‘I see you, I’m here to support you:’ marching in Lafayette Park
We kneel in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds. It’s so hard to fathom how long that is. Image by Getty Images
Last week, I had the privilege of joining protestors in front of Lafayette Park protesting the death of George Floyd.
I began by talking to a friend of mine, Maurice Word, who was a Freedom Rider and was involved in dozens of civil rights protests in the South in the early 1960s. Mr. Word and I have been roommates at Vacation Bible Camp, a camp for African American seniors and children from inner-city DC. Mr. Word, who received extensive training over 50 years ago in peaceful civil disobedience, shared his experience and wisdom and advised me to be peaceable, respectful, keenly aware of my surroundings and conscious of my own safety.
I arrived downtown near Lafayette Park. This was close to offices I had worked in. On a typical Thursday night there would be a cacophony of noise, wall to wall traffic, a hurried pace of movement, crowds of people going to dinners, socializing, or on their way home. It was eerie. The subways were basically empty. The only people in nearby parks were scores of police and the homeless. Restaurants, stores, office buildings all had their windows boarded up.
David Balto
There was a tremendous energy walking to the protest. Your ears search for sound, for the rhythm and cadence of the chants. You see people walking around you, joining in the march, your energy feeds one another.
I arrive. A crowd full of dedication and purpose. Everyone wears a mask, so you only partially see them. You focus on their eyes. Are they filled with sorrow, fear, a striving to support others, anger? I reach out with my eyes, trying to say “I see you, I’m here to support you.”
I know this place well in downtown D.C. Countless times I have walked through Lafayette Park from this meeting to another, perhaps even sat and had lunch, recalling all the important historical sites around.
I know the safest thing is not to be here. People try their best to socially distance, everyone, literally everyone wears marks, and numerous volunteers walk by every few moments with sanitizer to clean your hands.
But inside I knew I needed to show up and voice my support. I had heard the words at George Floyd’s funeral about how he was a wonderful person, such a support to his family, filled with humor and kindness. And I am so troubled by the fact that an act of profound, unimaginable cruelty could occur in public (and in my home town). If something so brazen and evil could occur in public what happens in the dark when there are no cameras around?
I must voice support.
I remember the words of Martin Luther King “A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.”
So, an amazingly diverse crowd, white, African-American, Latino, there is a woman wearing a Hijab, several young black women arm in arm, two young men in kippot, some people look like they just left their essential everyday jobs to protest. The vast majority are young, I am easily at least 30 years older than the next oldest person.
I am touched by all of the home-made signs, scores of them. One of them lists the names of just the recent victims of police racism and says, “Remember the Names” and I recite all of the names out loud. Another sign touches at the heart “to be silent is to be complicit.” A very young African American woman has a sign with a picture of her six-year-old son “When does my son go from being so cute, to so dangerous?” I reflect upon how the Police would perceive the young black men in the crowd. Would they assume that simply because they are black, they are a danger?
We look ahead and can see the White House and the Washington Monument in the distance. Our nation’s symbols of our freedom and the blessings of our citizenship. We are next to St. John’s Episcopal Church a sacred place so recently desecrated.
We chant
“No justice no peace, no racist police”
“black lives matter”
“I can’t breath”
“hands up, don’t shoot”
We say each of the names of the victims of the racist brutality
We kneel in silence for eight minutes and 46 seconds. It’s so hard to fathom how long that is. It’s so hard to fathom the suffering and cruelty that was inflicted. While we kneel, I can feel the evil inside, like a painful stone, a painful cancer growing. It’s so hard to imagine what could lead to such an act of unimaginable cruelty.
The clouds darken and you can feel a storm coming. It begins to rain slowly, then there is thunder, the clouds darken even more and then it begins to pour.
The people keep chanting.
It pours in waves of rain. We are soaked completely as if we have been immersed in a mikvah. Maybe the rain will cleanse us. Maybe the rain will wash away the pain and fear. Maybe the rain will help renew us.
The people keep chanting.
Maybe the thunder is G-d’s anger. Maybe it’s an effort to help awaken us to see the injustice. To awaken our hearts to realize that we are all brutalized when such evil occurs.
We never stop chanting. We are oblivious to the rain. Maybe the rain makes our words even more powerful.
And the rain perhaps is G-d’s message in the words of the Prophet Amos (that I saw on one of the signs) “Let Justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream”
52 years ago, today Robert Kennedy was assassinated. He tried to awaken our better spirits. Let us remember his words:
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”
May we can all try to find ways to stand up in support of our brethren and fight against this terrible injustice, and perhaps our actions, our tiny ripples of hope will become a mighty stream that will lead to the justice African Americans so deserve.
May it be so.
David Balto lives in Chevy Chase, Md., and is a hospital and prison chaplain.
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