"All night, all day, we’re gonna fight for Freddie Gray"
April 23, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On Wednesday afternoon, April 22, people gathered at the corner near Gilmor Homes projects in Baltimore, as they've done every day since Freddie Gray died, murdered by the police. A group of youths was impatient—"Come on, we gotta march and occupy the police station." They formed a line, five or six men and women in each line, and started down the middle of the street—"All night, all day, we're gonna fight for Freddie Gray."
From a Revolution/revcom.us correspondent:
"We're gonna be out here every day, until something happens. We're out here all week, even if next week I got to be out here by myself out here… because we need a change."
--A young Black woman from Freddie Gray's neighborhood
On Wednesday afternoon, April 22, people gathered at the corner near Gilmor Homes projects in Baltimore, as they've done every day since Freddie Gray died, murdered by the police. A group of youths was impatient—"Come on, we gotta march and occupy the police station." They formed a line, five or six men and women in each line, and started down the middle of the street—"All night, all day, we’re gonna fight for Freddie Gray."
The impatience of these youths was reflected throughout the protesters, some 150 strong at the beginning and growing to several hundred by early evening at the intersection right next to the Western District police station. Everybody can recount the life experience of living in a police-occupied neighborhood, constantly harassed, disrespected, brutalized. A man talked in anguish about being in constant fear that his 26-year-old son would be beaten or even gunned down by the pigs. People from junior high kids to teens to older folks talked of police targeting people for small bullshit like walking out of stores with a loose cigarette. People have seen what happened to Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, and others at the hands of the police… and how the cops have gotten away with murder after murder. Several people said that they knew something like that was going to happen there in their neighborhood. When the news of Freddie Gray's death hit the street, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
By early Wednesday evening, the march grew to several hundred at the intersection right next to the Western District police station. Many in the march can recount the life experience of living in a police-occupied neighborhood, constantly harassed, disrespected, brutalized.
People want answers—now—about what the police did to Freddie Gray, after they beat him on the street, dragged him as he screamed in pain, and threw him into the van. They want the cops involved to be charged with murder—now—not walking around, suspended with pay (in other words, a paid vacation). The Revolution Club members who came down from New York City to join with the protests brought in the chant "Indict, convict, send the killer cops to jail"—and people at the protest made the connection between the fight for justice for Freddie Gray and the fight around other police murders around the country. Copies of the revcom.us poster with the faces and names of dozens of police murder victims were grabbed up and carried around.
At the end of the day, we learned that the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police had made a statement comparing the protesters who are demanding the arrest and indictment of the cops involved in killing Freddie Gray to a "lynch mob." A lynch mob?! People have been in the streets after Freddie Gray's life was stolen by a mob of cops, righteously demanding justice. They, and people in other cities around the country, are standing up against police murder after police murder, an epidemic that is part of an all-around assault by the system against Black and brown people with a genocidal edge. That's what they're doing in the streets of Baltimore—and why the Fraternal Order of Pigs are foaming at the mouth.
In the intersection next to the Western District police station, most of the people there were Black—mostly from the neighborhood, but also from other parts of the city. There was a handful of white people there—including a community college student who had come by himself to his first political action, who said, "At some point, you can't remain silent. You have to speak out." A Black woman at the protest said, "Everyone should be here… They're all welcome."
Yes. Everyone should be rising up for justice for Freddie Gray… and for all the victims of police murder.
And when people rise up in righteous resistance against this outrage—from Ferguson to New York City to the S.F. Bay Area and other places—they are attacked by police with illegal and illegitimate violence, and slandered by official voices and the mainstream media. This is totally outrageous and illegitimate! All people of conscience should be standing with the protesters, and against the powers-that-be and their armed enforcers.
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