Live updates: Thousands gather near White House to protest death of George Floyd; D.C. mayor celebrates pushing ‘the Army away from our city’
Here are some significant developments:
• It was the ninth day of massive protests in the District over the death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, and the Trump administration’s militant approach to the unrest that has gripped cities across the country. Numerous rallies were unfolding across the District throughout the day, from the Lincoln Memorial, to Freedom Plaza, to Capitol Hill.
• Lafayette Square, where a heavy security fence blocked any approach to the White House, a block away, was again a focal point Saturday. The scene of violent confrontations between police and protesters several days ago, it was calm, and the fence was hung with protest signs, an American flag, and a torn yellow strip of police tape that read: “Crime Scene.”
• Mayor Muriel E. Bowser greeted thousands of protesters gathered on the street she renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza” a day earlier. She called out the federal police’s actions Monday in front of “the people’s house,” saying that today she “pushed the Army away from our city.”
• The D.C. National Guard confirmed it is investigating whether the use of one of its helicopters, used Monday in support of law enforcement on the ground near Lafayette Square, was appropriate. The helicopter’s use occurred the same night that police and federal agents aggressively rushed off a crowd to clear a path for President Trump to walk from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
‘You need to speak up any way you can’
At the White House on Saturday afternoon, Bob Williams, who uses a computer to speak, joined the protest in a wheelchair. He tried to respond to questions but could not — the machine that lets him communicate was not working — so he had to remain silent at a demonstration meant to amplify marginalized voices.
Hours after the protest moved on, he said in an email that he was a white man in his 60s with “a duty to do all I can to strip racists of their supposed legitimacy and power to wantonly kill.”
“I learned early that if you want to be heard, you need to speak up any way you can,” he wrote. “You cannot allow yourself to be silenced by anyone, especially yourself.”
White coats for black lives
The crowd erupted into whoops and cheers as white-coat-wearing physicians and medical students streamed into the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington.
They carried signs that said, “Racism is a public health crisis” and “Racism is a socially transmitted disease.”
Nurses in turquoise scrubs marched with their fists raised as onlookers called out, “thank you!”
“These are the real heroes right here,” called a man.
The health-care workers, many of whom have for weeks been treating and testing patients for covid-19 at D.C.-area hospitals and clinics, said they felt it was important to acknowledge what several called “the pandemic within the pandemic.”
“It’s tricky being out here in the middle of a pandemic,” said a medical student named Alexis who declined to give his last name. “But racism affects people’s health, too. I didn’t want to stay quiet about that.”
Free cloth and surgical masks have been legion at these protests, but a group of student nurses from Johns Hopkins University posted up on H Street near the White House with a much rarer commodity — n95s.
“Free masks!” they called out, encouraging protesters to trade up for superior protection. “Make sure you seal the nose!”
Angelica Marrero, 27, said the school had gathered 100,000 masks from donors over the past week for free distribution. “We took action and grabbed a bunch,” she said. “We’re trying to do our part to protect black and brown bodies.”
Stressing that her views don’t represent the institution, she said, “People aren’t out here because they want to be, they’re out here because they have to be … To be an ally is not a noun, it’s a verb. As student nurses were obligated to do our part.”
‘It’s not enough to not be racist. You have to be anti-racist.’
In the crowd that took 15 minutes to stream past the Dirksen Senate Office Building toward downtown, two masked faces in the overwhelmingly young crowd stood out: Frank Guzzetta and Paul Manville, married and in their 70s.
“It’s an amazing day. We’ve lived through so many of these — " Guzzetta started before his voice caught on a choked cry and his eyes began to water.
“It’s just so heartening, so many young people out, and it’s so positive, so hopeful,” he said as the crowd around him chanted in call-and-response: “Say his name! George Floyd!”
Pausing on what was driving his emotion, he looked around and gestured with a sweep of his arm to the crowds, the Capitol they were passing, the city.
“The world. This is our country,” he said through tears that mixed with sweat around his mask. “We knew it was inside, we just didn’t see it.”
The pair have been at protests through the years, Guzzetta said — gay rights, civil rights and antiwar, said the retiree, who lives on Capitol Hill but was president of Hecht’s, Macy’s and Ralph Lauren Home.
“This is just so much more positive, so much more hopeful. I’ve been saying to young people — we’re leaving you a world with a lot of problems,” he said. “We have nary a decade left. And now to have young people out here … we’ve always been not racists but it’s not enough to not be racist. You have to be anti-racist. You need to speak up.”
