Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Rally at Red Arrow Park draws crowd on DNC’s final day

Introduction To This Series:

This post is one installment in an ongoing news series: a “living history” of the current national and international uprising for justice.

Today’s movement descends directly from the many earlier civil rights struggles against repeated injustices and race-based violence, including the killing of unarmed Black people. The posts in this series serve as a timeline of the uprising that began on May 26, 2020, the day after a Minneapolis police officer killed an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, by kneeling on his neck. The viral video of Floyd’s torturous suffocation brought unprecedented national awareness to the ongoing demand to truly make Black Lives Matter in this country.

The posts in this series focus on stories of the particular killings that have spurred the current uprising and on the protests taking place around the USA and across the globe. Sadly, thousands of people have lost their lives to systemic racial, gender, sexuality, judicial, and economic injustice. The few whose names are listed here represent the countless others lost before and since. Likewise, we can report but a few of the countless demonstrations for justice now taking place in our major cities, small towns, and suburbs.

Rally at Red Arrow Park draws crowd of protesters on DNC’s final day

By Meg Jones and Allison Garfield, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

August 20, 2020

The largest crowd of the week gathered at Red Arrow Park on Thursday evening for an event to protest the Democratic National Convention and support the Black Lives Matters movement.

Hundreds of masked individuals met in the downtown Milwaukee park where Dontre Hamilton was shot and killed by a Milwaukee police officer in 2014.

The event, led by members of the Coalition to March on the DNC, began with chants of Jonathon Tubby, Joel Acevedo and the names of others killed by police. Family members of Wisconsinites killed by police officers eventually took the stage.

Hamilton’s mother, Maria, told the crowd they “are not going to stop marching in the streets” until the Trump administration “is over.”

Tracy Cole, the mother of Alvin Cole, shared the story of her son’s death, detailing how Wauwatosa police at the time were not cooperative with her. Cole, 17, was shot by an officer outside Mayfair mall in Wauwatosa in February after mall security called police to report a disturbance…

A brief confrontation between protesters calling to defund the police and anti-abortion protesters quickly subsided. A tense moment between protesters and police on horseback and bicycles also dissolved after a few minutes….

[Protesters] carried signs that said “Stop Evictions Now,” “Unity,” “Abolish Police” and “I’m only 8 and I know this is wrong.” A small group of people dressed as Grim Reapers pulled a coffin filled with inflatable globes and a sign that said, “Respect Your Mother.”

As they walked, the group chanted, “We’re ready for change. We’re coming for change.”

Using a microphone to rally protesters, Maria Hamilton said police brutality isn’t about race, it’s something that’s embedded in policing culture. Because of that, she doesn’t stand with any political party anymore. 

“Democrats, what have they done for us? Why is Milwaukee the worst place to live?” Hamilton asked, adding that she’s not sure who she will vote for in November.

Read the full article here.