The Right to Peacfully Protest: Personal Testimony
On October 31, 2020 Reverend Greg Drumwright, a Burlington native, organized a peaceful protest. The “I am Change Legacy March to the Polls,” was conceived in an effort to encourage voting and protest police brutality. What were the protestors met with? Police brutality.
I attended this march with several friends. We wanted to show our support in the push to vote, and stand in solidarity with the black community in Elon, and Alamance County, as well as across the country. Upon arrival, the crowd was a peaceful group of men, women, children, and elderly-- all of many colors. I had chills marching down the main street of Graham towards the confederate monument that sits in front of the Alamance County courthouse. As the crowd neared the courthouse, we stopped as the message of our march was blasted through the crowd via megaphones: “To bring people to the polls. But before we get there we’re gonna say, ‘we’re gonna stop right here. And have a conversation.’... The people want change in this city. In this county. In this state. And in this country.”
Following this motivating (and once again peaceful) speech, the crowd marched to the courthouse and knelt in silence for over eight minutes: the time police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck, murdering him. After this time of silence, as the crowd got up, officers started yelling for people to get out of the street, and without warning began tear-gassing the ground in front of children and the elderly. This was the first of many times the protesters were sprayed with chemicals to deter them from executing their constitutional right to peaceful protest.
The speakers went on, discussing police brutality and systemic racism in our justice system, as officers with sniper rifles watched from second floor windows of the courthouse. This was when officers started arresting protestors who were walking between the barricaded areas. The first few arrests were spread out through approximately an hour, but soon protestors started being arrested and sprayed left and right. Two Elon students were arrested, I saw two children handcuffed, as well as a journalist, the march’s very own leader, and many more. Simultaneously, the police began pulling apart the speaker system. Complete chaos broke out at this initially peaceful protest. It is wild to go from seeing clashes like this on our tvs, to watching them first-hand in our college town.
I wonder- does peaceful protesting exist anymore? Did it ever exist? One of Netflix’s recent additions is the movie “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” which tells the true story of a group of protesters who were put on trial in 1969 for conspiracy to cross state lines and protest. The movie illustrates the lives of peaceful activists, working to make their voices heard in America. Their protest was met with horrific violence and injury from the police. Saturday’s protest rang too close to this narrative- one that played out over fifty years ago.
When watching the protests this summer on TV, we saw peaceful citizens tear gassed in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington DC moments prior to President Trump’s photo op. Scrolling through TikTok, I saw videos of men being arrested in Charleston for speaking to police and asking them to understand their pain. In the Washington Post, I read about protestors in Oregon who were yanked into cars for breaking curfew and driven around without being read their rights, only to be dropped off in random locations. I saw Navy veteran Christopher David beaten by federal agents in a Portland protest. Again and again we see initially peaceful protests turn violent-- almost always with cause from officers. The right to protest is given to us in the United States Constitution, but it seems to be an abstract idea in the reality of America.
It is our hope that Elon will work to make inclusive spaces and platforms for Elon students to communicate and share information about events like this. It is our hope that citizens will be able to exercise their right to peacefully protest. What happened this past weekend in Graham is a reminder that the racial tension we see in our country is not abstract, but something that is very real and close to home.
The presidential election is coming up this Tuesday. North Carolina has been a historically red state. Since 1968, they have only gone blue in two elections: Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008. However, this election season there has been a tremendous push from grassroots and national organizations to turn North Carolina blue again. This march, however, was not advertised in this way. It was advertised as a bipartisan and welcoming march. The speakers urged everyone who hasn’t to get to the polls and vote, so we will do the same.