A 4-year-old girl on her father’s shoulders joins the protest
Four-year-old Nile, wearing a rainbow tutu, sat on her father’s shoulders at the center of the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza on Saturday afternoon. She held a sign that read “black lives matter” as her father, John Wiley, 37, of D.C., gently bopped her up and down.
“Why are so many people taking my picture?” she asked her mother, Krystle Joyner, 34.
“Because you give people hope,” Joyner said. “We’re doing this for you.”
Saturday was the first day the family has attended the protests. It was also the first day the parents have talked to their daughter about racism, following a “Sesame Street” town hall in the morning, said Joyner, a counselor with D.C. Public Schools.
“She’s like, ‘why are so many people out there?’ ” Joyner said. “She sees it on the news, and we’re trying to get her to understand.”
Demonstrators stop traffic in 9th Street Tunnel, on Interstate 395
On the highway now pic.twitter.com/apRwOM9FTH
— Justin Wm. Moyer (@justinwmmoyer) June 6, 2020
After gathering at 9th Street and Constitution Avenue in Northwest Washington, thousands of protesters turned south into the 9th Street Tunnel.
The lanes were closed to traffic as marchers shouted “black lives matter."
Once through the tunnel, they took the ramp to Interstate 395, where hundreds of seemingly supportive honks could be heard from one of the city’s major traffic arteries.
After a pause, protesters moved on to the highway as police tried to control traffic.
No police in sight at Lafayette Square, and few anywhere else
After more than a week of shouting and chanting at officers and military police lined up at Lafayette Square, protesters at the White House on Saturday peered through the chain-link fence and saw no one on the other side.
No riot gear, no officers, no military police.
Instead of shouting over the fence, they gathered in a semicircle around speakers talking into megaphones.
“Ain’t no power like the power of the people, cuz the power of the people don’t stop,” they chanted.
“We have effectively surrounded the White House,” one man said on the phone. “I think it’s officially under siege,” another protester said.
Alex Jalloh, 20, looked through the fence, holding onto plastic goggles he no longer expected to need to wear. He saw a scene markedly different from what he saw when he first joined the protests last week.
“This is unity. This is what Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of,” he said. “It’s a big jump from last weekend. We were all very mad and unorganized but now we’re together as a team.”
The police and federal officers’ absence was notable elsewhere, as well. Fewer military police were visible, and those who were visible bore few shields, batons or weapons beside sidearms. They leaned against vehicles, talking with each other — and the marchers mostly ignored them.
Their presence appeared confined to conducting road blocks on L Street NW at various intersections going toward the White House.
Tan Humvees were stationed at 16th and 17th streets NW, where soldiers were sitting atop their vehicles chatting. DEA and other federal officers shared the space, and there was little interaction between them and protesters.
They also served as a first barrier with D.C. police SUVs parked one block down, acting as a second barrier.
D.C. mayor celebrates pushing ‘the Army away from our city’
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser greeted thousands of protesters gathered on the street she renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza a day earlier.
“I guess you told Trump about the yellow brick road!” a man called to her as she made her way down the street.
Flanked by five security guards sweating in suits, she posed for selfies until the organizer leading the crowd in chants announced her presence: “She’s a lady boss!”
“We would like to hear from you,” he said, handing the mayor the microphone.
“It is so wonderful to see everybody peacefully protesting — wearing your masks,” she began.
She called out the actions of federal police officers Monday in front of “the people’s house,” saying that today she “pushed the Army away from our city.”
She called out the federal show of force, which sent protesters running from gas days before. “You know, if you’re like me, on Monday you saw something you hoped to never see in the United States of America: federal police moving on American people protesting peacefully in front of the people’s house,” she said.
To cheers, she spoke of her 2-year-old daughter.
“I want to grow up in a country where she is not scared to go to the grocery store, not scared to go to work,” she said. “Where she can grow up in an America where she can be a senator in the 51st state, Washington, D.C.”
She doubled down on her condemnation of the presence of out-of-state National Guard: “I want her to grow up and know that her mother had a chance to say no and she did … if they can take over Washington D.C., they can come for any state and none of us will be safe. So today, we pushed the army away from our city. Our soldiers should not be treated that way. They should not be asked to move on American citizens.”
She ended her two minutes on the microphone with a slogan, ready-made to antagonize President Trump: “Today we say no. In November, we say next.”
