up Lemp when I sensed they'd be receptive to another group and their own heroes. Everyone I spoke to was open, friendly, and understanding. We were all there protesting police brutality, riding the fire that was lit when George Floyd died begging for his mother.
I wasn't just marching for George Floyd, but for any police brutality victim I'd heard of. Namely Duncan Lemp, a man shot through his bedroom window in a no-knock SWAT raid in Maryland, Atatiana Jefferson, a FW resident shot through her bedroom window on a non-emergency call, and Breonna Taylor, a young woman and EMS worker that was killed when police broke down her door at the wrong home looking for a man that was already in police. Taylor's boyfriend was charged with attempted murder of a police officer for shooting at the officers as they broke down her door unannounced and killed her. No officers in any of those cases have been helping accountable for their actions, unlike George Floyd's murderers who have all reportedly been apprehended.
At some point while we were waiting, someone showed up with popsicles from the W 7th St protests. One of the prominent women in our group informed a few of us later that that group had been trying to bring people to the 7th St protests which had turned violent previously, with people threatening businesses and with some local homeowners actually shooting at violent protestors. That made me glad I hadn't hooked up with that group as I'd originally intended. I don't know if those protests were violent while I was out, but I'm inclined to believe that they were civil, as cops didn't get excessively agitated with anyone I was around, and I even saw one bicycle officer talking with a protestor and exchanging a fist bump before returning to his group of police.
Police presence was extremely heavy, as I suppose is to be expected. At least one group of around ten bicycle cops was near our group at all times. Police also blocked off the roads in one block around us at all times. When we'd start down a new block, police would quickly move to the next block to stop traffic.
At the courthouse was a woman that had been there all week distributing snacks and water to protestors. Her words were "it's just like loaves and fishes; people keep showing up and making donations for the cause." She outfitted a lot of people with water to distribute on the March and still had many cases to distribute.
A young Sikh couple that marched with us. They each had a backpack and were distributing water to the crowd.
A young local preacher praying over the second group before the march.
Before the 6pm March kicked off, the organizers had some prospective political candidates come give short speeches. There were two constable runners, a man running for sheriff, a woman running for tax assessor, and someone else that slips my mind. The young man running for sheriff was very enthusiastic and would be easy to support. His speaking reminded me of watching a young Senator Barrack Obama for the first time when he won his Senate run.
Drone at the courthouse, about 30 feet altitude above us.
During the speeches, a drone was hovering over the crowd. I couldn't see any markings on it to know if it was police or civilian, but I imagine it was a police drone.
I saw a couple others as we marched. They may have been the same drone, or they may have been different, I couldn't tell with certainty.
Group security wore orange vests, some had on foam armor as well in case of rubber bullets.
I saw a few young men with radios and vests on and went to ask them what radio frequency they were using. They answered and I tuned in to listen. I wanted to see if police were interfering with radio communications as I'd heard they'd been doing last weekend. Later in the speeches I was pulled aside by those same young men and asked not to transmit on their channel because they were using it for security. Easy to comply, as I had brought my radio solely for observation. The young man who told me his name was Keith was very professional and his half a dozen or so men were pretty well squared away from what I could tell. They did a good job. I didn't observe any radio interference during the two hour march.
A pair of assumed antifa protestors. Assumed because their signs mentioned Nazis and they had green hair. I didn't get a chance to actually ask if they were with antifa, so that was never actually confirmed.
After the candidates had spoken, we set out to march. We got half a block when we were called back, and the tone changed a lot at that point. The candidates and the people that had invited them were all solid adults that had come from the Civil Rights movement. Older than the crowd. Their tone was pretty tired except the noted sheriff candidate. The people that called us back after we started marching were different. Loud and energetic young adults. Our age, and more in line with what I'd expected. I was surprised with their energy and their ability to turn the energy of the crowd so quickly. It was startling and I actually vocally said "wow" a few times in the short minutes of transition. I certainly wouldn't call their tone "violent," but it was very angry and energetic, while still being level headed.
One woman on the mic read off the group's list of demands. I loved seeing that they had something like that, and the demands were all on track with the police brutality theme and well cited with specific instances and statistics. I don't know if every group out there had this kind of leadership, but these people were very well versed, well organized, and we'll prepared for this event. I wish I knew who they actually we're. If you know, please find a way to tell me.
Another man with medical supplies and water like I had.
I didn't get any pictures while marching. I was meeting and talking with folks and distributing water. I ran back and forth with the crowd to gauge the energy across the whole group and to make sure everyone had access to any water I could get them.
We made a big scene, stretching our crowd of maybe a thousand people over several blocks, all loudly chanting and encouraging others on the sidewalks to join us. One young man, D, and I approached an affluent family going to their dinner reservations. We asked if they'd join us, but they declined as expected of folks headed to dinner reservations. Some in the group did here at that making jokes that "they're going to an important dinner." Many shop owners and employees at the businesses we passed stood out cheering and holding up their fists. Some of the drivers of vehicles stopped along our way did the same, and I even got a high-five from one. They all seemed very patient with the protests and didn't show any sign of frustration that their way was blocked by a huge group of loud protestors. The public seemed supportive overall, and that helped. While we were waiting on the courthouse lawn, it seemed like with every cycle of the traffic lights, someone was honking and raising fists in support. There was only one vehicle that very loudly blared their horn the whole time they were stopped at the red light and flipped the whole crowd off the entire time. That wasn't during the march though and was the only strongly negative response I observed.
We stopped along the route many times, usually in a barricaded off intersection. The first time, the young man leading the group gave a rather rousing speech about being angry but clear headed and peaceful and how important it was to be seen and heard but polite so as not to turn people off. That was a great sign to me. You don't see this on the news, it's not as sexy as some rogue groups burning things down. These people here were focused on supporting the city and maintaining it. Many folks had trash bags and we're helping pick up litter, whether from the protestors or not. I didn't observe anyone leaving bottles in the street at all.
After about an hour and a half of marching, maybe over a mile, we made it back to the courthouse where more chants and speeches were made. On man, from Jamaica was really powerful. He spoke more to the group's demands and ways for people to implement them individually to better their community. Much of what he spoke of was recognized by me as agorism. I don't know if he intended that specifically, but it doesn't matter to me if folks know the words. What matters is if they live the words. I like to think someone there was inspired to live a life that will allow them to declare their own empowered independence from a system of abuse and brutality.
I left as the next march was starting at 8pm. Mention was made of going to chant at specific businesses that had previously been openly against the Black Lives Matter movement, and I hope some progress was made.
FW courthouse steps, about 745pm.
I'm very glad I went to this protest. I'm proud of the men and women that showed up to make their voices heard. This was an eye opening experience and an encouraging one. This isn't the kind of thing you see on the news that's manipulated to discredit the liberty movement. If this is the voice of the Black Lives Matter movement, I'm glad to be on board and supporting them. This is a passion that more people need to draw on and more groups need to emulate. All lives don't matter until black lives matter.
If you read that whole report, thanks. I don't often go over 1200 words, and this is nearly double that. It was exhausting to go March all those miles, much of it running with a backpack full of water, but this is something that needs to get out. The negative press in mainstream media is pervasive and manipulative and I'm sick of it. I had to get out there myself to see, and I'm glad I did. I encourage everyone else to go as well before making any comments or judgements. The sad fact is that they won't. My family will still cute Fox or MSNBC, who are the same in their reporting on this. They're tools of the state, used expertly to surgically divide the people and keep us at each other's throats.
Don't let them divide us. Don't let them discredit us. Don't let them beat us.
Love from Texas
Nateđź’š