Chants of “Black Lives Matter,” “No justice, no peace” and “Say his/her name” with responses of “George Floyd” and “Breonna Taylor” echoed off downtown Longmont storefronts as a symphony of car horns accompanying marchers on Friday night.
A Facebook group calling themselves Longmont Collective, formally known as Longmont Tribe and led by Longmont resident Emma Izquierdo, organized the protest of around 100 people to express its solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The protest was one of the countless held in Colorado and across the nation during the last week and a half since Floyd, a black man, died in the custody of a white Minneapolis police officer who pinned Floyd’s neck under his knee for more than eight minutes. Taylor was a black woman killed by Louisville police in mid-March, a case that has spurred protests and investigations of its own.
“I have four bi-racial children and I just think it is ridiculous the way the government is and everything else. There is too much hate in the world. I think there needs to be change,” Renee Delci, who moved to Longmont from Kansas.
Alexandra Filch, an Erie resident who said she's a Black Lives Matter ally, made her way to Longmont to join the rally. “I can’t keep letting it happen anymore. I can’t let police keep killing black people and not say anything. We haven’t had this, it hasn’t been able to be this public and be shared this way,” she said. “The intensity of the movement, coming back up, has been so strong and so hard to ignore. It’s one of those things where you can’t sit around and feel comfortable. You can’t just do nothing and feel ok about it.”
Protesters lined both sides of the 300 block of Main Street to listen to Izquierdo as she began the rally on Friday night.
Joining her to speak was Longmont resident and local Black Lives Matter activist Hermine Ngnomire, who spoke of moving the needle, measuring success and getting more involved in the movement.
Shortly after the speech, protesters joined together on the west side of Main Street to march to Roosevelt Park.
Seen among the marchers were Public Safety Chief Mike Butler and Deputy Chief of Police Jeff Satur, both of whom wore street clothes and mingled with the crowd.
After reaching Roosevelt Park, Emma introduced Greg Benton, a Longmont resident and musician, who thanked those who attended for the support and encouraged them to continue their efforts locally.
Izquierdo followed Benton’s speech by asking everyone to spend the next five minutes in silence in remembrance “of those who have fallen to police brutality.”
Members of the protest then broke into groups, with some staying in the park while others moved the rally to 6th and Main streets. Energetic voices shouting for justice and change were heard by drivers who showed their support with loud, long honks and shouts from their car windows.
“I am glad that it seems like eyes are opening now and I hope they stay pinned open. Just don’t blink because it takes the vigilance that sometimes gets tiresome, so you gotta take over the shift from those who are beside you sometimes. It takes all of us,” Benton said later.
Additional protests were planned on Saturday in Longmont.