First-time marchers think now is ‘more than a moment’
“It feels like it’s more than just a moment, said Daniele Darby, 57, who works in financial services in Maryland. “Finally, finally it’s more than just a moment.”
Protesting has “never been my thing,” Darby said. Both she and her co-worker, Carolyn Claiborne, 50, said this was their first protest since the Million Man March.
“I didn’t think that we would still have to do this,” Darby said. “This is for my ancestors. My parents did this so we wouldn’t have to.”
“I have two black sons, four brothers, a husband,” she said. “I have to worry about if my son is gonna come home. I don’t have a fear of car accidents, I have a fear he’s going to be taken from me forever.”
Claiborne nodded as the crowd around them marched to the White House and shouted, “Hands up, don’t shoot.”
“Illness is not in our purview. It’s being pulled over on the side of the road, that’s what I’m worried about,” Claiborne said of her son.
Claiborne said she has regretted not going to the earlier protests this week. “I didn’t want this to be another regret,” she said.
As the marchers walked up 16th Street toward the White House, the crowd had swelled to thousands.
“We got a Million Man March out here,” another protester, Greg Henderson, 25, told his friends as they walked up toward St. John’s Church. “I gotta take some pictures.”
At another demonstration, in front of the Dirksen federal building, a car approached. The driver honked repeatedly and smiled, and the crowd cheered back. Then the driver, a darker skinned man who appeared to be in his 60s, stopped, got out and knelt briefly before the cheering crowd. Then he clasped his hands, as if in gratitude and drove off.
White House encircled by more than a mile of fencing
Protesters arriving in the nation’s capital for the ninth consecutive day of demonstrations found the White House encircled by more than a mile of tall metal fencing.
The previous day, work crews had erected enough fencing — reinforced by white concrete barriers — to bar entry to Lafayette Square and to outline half of the Ellipse, the sloping green lawn that abuts the executive residence. But between Friday night and Saturday afternoon — on a day expected to draw tens of thousands to protest in D.C. — they added enough fencing to block the rest of the Ellipse.
In total, Google Maps analysis suggests, roughly 1.7 miles of fencing now surrounds the White House, forming a gigantic metal cocoon.
Although fortifications increased, the federal presence diminished: Compared with previous days, far fewer police or military officers strolled the streets or stood watch inside the park. There were almost no police officers visible anywhere as of the early afternoon.
Instead, the streets belonged to strolling protesters, many of whom stopped to stare and take pictures of the fencing, muttering to each other, “That’s insane” and “I can’t believe they went to this length.” Several leaned in close, angling phone cameras between the chain links, to snap photos of graffiti left on the Treasury Department, before it was barricaded by tall metal.
“We need justice,” someone had sprayed in black. “We are unarmed,” read a message in red.
Jonathan Campos, Keima Jenkins and Sharlene Ramos posed for a selfie at 2 p.m. with their backs against fencing placed just outside the Treasury Department. It was their first day out protesting, and they were midway through walking the perimeter of the Ellipse — they wanted to see how far the fencing went.
They took the selfie to document what they told themselves — signing to each other, because Jenkins and Campos are deaf — was an insane moment in American history. Then they kept walking.
Elsewhere, some demonstrators unfamiliar with the layout of the District decided to put the fencing to practical use.
“How do we get to the White House?” asked a woman, pausing in the middle of 17th Street to squint at her phone.
The man standing beside her snorted. “Simple,” he said. “Just follow the fence.”
Crowd gathers to hear speakers at Lincoln Memorial
In the days leading to Saturday, the masses who assembled across the city skewed young, with 20-somethings filling front lines and teenagers wielding signs. Now there were grandmothers toting toddlers, nuns with masks tucked beneath their habits, men in wide-brim hats shielding their wrinkles from the sun.
Shortly after noon, hundreds of them descended on the Lincoln Memorial, spilling over the steps to the edge of the reflecting pool.
It was here where Martin Luther King shared his dream, and where more than a half-century later, the protesters were returning each day to try again to make it a reality. On Monday, after the demonstrators were tear-gassed outside the White House, someone came here with a can of black spray paint and wrote, “Y’all not tired yet?”
They were tired, so tired, and still they returned.
At first, they stretched out on the steps or posed for photos, waiting for the real moment to begin. The National Guard stood watch from the monument itself, which was blocked by barricades so the protesters could not ascend the steps nearest Lincoln’s feet. A few of the guards, here from Mississippi, wandered between them, lamenting to each other that this was not how they expected their first visit to the nation’s capital to be.
