Music, dancing and little tension with police on peaceful day of protests in Miami
Fourteen straight days of taking to the streets to demand better for Black Americans and the end of police brutality did not weigh down Saturday’s wave of protesters in Miami.
Demonstrations originating in Brickell, Downtown and West Grove were peaceful, even parade-like with chanting and twerking to a very South Florida soundtrack of cacerolas clashing with Miami bass under the unforgiving June sun. There was very little police presence, interference or tension.
“It’s definitely very uplifting,” said 21-year-old Amanda Brito, a student at Florida International University who danced to a Haitian Rara band. “It keeps people motivated and energized. Plus, it’s a cultural tie for so many people.”
The tone shifted Saturday compared to last weekend. There was anger and mourning laced with hope and action, a rebuke of police violence and now other generational oppression of Black Americans.
Still, they are angry and tired of what led up to and what happened — or didn’t happen — following the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis.
Ashley Barrett, 28, carried a sign saying “I’m still not over Trayvon” while marching through Little Haiti
“I’m tired of it and it’s not getting any better,” she said. “Protesting seems to be working.”
For some, protesting provided an opportunity to channel anger into peaceful activism.
Lisa Jeter, 38, said protesting helps her “get rid of some of the anger, some of the anguish.” She followed a group from Downtown Miami in her convertible as part of a protest caravan.
Devin Allen, 33, showed up with a friend and a tri-color Black Lives Matter flag to a protest that kicked off in Brickell around noon. It was his first protest, and he said he decided to come after a conversation with his therapist.
“I thought that I would feel less helpless if I raised my voice,” Allen said.
From Downtown Miami to Little Haiti
The Torch of Friendship, the Downtown Miami monument installed as a beacon to refugees, has become the chosen gathering spot for protesters.
From its steps, organizer Jonathan Gartrelle organized a crowd of nearly 200 into groups Saturday. “Militant” people with combat experience were the guardians. Emergency medical technicians and other healthcare workers were the healers. Artists and poets were the bards. People with social media skills were the scribes.
Together, they are “The Voice,” are part of the new movement called “The Sound,” said 31-year-old Gartrelle. They handed out water, snacks, masks and signs. Three planned protests would meet them at the torch before heading east together to the Miami Police Department demanding change.
An organizer for “The Sound” urged everyone not holding a sign to use their phones to record the police in case of brutality. Another organizer read out a phone number to post bail “just in case.”
Off they marched, chanting: “Take it to the street, defund the police. No justice, no peace.” They also chanted the names of Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade, a trans man recently killed by police in Tallahassee.
But plans changed: Instead of marching toward police headquarters, the the crowd took a right on Northwest 3rd Avenue, heading into Overtown. They passed on ascending up a I-95 ramp, which shut down traffic Friday.
Two police officers on bicycles were ahead of the crowd, stopping whenever the crowd stopped. When vehicles, such as a U.S. Postal Service truck, had to drive through, protesters moved out of the way. They waited for the crowd to regroup and for the elderly and kids to catch up.
A single cop car pulled up to the interstate on-ramp to block protesters after they already walked by. The protesters merged with another, smaller group called Konscious Kontractors, which is protesting the 2013 beating of their founder, Francois Alexandre, by police.
Together, they were 300 peaceful protesters, waving off the June heat with Haitian Rara. They marched north toward Northwest 2nd Ave, considered Wynwood’s main street.
As the crowd stopped for a water break in Overtown, Alexandre reminded everyone they were joining a peaceful protest in a historically Black neighborhood, and he wouldn’t tolerate violence.
“We [don’t] condone any of the bulls**t that has nothing to do with justice for Black men,” he said.
A Miami-Dade Police helicopter hovering overhead and two bicycle cops were the only visible police presence.
The crowd March through Wynwood, through Buena Vista and out to Little Haiti, an ambitious five mile journey from where they started. The crowd shrunk from 500 at its peak down to 200 by hour three.
Still, they met up with a fresh group of musicians on Northwest 39th Street. An elderly woman came out of her house and danced with a protester.
The march ended at the statue of General Toussaint Louverture, who led the Haitian revolution.
Protest in the West Grove
Across town in Coconut Grove’s Village West neighborhood, Miami’s oldest Black neighborhood, Vanya Allen led a crowd of demonstrators in a prayer. She poured out some red berry Ciroc vodka for God and for those killed by police brutality.
