‘Melanin is not a weapon’: Downtown Raleigh marchers protest police killings
Less than an hour after around 100 protesters began marching Friday night through downtown Raleigh, calling for an end to police violence against unarmed Black people, police ruled the protest unlawful and threatened arrests.
Raleigh police officers said it became an unlawful assembly because protesters pulled barricades, and rolled trash cans up to block Glenwood South. The Raleigh Police Department tweeted photos of two overturned garbage bins.
A short time later, the protesters dispersed peacefully.
Many of the marchers, who initially paraded down McDowell Street, dressed entirely in black and carried signs such as “Melanin is not a weapon.”
Police officers followed the group, directing the protesters to leave the street and march on the sidewalks.
“We have a right to protest!” protesters shouted back, chanting “Andrew Brown!”
Andrew Brown Jr. is the Black man who was shot to death by Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies in Elizabeth City Wednesday morning.
Threatened with arrest for noncompliance, many protesters collected on the sidewalk as they approached the front of the State Capitol and turned onto Fayetteville Street.
On Glenwood South, protesters pulled orange barricades to block the road as police followed close behind.
At 8 pm, police declared the protest unlawful and ordered everyone to leave or be arrested. By 8:20 p.m., those remaining chanted “We are dispersing” and split up.
With that, Raleigh police tweeted, “We appreciate protestors resuming peaceful demonstrations and ask that they continue to do so until the end of the protest.”
A group known as NC Born, which was formed last June during the protests following George Floyd’s murder by now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, organized Friday night’s Raleigh protest.
NC Born activists spread information via social media Friday for a “No Justice Until Abolition” rally at the State Capitol beginning at 6:30 p.m. It said the rally was to protest the deaths of Brown and Ma’Khia Bryant and “countless lives taken by police.”
“How many more?” the demonstrators chanted Friday night. “How many more?”
Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl, was killed by a Columbus, Ohio, police officer on Tuesday.
The deaths of Bryant and Brown sparked protests in both Columbus and Elizabeth City.
In Elizabeth City Friday evening, around 200 protesters chanted Brown’s name and marched down Ehringhaus Street, a main thoroughfare. The protesters stopped at a bridge over the Pasquotank River for more than an hour at 6 p.m., blocking traffic leading into Camden County, before walking back to Ehringhaus Street.
The Elizabeth City protest also remained peaceful.
In Raleigh, protesters stopped outside Morgan Street Food Hall, asking people eating and drinking there to say the names of people who have been killed by police.
“White silence is compliance,” they started chanting.
Some protesters went into the food hall and blocked the camera of a maskless woman trying to film them.
This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 7:47 PM with the headline "‘Melanin is not a weapon’: Downtown Raleigh marchers protest police killings."