By Damien Hartke
On a sunny Saturday afternoon, people gathered at the courthouse in Newton to protest police brutality towards people of color. The event started with an introduction prayer and comments by Ray Diel. Afterwards Mitch Bierman read a statement Mayor Mark Bolander had prepared, since he himself could not make it due to a prior family event. Afterwards Ethan Osbourne gave a speech about the ideals this country was founded upon. The ideals of freedom and equality. He brought up the 3/5th compromise in the constitution that determined how much a slave was worth in the eyes of the government, and later events like redlining and Jim Crow both of which were influential in putting a foundation of systemic racism in place.
After Ethan Terrance Hill from Effingham spoke about his experiences growing up in Effingham. He had to break up with a girl at a young age due her dating him looking bad for her fathers business and his experiences with his friends on the football team and one in particular saying he was not like other black people because he did not act black. After Terrance spoke Trevor Parrent played music. He played Everlong by the Foo Fighters and a song he wrote along with Issac Thomas in response to George Floyd’s death.
After Trevor played his music the protestors marched down Washington street turning up at Saint Thomas and heading back towards the courthouse. The march was accompanied by the shouting of phrases such as black lives matter and no justice no peace. Following the march Kevin Gaither discussed his research into systemic racism and topics like enforcement of police breaking the law and asset forfeiture. The main message of his speech is that we need to keep the movement going to see real lasting change.
Erica McKneely discussed her experiences in the area and her pride of her Latin American heritage in an impassioned speech. The speech contained anecdotes discussing the looks she would get shopping with her mother and she’s talking in Spanish to her, along with casual racism. She pushed for people to stop turning a blind eye to racism amongst their friends. Prima Torbeck followed Erica with her message of if you don’t see color you don’t see me. She brought up a story from where 3 cops pulled her over and she had melting groceries in her car and other instances with the police that she had. She pushed for the stopping the usage of the phrase all lives matter because it excuses and minimizes racial profiling and acts of police violence towards people of color.
Josie Angel followed Prima Torbeck and she gave her story growing up. When she was 4 years old her father was being blackmailed for $100,000 by a man saying he was escorting undocumented immigrants across the border. Her father did nothing like that and immigration police arrested him over the accusation of one white person that her father never met. She also brought up casual racism she experiences in her day to day life.
An 8 minute and 46 second moment of silence followed Josie’s speech. The time reflecting how long Derek Chauvin held his knee on George Floyd’s neck. The silence was only broken by Madison Stanley reading the names of the African Americans killed by police violence. Ariana Goss followed the silence and gave a small speech about discrimination in the health care field and singing Amazing Grace and Underdogs by Alicia Keyes. The ceremony ended with a prayer from Steve Hardwick and final remarks from Josie Angel