A bespectacled black man walked to the middle of the crowd, turned to face the Washington Monument and raised his voice.
“Excuse me, every one,” Roger Campbell, 30, announced. “I wrote an article recently, and I wanted to read it to everyone if y’all don’t mind.”
Instantly, the crowd moved to surround him on every side. Phones and cameras were raised.
“I’m a little nervous,” he said. A megaphone was handed to him. He began to tell them how often this week white colleagues and friends had asked: “How can I help?”
“I feel that is a loaded question, due to the various answers I can and would like to give,” he said. “You all should try to understand where we as black and brown humans are coming from.”
He wiped sweat from his forehead as more onlookers crowded in. He spoke of the job interview in which they asked about his hair, the time he cut his dreads for a job, “the talk” his father gave him, that was not about “the birds and the bees.”
“It is explained to us that no matter what we do or how far we go in life, we will always be viewed as a black or brown person first. And with that, comes a perception of danger.”
He begged the white people around him — who made up around half of the crowd — to ask their black friends instead about their experiences.
“Ask them,” he said, “to see the world through their eyes.”
When he finished, his voice was cracking and his hands were shaking. A woman with tears soaking her cheeks ran up to hug him. The crowd stayed quiet, waiting for someone else to take the megaphone.
‘These are the values we are trying to teach them’
Ryelee James, 28, had driven from Pittsburgh to Washington on Saturday to join the protests. He took a pit stop in Baltimore, protested for a bit there, and at 1:45 p.m. found himself on Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital in the middle of the Party of Socialism and Liberation march.
“Defund MPD, Defund MPD,” James chanted, referencing the local D.C. police department.
He said he did not know much about MPD but that corruption in police departments was much the same everywhere.
“There’s bad cops everywhere,” he said
A few feet away from James’s protest on Pennsylvania and Third streets NW, hundreds of law students and their professors gathered for a march of their own to the White House.
“This is an outward expression of what we learned in the classroom,” said Ivy Brewer, a 33-year-old who just graduated from Howard University with an MBA and law degree.
Phil Lee, a law professor at the University of the District of Columbia, decided Saturday would be the day to take his three elementary-school-aged kids to protests. Each child — ages 7, 9 and 11 — drew their own “black lives matter” sign. Lee and his wife, Sue, were confident this march with the law schools would be safe and peaceful like others in recent days.
“This is an important place and safe place for our kids to be,” Susan Lee said. “These are the values we are trying to teach them: Justice and equal protection under the law for all members of society.”
Thousands gather at White House, spilling into several city blocks
When the marchers who gathered at the Lincoln Memorial reached the assembly in front of the White House, the crowd - now in the thousands - was simply too big to fit into the intersection of 16th and H NW, where demonstrations have centered on previous night.
The masses overflowed at least two blocks in every direction. Shoulders of strangers were inches apart.
Deciding to keep the people moving, the organizers started marching east.
Parents gripped their children’s hands, trying not to lose them in the flow of people. People dipped washcloths in buckets of ice holding free bottles of water, then doused their heads.
Hundreds march in D.C. outside perimeter of closed streets
After turning the steps of the Lincoln Memorial into a stage for speeches passionate and pained, hundreds of people streamed north on 23rd Street NW — outside the perimeter of the downtown area blocked off by law enforcement.
To chants of “Whose streets? Our streets,” the group overflowed across all four lanes of traffic, forcing vehicles on their way out of the city to stop. But behind their windows, the drivers were smiling.
A black family in a lime green Ford Mustang convertible raised their arms and hollered.
Soon, the marchers were taking up more than four city blocks as they passed the gates to George Washington University and the university hospital’s empty drive-through covid-19 testing site, heading toward the White House.
The farther they marched, the larger their sweat stains. Security guards came out of the International Monetary Fund building to watch them go by.
When they reached an armored truck blocking the road, with a dozen National Guardsmen beside it, they stopped.
“Look how many people came out,” an organizer commanded as hundreds paused to kneel in the middle of 19 and H streets. In the distance, they could hear the chants of the end of the parade coming down the street.
“Y’all hear that?” he said. “They’re still coming.
Black Lawyers Matter coalition gathers near Capitol
A few hundred young people gathered on the grassy lawn across from the Capitol, brought together by a coalition of local black law students.
