As more than 2,000 people gathered for the Black Lives Matter march in downtown Atlanta on July 8, and again, on Sunday, July 10, they had one goal in mind, for the violence to end.
Photo by Jade Johnson | The Signal
And in a Monday release the Atlanta Police Department (APD), officers warned the protesters they are free to continue their movement, as long as they don’t violate Atlanta’s park hours and regulations.
After the murders of Alton Sterling on July 5 and Philando Castile on July 6 by police officers, people around the nation began to cry in outrage on the growing police brutality, with Atlanta falling as no exception to the expressed anger. The two African American men, Sterling and Castile, died less than 48 hours apart at the hands of police officers, causing a viral uproar.
Richard Rose, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Atlanta chapter president, said the organization was created over 100 years ago “for the lynching of black men and women”.
“And guess what? 107 years later what’s going on?” he said. “It’s just the tool that they use that’s different.”
Following the murders of these two men, a Dallas protester of the Black Lives Matter movement was involved in a shootout with the Dallas Police Department on July 7 resulting in the death of five officers.
The violent murders that took place in Dallas contradicted what the Black Lives Matter movement stood for. This urged the Atlanta protesters to carry out their protest in a peaceful manner throughout the streets of Atlanta. Holding up signs like “No more violence” and “We just want peace.”
Carrie Choe and her friends, who started the word of the protest on social media before the NAACP stepped in to further spread the word, stood on the stage at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights and said to the crowd, “We are the youth and the next generation. We needed to come together and stop the violence.”
Photo by Dayne Francis | The Signal
The chants for justice got louder as the numbers increased. The march weaved through the center of the city adding protesters from various locations with the youth population making up a majority of the protesters.
Raquel Fender told The Signal that she’s hoping to start a club at her school to unite the black women in her school’s community.
Kevin Myles, NAACP southeastern regional director, told the crowd at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights “I believe our pain can fuel our passion to go out and make a change.”
Georgia State freshman, Collin Thomas, said, “I’m tired of seeing things like this. I’m not going to watch a video on my timeline of a cop putting four bullets into a black man’s chest and not call that cold-blooded murder, if not some type of racially motivated crime.”
“Something has got to change and I don’t think white people show enough support,” he said.
Demetria Waller, a mother of three sons, hopes that Friday’s peaceful protest ignited change in some way, shape or form.
Waller told The Signal, “The first place to be involved and implement change is in the household by teaching your kids respect, what’s right, and what’s wrong.”
As the days go by and similar protests pop up around Atlanta, APD has taken necessary measures to keep things under control, warning protesters that if they violate any of the city’s park hours, they may face arrests.
In a news conference Monday morning, Fulton County Police Chief Gary Stiles said the police department is doing its best to “uphold the order and laws of this country while treating everyone in a professional, equal, and just manner.”
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