Several dozen protesters gathered around 3 p.m. at the corner of Grand Avenue and Douglas Road, in a zone settled by Bahamian pioneers in the 19th century. The afternoon sun beat down on demonstrators, who waved signs that read “racism is a virus” and “Black Lives Matter ... silence is violence.” Car honks clashed with a loudspeaker blasting Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up.”
The crowd quickly amassed to a few hundred.
In the crowd stood 39-year-old Woody Gracia, who came from Plantation to participate in the march from the Grove to Miami City Hall on Dinner Key. A North Miami native and owner of a catering business, Gracia said he believes the city of Miami is ahead of other local governments in police reform, but that more investment in training, oversight and accountability is necessary.
“I’m here to support the bigger movement across the country,” he said. “We need change on a grand scale.”
Marching down Grand Avenue, apartment building dwellers came out on their balconies with cacerolas — banging on pots and pans — in support. Protesters grooved to Miami-bred Uncle Luke.
Along with the crowd was Fr. Frank O’Loughlin, a Catholic priest who runs the Guatemalan-Maya Center in Lake Worth. He drove down for the march and said he owes his education to Miami’s Black communities.
“They teach you how to survive,” O’Loughlin said.
A DJ blasting a cover of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Get Up Stand Up” in front of City Hall greeted the marchers. Noticeably absent were the city’s elected officials. Neither Mayor Francis Suarez nor any city commissioners were present.
At the front of the line rolled a pickup truck carrying the event’s organizers, Olivia Meyer along with Allen, in the bed with a microphone and speakers.
The discourse through the crowd focused on social change beyond police reform or defunding the police force. People chanted against police brutality, and they chanted for economic empowerment. Organizers and demonstrators talked about supporting Black businesses, empowering Black voices in government and investment in Black neighborhoods without driving people out.
“The purpose of this march was to unite the community and elevate the conversation that is going on now in the nation,” Meyer said, standing on the back of the truck , with City Hall behind her. “To introduce the dialogue about gentrification specifically, the displacement of Black and brown people in historically Black neighborhoods.”
Former state senator Dwight Bullard, now the political director for New Florida Majority, got on the mic and thanked Black women through history for leading the fight for civil rights, naming Allen and Meyer’s on a list that included Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer.
Behind the throng, workers from the Blue Wave Coalition registered people to vote and offered signups for vote-by-mail ballots.
Through the march, 28-year-old artist Celeen Robertson carried a painting she completed earlier this year. The canvas is a portrait of a Black woman with mouth agape as dark liquid oozes from her lips. She said the work captures the toxicity of systemic racism ingrained in society and built up inside Black people.
“It’s like a poison in our system,” she said. “And now it’s bubbling out.”
Ijamyn Gray, 40, grew up in the Grove. Now a member of the Circle of Brotherhood, an organization that empowers Black men to be advocates for their communities, he pointed to the economic challenges in the West Grove. He seeks to protest a historically Black community from real development pressure and gentrification.
“We as Black people stand for something. Our lives do matter,” he said. “And we do have a voice.”
‘Train the police’
Earlier on Saturday, a Brickell resident named Ubah tried to lead a small crowd with chants of “defund the police.” She was met mostly with uncomfortable laughter.
Then she switched up her message. Her call for “train the police” caught on.
Ubah led more than a dozen protesters through the valley of glittering high rises and Brickell City Center on Saturday, chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “No justice, no peace.”
The 34-year-old, who declined to give her last name, said she couldn’t find a Black Lives Matter rally in time so she organized her own.
The group gathered in front of the CVS on Brickell Avenue to share stories of their experiences with racism and what brought them to the streets. They handed out signs to dogwalkers and others who joined the march as the crowd swelled to about 45. Brickell residents at sidewalk cafes stared as cars honked in support.
“This is not a movement about class,” she said. “This is a movement for everybody: rich or poor.”
A former prosecutor holding a “duty to intervene” sign talked about the importance of “good cops” holding “bad cops” accountable. A lone cop car watched over the protest.
Ashley Hurst, 29, showed up with her husband and their two young daughters, 5 and 3 years old.
They rode along in a blue wagon, wearing matching dresses and masks and clutching a Black American Girl Doll.
“I’m here for them,” Hurst said. “I feel like we’re starting to make a difference. I’ve never seen so many people around the world join a protest.”
This story was originally published June 13, 2020 at 2:07 PM.