“Come get some water, come get some snacks, we want you guys hydrated,” Tonee Jones, 28, shouted into a bullhorn. The University of the District of Columbia law student, close to getting her degree, was out protesting last weekend and became convinced the movement needed more lawyers. In a few days, she designed and printed the shirt she wore, saying in large print: “Black Lawyers Matter.”
“We know what the law says; we know where it needs to be changed. … We’re out here educating,” she said. The group passed out fliers detailing legal rights, along with Jamaican, Dominican and Jewish deli food.
Helping her was Gregory Brown, a Howard Law student.
“A lot of law students are stuck in this place; they want to be out here but they don’t want to be seen as too radical, because the legal world can be very conservative,” he said. “We wanted to show we’re not just concerned with being employed.”
As the week has gone on, he said, more of his peers seemed comfortable showing their support.
“The activism of the entire city has energized people to where it’s seen not as radical but as a civic duty,” he said.
Metro is preparing for a surge of protesters to use trains, buses
Metro said it has doubled the number of rail cars operating today to help meet the increased demand from the protest, a day after the transit agency also increased its rail passenger capacity by 33 percent.
Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said Metrobus is also adding buses to busier routes, which are being actively monitored to limit the number of people onboard because of the risk of spreading the coronavirus. The agency Friday opened the first and last cars on eight-car trains that had been closed to create a buffer between riders and train operators because of the virus.
But even with the increased service, passengers may find buses and cars more crowded than health officials might recommend.
“Even with this more than doubling of capacity, it’s important to understand that still doesn’t come close to offsetting the social distancing factor,” Stessel said in a text message. “On the bus side, we have street supervisors closely monitoring high-ridership corridors and we are adjusting service and adding buses wherever possible.”
Metrorail is operating until 9 p.m. today. Red Line trains are arriving every 10 minutes, Metro said. The Orange Line is operating between Ballston and New Carrollton every 15 minutes. Blue, Yellow and Green line trains are also arriving every 15 minutes. The Silver Line is closed for previously scheduled maintenance and testing work until the fall.
Military helicopter use during protests earlier this week under investigation
The D.C. National Guard on Saturday confirmed it is investigating whether it was appropriate to use one of its helicopters on Monday in support of law enforcement on the ground near Lafayette Square.
“The completion of a thorough and transparent investigation is of the highest priority to me and to the investigative team,” Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the local guard’s commander, said in a statement. “The team is endeavoring to complete its work as soon as possible, however, fairness demands that the investigation not be rushed. The duration of the investigation will depend on what is uncovered, but more information is expected within the coming days.”
The use of the helicopter to target protesters, a tactic used by the military on battlefields to intimidate opponents, became controversial because spectators said the noisy Lakota medevac aircraft with Red Cross markings hovered at low altitudes and sent a downward rush of air from its rotors into the peaceful crowd.
The helicopter’s use occurred the same night that a phalanx of police and federal agents aggressively rushed off a crowd ahead of President Trump’s walk from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
It is unclear when the investigation’s findings will be made public. The Guard said the investigation will be forwarded to the secretary of the Army and defense secretary after completion.
New arrivals have a choice: Which downtown D.C. protest to join?
When Chris Savage, 64, and his wife arrived in downtown Washington about noon Saturday, there were plenty of protests they could choose from.
They were considering joining a protest at the Lincoln Memorial, but there was also a march along Pennsylvania Avenue NW near the Capitol. Maybe they would join the crowds in front of the White House.
They already had plans to attend a protest near their home in Bethesda.
Saturday had the feel of a protest-style street festival. When Savage walked down 15th Street NW, there were people giving out water and Ben’s Chili Bowl. There were Black Lives Matter murals on storefronts as people posed in front of them. There was music in the distance.
“We’re just surveying the scene,” said Savage, who has been coming out to protest this week to ensure white baby boomers are represented in the crowd. “The protest part is simple: Black Lives Matter."
On a downtown street, music of a different generation
Just before noon, Chris Legend, a DJ, rolled his Alto box speakers and MacBook up to the corner of 16th and I streets in Northwest Washington and began blaring the hip-hop standards of today.
His booming speakers detracted from the 1960s- and 1970s-era music that had dominated from the speakers of another DJ down the block. As the music played, a black man in a gray Army T-shirt rolled his bike by and complained to Legend and his friends that the speakers should be playing music he believed was better sorted for the movement.
“That’s dance music,” he said. “But it’s not a party.”
The man stayed several minutes, stating his protest to the music.
“Today is not about fighting people like me,” Legend said he responded. “I’m here to support. We’re here to unite people.”
