Black Lives Matter marchers bring awareness of their liberties on Fourth of July - Vallejo Times-Herald
Black Lives Matter marchers bring awareness of their liberties on Fourth of July - Vallejo Times-Herald |
- Black Lives Matter marchers bring awareness of their liberties on Fourth of July - Vallejo Times-Herald
- On Fourth of July, protesters say focusing on country's flaws is true act of patriotism - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- Wiedmer: When it comes to racial equality, John Woods a man of action rather than words - Chattanooga Times Free Press
| Posted: 04 Jul 2020 03:42 PM PDT The Vallejo Peace Project and Vessels of Vallejo's latest Black Lives Matter protest — "March for Our Lives" — brought another message of liberty to downtown Vallejo on Independence Day. "We're out here today mainly to raise awareness that black independence didn't come until 1865," marcher Troy Davis said at Saturday's march. "Although the United States earned its independence on this day, we weren't free yet. Crispus Attucks was the first person killed at the Boston Massacre and helped spark a revolution and riots and a movement, but we still weren't free. Some of the people that wrote the Constitution owned slaves."  The march also raised awareness for Sean Monterrosa, a 22-year-old San Francisco man who was shot and killed by Vallejo police on June 2. Monterrosa was on his knees and had his hands above his waist in a Walgreens parking lot when VPD officer Jarrett Tonn shot him through his windshield. The police later said Tonn shot him because he believed a hammer in Monterrosa's pocket was a gun. On hand for the march were the two sisters of Sean Monterrosa, Ashley and Michelle. "For starters, we can't all be liberated until all black people are liberated," Ashley Monterrosa said. "And what's the point of celebrating when my brother is dead? Every protest out here is for a big platform. Sean's death brought more light on this subject and we are seeing a little bit of progress since the district attorney recused herself from the case. So it shows that these protests do work. Yes, this protest isn't as big as some of the first ones, but we aren't going to stop until we see change." The Vallejo Police Department has less than two weeks to release the body cam footage from the night of June 2. According to Ashley Monterrosa, the family was offered the chance recently to watch the footage, but only without a lawyer. The family declined. Ashley said the family is hoping to watch the footage some time next week with their lawyer. She said a lawsuit would likely be followed afterward. The Monterrosa family is being represented by civil rights and police brutality attorney John Burris. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced an investigation into the Vallejo Police Department dating back to 2013. "I think about Sean every day," Ashley Monterrosa said. "July 2 was a little tough because it had officially been a month. But every day I go through a lot of emotions." The march began at the Vallejo waterfront and worked its way through Georgia Street, past a classic car show and the Farmers Market. From there the march, consisting of around 200 people, turned right onto Sonoma Boulevard, where the group stood in the middle of the intersection between Sonoma and Maine Street before making its way back down Maine to the waterfront. Along the way, chants of "Black Lives Matter", "No justice, no peace!" and "If we don't get it, we shut it down!" could be heard from the group. While in the intersection of Sonoma and Maine, Robert Reason gave a speech to the crowd. "There are going to be people on the sidelines looking at you crazy saying 'There go those protesters again,'" Reason said. "But you know what? We just got the DA to recuse herself from the Monterrosa case and the (Willie) McCoy case. And keep moving like this, we're eventually going to get them to recuse all the cases." Once again helping out in organizing the protest was Maui Wilson, who addressed the crowd prior to the march in the parking lot near Georgia Street at the waterfront. "As you can see we have love here from Vallejo all the way to San Francisco," Wilson said. "We're trying to show support and show the city council and the Solano County District Attorney that this isn't OK and we're not going to let it slide anymore. People are awake and we're paying attention to people. "Another important thing is to pay attention to the politics that have been going on, not just happening now," Wilson continued. "If you pay attention you'll see that now Uber knows about Black Lives, and Amazon knows about Black Lives, Disney knows about Black Lives, Nickelodeon knows about Black Lives. But that's because it's a hot topic to get behind. But pay attention to the ones not historically not behind Black Lives Matter." |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2020 05:33 PM PDT CLOSE  At first glance, the event outside Rufus King High School on Saturday afternoon looked like a traditional Independence Day celebration, complete with free pizza, beverages and music. But co-organizer Ayanna Ellzey made clear that the "Independence" Day Protest and Block Party was not merely a celebration — it was a protest calling attention to the legacy of racism in the United States, dating back to the nation's founding. "We felt like the Fourth of July was a powerful day to hold these protests because the Independence Day that we recognize was not independence for so many people," Ellzey said. "On July 4th, 1776, Black people were still slaves." Ellzey and her childhood best friend, co-organizer Malaina Moore, both graduated from Rufus King in 2016. The two have been attending anti-racist protests in Milwaukee since they first began last month, and together they formed the organizing group BLXCKMKE, which hosted Saturday's event. Tamara Ulalisa, an 18-year-old incoming freshman at Northwestern University who attended the march, said she believes that protesting on Independence Day is an expression of patriotism. "I think that there's always been, in America especially, an idea that patriotism has to be blind patriotism — and if it's anything more than adoration for this country, it's seen as unpatriotic and un-American," Ulalisa said. "But I think more and more, people are realizing that it's OK to appreciate the freedoms that we have and also recognize the not-so-great parts of our history." Chanting "No justice, no peace," the crowd marched from Rufus King toward Riverside University High School, where protesters could enjoy food from vendors, live performers and artists. A few miles west, about a dozen students, neighbors and teachers gathered outside Marshall High School to chalk the sidewalks with messages supporting racial justice and the National Black Lives Matter at School Movement. Angela Harris, a first grade teacher at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, organized Saturday's Wee Chalk Your Walk event. As the chair of the Black Educators Caucus MKE, Harris has organized six chalking events in the past month. "We wanted to find a way to involve children and really create a space where parents could have conversations with their children around the things that were happening in our country and