April 23, 2015
Update from Baltimore Protests against the Murder of Freddie Gray
April 23, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a correspondent:
Thursday, April 23—This was the fifth straight day of protests in the streets of Baltimore since Freddie Gray died in the hands of police. After a rally and a march around the plaza in front of City Hall, hundreds poured into the streets of downtown Baltimore, snarling rush hour traffic. Many of the protesters were young and Black—but there were also people of different ages and nationalities. Heading first to the federal courthouse, the protesters then marched through the Inner Harbor tourist area, the historic Federal Hill neighborhood, and eventually to the Western District police station where the police pulled Freddie Gray from their van after they had beaten and arrested him. Two people were reportedly arrested in the confrontation with the police at the station.
People are making good on the determined pledge in the chant heard from the first day of the protests: “All night, all day, we’re gonna fight for Freddie Gray!”
A few sights and sounds from the day:
At one point we march past state police in their green uniforms standing along with the regular cops. The Baltimore police had called in the Maryland state police as reinforcement to "monitor" the protests. Shades of Ferguson, where the Missouri governor mobilized National Guard troops as reinforcement against the protests.
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At the same time as he called for help from the state police, Baltimore's Black police commissioner, Anthony Batts, made a show of promising a real "investigation" and invited members of Freddie Gray's family and others for a talk in his office. One young family member, addressing the rally at City Hall, spoke positively of Batts—as opposed to the mayor, who is also African-American.
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Carl Dix, from the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and the Revolutionary Communist Party, speaking at the rally: "Freddie Gray, his life was stolen. Those cops did it. I don't want to hear about investigation. We've seen investigations, and investigations become cover-ups…" (Listen to Carl Dix's speech at the April 23 rally here.)
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Reverend Jamal Harrison Bryant, Senior Pastor at Empowerment AME Temple Church in Baltimore, and the MC for the City Hall rally, talks about how Freddie Gray was walking around in the neighborhood the day he was targeted and set upon by cops because, like so many other young Black men, he had no job, no prospects—and then looked upon as a "criminal" by the police. Rev. Bryant is one of the signatories to the Statement of Conscience from Cornel West and Carl Dix, "The Horror of Cops Getting Away with Killing Again and Again Must STOP!"
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There are a fair number of people with 1199SEIU (a healthcare workers local of the Service Employees International Union) signs and shirts. One young Black man with a 1199SEIU shirt says several of their members were related to or were friends of Freddie Gray, and felt they had to show support.
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A group of five-six students from Towson University marching together. An Asian student in the group, when asked why they'd joined this action, says, "Because Black lives matter."
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An older Black woman in a battery-powered wheelchair and holding on to a Stolen Lives poster is part of the march going boldly down the middle of the downtown streets. "You've been sticking with this," someone says. The woman points to the meter on the chair: "Still got half a charge left."
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A smartly dressed middle-age Black woman who came in from a Baltimore suburb with her husband and daughter for the rally and then joined the spontaneous march says, "Apathy doesn't work. We all have to be out there—otherwise, nothing will change. The system doesn't change itself."
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Seen among the cars stuck in the rush-hour jam created by the street protest: a white woman in a shiny SUV with her hands raised in solidarity in a "hands up, don't shoot" gesture.
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At one point in the march, Revolution Club members hand out whistles—and the streets resonate with the combined noise of marchers "blowing the whistle" on police brutality and murder.
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