Kesso Lake, 24, and her sister Marly Lake, 21, who volunteered with Legend, pointed out the song playing that moment was Anderson Paak’s “Jet Black.” They told the man the playlist was curated specifically to feature black protest and empowerment themes.
The man was of an older generation and seemingly didn’t understand the music of Kendrick Lamar or Lupe Fiasco — other artists Legend played — has been key to motivating young adults and teens to lead and participate in protests taking place across the nation, the Lake sisters said.
“They set up this block party to rise up and enjoy this playlist,” said Kesso Lake, who helped monitor the DJ station, which was sponsored by Good Projects, a nonprofit started by Georgetown University students to aid local youths.
Protests led by whites might feature more solemn music, Kesso Lake said.
“This is about embracing blackness for what it is and not embracing white ideals or paralleling white people,” she added.
‘Racism didn’t just start. It’s just been filmed’: Speakers at Lincoln Memorial call for change
Before a crowd of more than 1,000 people at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a 20-year-old man recited into a megaphone: “I wonder how Trayvon Martin’s mother feels that her son’s a household name and not a household body,” said Alex Jalloh, 20, of Virginia. “I’m tired. I’m tired of going to funerals where babies are being buried in boxes smaller than the ones they used to put their toys in.”
Next, a radio host named DJ Quicksilva spoke: “Time after time, we see the murders. Racism didn’t just start. It’s just been filmed. Now that we see it, we’re still not getting the justice. This time we’re not going to stop fighting until we get a conviction.”
He gave a charge to every protester for the days and weeks ahead, “Don’t stop the fight until we get a conviction!”
“All lives can’t matter until black lives matter,” he said. “Give us a fair shot and watch what happens.”
Then another speaker began to sing the words to “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Those in the crowd who knew the words joined while others hummed along.
“Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on 'til victory is won”
Demonstrators merge at the Capitol: ‘We want change! We are the future!'
Groups of protesters crisscrossed the plaza of the U.S. Capitol just before noon, chanting, waving signs, kneeling and marching to and from different directions.
At 11 a.m., the plaza was empty, save a few joggers in the high heat and a half dozen police standing behind metal barricades. A few minutes later, police started scrambling, and a few dozen more officers poured out of the northeast side of the Capitol, as about 100 young marchers, mostly of color, came up the hill to the plaza, marching and chanting: “No justice! No peace.
“We’re here because of George Floyd. But he was just the cherry on top of a sour sundae that’s been there for years,” said a woman with a bullhorn.
Another group of older protesters from a faith group crossed the plaza, heading to another protest downtown.
By 11:45 a.m., a second group of young people approached the plaza, coming down East Capitol Street, chanting, “We want change! We are the future!” Soon the two groups merged on the plaza and a rally began.
Patrick Garland, a teacher from Woodbridge, reflected on the new “Black Lives Matter” sign painted on 16th Street NW.
“As grateful as I am for a road, that doesn’t fix institutional racism. Until laws and citations are changed across the U.S., this does not stop!” he said to cheers.
Later, he told The Washington Post that the protests need help: data analysis, legislation and voting.
“For black people, it’s like emptying an ocean with a bucket. But police reform is first. You can’t be productive if you don’t feel safe. To see a cop behind you and think: ‘Am I going to be pulled over and die?’ That’s what it’s like to be a black man.”
Then the last few protesters packed up as they headed toward the White House.
“Be safe y’all! Hydrate!” yelled a police officer from behind the barriers. Within five minutes, the plaza was again largely empty.
Hundreds begin to assemble at the Lincoln Memorial
Between the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial, the members of the National Guard could see the people arriving again, on foot, on bikes and on the shoulders of their parents, gathering for another day of protests at the place where Martin Luther King Jr. told the world of his dream.
By noon, hundreds were waiting for a scheduled “die in” to begin, far outnumbering the Guard’s presence of a few dozen.
A bearded black man arrived with a picture of the newly erected fences at the White House: “The Bunker King finally built his damn wall,” his sign said.
A mother begged her young daughter to put her mask back on.
“No problem,” Jason Jones said. “Have a safe day.”
Siblings Jason and Sarah Jones, who are black, were joining the demonstrations for the first time Saturday, after a week of finding it hard to focus at their jobs. Sarah, who teaches a “dialogue across difference” class at American University, felt relieved to finally be a part of the uprising — and wary of how long it would last.
