Black Lives Matter protest in Appomattox addresses inequality, racism

“What have black people ever done to be hated so much? You built this country off the backs of my ancestors, and yet you see me as a threat,” asked Tyresha McCoy, an organizer of Sunday’s Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest outside the Appomattox Courthouse building on Court Street.

Several dozen protestors showed up to join together to protest police brutality against the black race and systematic racism. During the last several weeks, protests have taken place across the United States in response to the death of George Floyd, a black man who lost his life as a result of a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, holding his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes during an arrest despite Floyd saying he couldn’t breathe.

The BLM protest in Appomattox was without the violence and looting that has been seen in other places. Protest organizers McCoy and Shronda Mosley firmly instructed the crowd that there was to be no unruly behavior and no confrontation with police officers.

Instead, protestors expressed their anger and frustrations at what they see as racism that has existed in North America for four centuries.

“This right here, we’re doing it for future generations,” McCoy said. “For 400 years the black community has been poked (by racist violence) — we’re done getting poked. We’re done, enough is enough. We have been quiet, we have been silent. George Floyd was the last wake up call.

“When I watched George Floyd’s life being take away from him, when I watched him saying, ‘I can’t breathe; please I can’t breathe. Mama, please help me, I can’t breathe,’ that hurt me to my heart. I saw laying there my brother, my older brother; I saw my nephews, I saw my cousins and my sister, and I was hurt, I was so hurt. But that hurt turned to anger, and now I’m mad. … I feel ashamed I hadn’t spoken out sooner; I have a voice.”

The protest not only addressed inequality and racism across the nation but in Appomattox as well.

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