across the nation," Harris said. Heidi Ambos and her 7-year-old daughter, Kali, bike past Marshall High School every day and heard about the chalking event shortly before it started. As a social worker for foster children in Milwaukee, Ambos said she tries to "live social justice." Ambos said she wants to teach her daughter to understand racism and stick up for other kids. Sifting through several boxes of chalk, Kali got to work creating her chalk mural: a yellow cat proclaiming, "Black Lives Meow-tter." To educate children about the political process, Harris said, she's mindful to organize her chalking events in the neighborhoods of elected officials. Saturday's event marched to the home of Common Council President Cavalier Johnson. The National Black Lives Matter at School Movement has four core demands: recruit and retain Black educators; provide fully resourced restorative practices in schools; offer Black history and ethnic studies in all schools; and fund school counselors, rather than police officers. On Independence Day this year, Harris said she believes Americans need to continue having conversations about the injustices of the past and the path forward. "Folks have to reconcile America's history," Harris said. "And that's the conversation that we should be having right now: How do we reconcile that history, and how do we move forward in a way that's representative of our whole entire nation and that actually tells the real story of what America was built on." Read or Share this story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/07/04/milwaukee-protesters-see-patriotism-pointing-out-countrys-problems/5375730002/ |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2020 03:57 PM PDT  There the Brothers Blaylock sat, all three of them perched near the top of the stairwell in their divorced mother Janelle's suburban Atlanta home. It provided them the perfect view to glimpse the new man in her life before the two adults headed out for a date night. The biological sons of Janelle, who's white and a former All-Big Eight volleyball player at Oklahoma, and OU All-American and longtime NBA guard Mookie Blaylock, who's Black, have always considered themselves Black. "We were all like, 'Who's this guy trying to date our Mom?'" recalled Daron a few days ago as he thought back to the first time he and twin brother Zack and younger brother Dominick spied Woods in 2003. "We weren't sure about this." Less than two years later, Woods picked up the brothers after one of their youth league ball practices and told them he was going to propose to their mother, if that was OK with them. "Then he told us, 'And I want you all to be my best men,'" said Daron. "From the beginning, (John) took us in as his own. What it comes down to is that he's one of the best father figures you could ever learn from. We're so grateful to have him in our lives." As we celebrate Independence Day this weekend in this most troubling, life-changing and eye-opening of summers, we could all learn much from the road Woods has traveled to promote independence from systemic racism. "I grew up in the segregated South," Woods said on Thursday. "East Ridge was a close community. Everybody knew everybody else. We didn't lock our doors. I don't know that we minded not having minorities in our neighborhood and that was crazy thinking. That was wrong." A walk-on year at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga under football coach Buddy Nix and two more years attempting to play at Tennessee Tech — "I was probably the slowest tight end in Tech history, plus I was injured the whole time I was there," Woods said — surrounded him with Black teammates and opened his eyes to the desperate need for better race relations. Echoing the sentiment first uttered by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1963, Woods said, "If we could all judge people on their character rather than their skin color." Yet it was something else King once said that Woods has seemed to trumpet like few others blessed with his financial success as the CEO of wealth management firm Southport Capital: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." How loudly has Woods embraced the things that matter? Convinced that the three Blaylock brothers, plus his and Janelle's son, Ashton, were spending too much time in diversity-challenged environments, he pulled his membership from an overwhelmingly white Atlanta country club and pulled his children out of private schools in favor of the public Walton school district. "It cost me a few friends, or people I thought were my friends, but most of my friends have stood by me," Woods said. "I've always believed you lead by your actions. I don't think that growing up in an environment with a lack of diversity is good for kids. It's not the real world." Here's an action the Woods took: During his time at Walton, Daron was dating a white girl, though her parents didn't know it. When John and Janelle found out, they told her she couldn't come over again until she told her parents about the relationship. "They thought it would be a bad look for their daughter to interact with me," Daron said. "So we quit dating. My parents handled it the right way, though." Whatever the occasional problem, John and Janelle certainly appear to have handled their sons perfectly. Daron and Zack played football at the University of Kentucky and are now, at the age of 27, quite successful in the technology business. Dominick is a standout wideout at Georgia. Ashton is already considered a major college football prospect as he begins his freshman year at Walton. "I was 38 years old when I met Janelle, had never been a father and wasn't really looking to become one," Woods said. "It was a transition, but I grew so close to them. Now I have four sons and they're everything to me." Chattanooga, though he no longer lives here, continues to mean everything to him as well. "I really first became interested in buying the Lookouts because the other man looking to buy them was probably going to move them," Woods said. "I couldn't imagine Chattanooga without the Lookouts." He also believes he's watching significant change in race relations here. "There are some very good minority business people in Chattanooga right now," he said. "And I'm so impressed with government and education leaders such as Erskine Oglesby and Warren Mackey. They couldn't have picked a better (school) superintendent than Dr. Bryan Johnson. Then you have people like Joe Smith, who just blows me away with all his YCAP boxing program has done for minority youth. Chattanooga is changing in so many ways." The whole world is changing. As Woods noted of their youngest son Ashton: "His three best friends are African-Americans." A little more than a week ago, the Woods family was also featured on the website DawgsNation. "I got 150 texts in three days," he said. "And they were all positive." "You still run into racism," said Daron Blaylock. "But I think it's gotten better. I think my Dad (Woods) and Mom have helped. We've just got to learn not to look at color. Look at the individual." Then, as Woods always has, lead by actions rather than words. Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com |
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