“I am worried that for a lot of people this is just momentary,” she said. “But my life revolves around this because of the color of my skin.”
Beside her, a white man threw a football to his son. People raised their phones to take selfies, pulling down their masks.
“I’m worried that all the sudden we’ll see a spike in coronavirus cases, and we’ll stop talking about black lives matter,” Sarah said.
Vendors selling T-shirts, masks find a silver lining amid despair
Just south of the roadblock set up by a parked tan military Humvee on 16th Street NW, sellers hawked T-shirts printed with the words “I can’t breathe” across a silhouette of George Floyd’s face. Black shirts, blue shirts, yellow shirts, orange, small, large, XL, XXL, all $20 a piece.
Sold by a loose-knit group of D.C. entrepreneurs, the shirts were designed almost instantly when Floyd died.
“Day it happened when he said ‘I can’t breathe,’ it went to print,” said Jessie Watkins, 55, who lives in Southeast D.C.
Watkins said business has been brisk, selling 17 dozen shirts on one day this week. In preparation for today’s march, the group stocked up for another big day.
“A lot of times they put it straight on,” said Blaine Proctor, a colleague of Watkins’s who worked a block away.
Some have bought as many as a dozen shirts to send to relatives, and the vendors are grateful. Even amid the pain, Proctor said, the reality is that the protests have provided his T-shirt business with an opportunity that the coronavirus had taken away. Typically, the vendors would be traveling across the country selling all sorts of shirts at festivals and other events — but the pandemic ended that until Floyd’s death.
“Covid-19, it put a stop to everything,” said Proctor, who is black. “This is a blessing right here. I’m not saying I’m happy with what happened to George Floyd. I’m not.” But the protests have allowed him to contribute to the cause while also earning money.
All around, people walked in a festival-like atmosphere. Loud speakers played everything from Sam Cooke and Al Green to Van Morrison amid protest chants, while people carried signs such as “Black Lives and Voices Matter,” walked dogs and rolled in slowly on bikes. Many stopped to marvel at the giant yellow letters under them: “Black Lives Matter,” which the city painted Friday to support protesters and also send a message to President Trump.
Nearby at 16th and I streets NW, between the large yellow M and A on the asphalt, Ben Bullock stood with a black wire cart and a crowd around him. Inside his cart were thin plastic cases filled with black face masks. Some had white lettering that said “Black Lives Matter” while others had red fists adorned with the same message.
“$15 each,” he told a buyer.
Bullock, 57, is an assistant basketball coach at Prince George’s County Community College. Typically, he would be hosting basketball camps in the summer, a crucial part of his income. But the coronavirus has taken that opportunity away.
In the protests, he saw opportunity and a need. Making and selling T-shirts to black empowerment groups and for festivals has always been a side gig for him and a business partner, he said. So they decided to order up masks. If he wasn’t selling them, he said, a white entrepreneur would be.
“As a basketball coach, I really don’t make a lot of money,” Bullock said. “I feel good about it because white America capitalizes on all of us, and I’m contributing to the cause.”
He said he is employing five others, walking around selling his masks. “An independent business,” he said, keeping money in the community.
U.S. Capitol grounds are getting fenced off as families, children prepare for protest
There were no protesters at the Capitol on Saturday morning, just runners. But day by day, the Capitol has been increasingly walled off.
Officers ran tests of the audible emergency notification system, sound echoing off the stone buildings. Tall black fencing had gone up in front of parts of the Capitol building. While people continued to jog along the paths and the edges of the grounds, officers waved them off if they veered in toward the building.
Police lights flashed at intersections, with military trucks blocking Pennsylvania Avenue west toward the White House. Folding tables were set up, with cases of water on them. People jogged along the Mall and did jumping jacks in front of the National Gallery.
At 9:45 a.m., Shanise Hamilton and members of her family, including eight children, were walking along the Mall, already tired and hot. They had walked from their homes in Southeast and Southwest Washington.
This week was Hamilton’s first time protesting. “We’re all tired,” she said, tired of people dying. “The kids wanted to make a difference. The fact that they are kids of color, I didn’t just want them to witness history, I wanted them to be a part of history.” And maybe having kids at the forefront would help make change, she said.
Zinna Marcus, 9, said she wants “to see everyone treated equally.”
Antonio Hamilton, 11, said he wants “people to get along and for the police to stop killing unarmed people.”
Kaylin Schuler, who’s also 11, said she hopes “for people with my complexion to be able to stand up for themselves.”
“Police need to communicate better with black people and understand us a little better,” said Amari Schuler, 11.
They were going to get as close to the White House as they could, said Shanise Hamilton, 31. But they were going to stay only 20 or 30 minutes. She wanted to keep the children safe.
Where are the marches headed? ‘You’ll see when we get there.’
A crowd of about 100 protesters peeled away from the White House to march through residential neighborhoods north of downtown.
They chanted, “No justice, no peace!” and “Power to the people!” and knelt at intersections far from the centers of power that have been the sites of recent protests, urging joggers and people sunbathing in Logan Circle to “march with us!”
Although few joined in, many drivers honked their support, and one man making a delivery on a bicycle raised a fist in solidarity.
The man leading the protesters wouldn’t say where the march was headed. “You’ll see when we get there,” he said.
Photos: Washington prepares for a day of demonstrations
As crowds began to gather Saturday in Washington, protesters and authorities expect it to be a big day for demonstrations about police brutality stemming from the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Here are images from the city Saturday morning.
After taking a knee for eight minutes, protesters march along K Street
Taking a knee at 13 and K pic.twitter.com/L2Op0hkMty
— Justin Wm. Moyer (@justinwmmoyer) June 6, 2020
At about 10 a.m., dozens of protesters gathered at 16th and I streets NW in front of the White House.
The barrier erected days ago north of Lafayette Square remained, and those gathered — some pushing strollers, most wearing masks — were subdued. Before noon on what was expected to be a warm day in Washington, a speaker with a megaphone urged the crowd to take a knee in the intersection for eight minutes.
“If you can’t take a knee, respect the silence,” he said. The crowd knelt. The only sounds were the chirping of birds, the clicking of news media cameras and the blast of a boombox a few blocks north, where crowds were gathering at what was renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza a day earlier.
“My knee hurts,” the man said after about two minutes of kneeling. The crowd laughed.
As protesters marched north on 16th Street NW, a man with a guitar played “Lean on Me.” There were no phalanxes of D.C. police and other law-enforcement personnel that had been seen in recent days.
Savonnie Hawkins marched east on K Street with his 3-year-old daughter, Nyeisha. He said he was marching to bring attention to police brutality. "It’s the duty of every black person to be here,” he said. “It’s the duty of every person to be here.”
Vehicles prohibited on downtown streets Saturday for protests
D.C. police began prohibiting vehicle traffic in much of downtown Washington today, starting at 6 a.m., in preparation for thousands of protesters expected to descend on the area.
The north-south closure is roughly between L Street NW and Independence Avenue SW. The west boundary is along 19th Street NW, while the eastern boundary is roughly 9th Street NW downtown and Third Street NW along the Mall.
After week of protest, Saturday expected to bring largest crowds yet to Washington
Unlike many other large-scale demonstrations that the District hosts, no one person or organization is leading Saturday’s events.
Nearly a dozen different demonstrations run by as many organizations or individuals have been advertised for Saturday, starting at 6 a.m. and running into the night. Many protesters plan to stay out until the early hours of Sunday morning.
There are no leaders to speak to and no agenda to follow.
Stages and podiums that are hallmarks of rallies such as the March for Our Lives and the Women’s March on Washington have given way to people with megaphones commanding the attention of nearby crowds.
For the past eight days, the protests have ebbed and flowed with the energy of the day. Demonstrators march from memorials to the White House and back again.
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Barr seeks to dissociate himself from move on demonstrators outside Lafayette Square
Attorney General William P. Barr sought to dissociate himself Friday from police’s move earlier this week to push back a crowd of largely peaceful demonstrators using horses and gas, claiming that he did not give the “tactical” order for law enforcement on the scene to move in.
The Associated Press reported that Barr told the news organization that the move against the protesters — which has been widely condemned — was already in process when he was spotted at the scene near the White House early Monday evening conferring with law enforcement on the ground.
“I’m not involved in giving tactical commands like that,” Barr told the Associated Press. “I was frustrated and I was also worried that as the crowd grew, it was going to be harder and harder to do. So my attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’ ”
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Barr personally ordered the crowd of protesters be pushed back as part of a plan hatched far earlier in the day. According to a Justice Department official, law enforcement authorities, including Barr, had decided to extend the security perimeter outside the White House after earlier demonstrations over the death of George Floyd at police hands in Minneapolis turned violent. When Barr came to the scene Monday afternoon, the official said, he was “surprised” to see that hadn’t been done.
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