Black Lives Matter protest halts St. Paul cars, trains

[riversedge]

Source: Pioneer Press




By Jaime DeLage
[e-mail]
Posted: 08/10/2015 12:01:00 AM CDT | Updated: about 11 hours ago


Protesters in St. Paul halted University Avenue traffic for about 45 minutes Monday evening as part of the national Black Lives Matter movement condemning police use of lethal force against black people.

The group of about 200 marchers started at Hamline Park at 6 p.m. and then moved down Snelling Avenue to University Avenue, where they staged a four-minute "die-in" in memory of Michael Brown, who was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., one year ago Sunday.

The protesters occupied the Snelling and University intersection and stopped a Green Line light-rail train for about 15 minutes.



They then marched to Hamline and University avenues and held up that intersection and another train while chanting "You can't stop the revolution! Black power is the solution!"

Organizer Adja Gildersleve said that meant: "We need to be loving ourselves. We need to be supporting ourselves." ................

Read more: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_28615758/black-lives-matter-plans-st-paul-protest-monday

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Photos from article:




Zeam Porter of Minneapolis holds an upside-down US flag on which she has written the names of people killed by police, as protesters shut down the University Avenue and Hamline Avenue intersection as they marched and chanted from Hamline Park on Snelling Avenue to the front of the Saint Paul Police Western District station on Hamline Avenue, Monday evening, August 10, 2015. (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)




Carrie Madson of Plymouth holds a sign as the crowd chants "Marcus Golden matters!" as protesters marched and chanted from Hamline Park on Snelling Avenue to the front of the Saint Paul Police Western District station on Hamline Avenue, Monday evening, August 10, 2015. Marcus Golden was shot by the St. Paul police and killed on January 14, 2015. (Please doublecheck these facts and date.) (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)

[riversedge]

1. Great pic of die-in-halting the train....

http://www.twincities.com/news




Protesters in St. Paul halted University Avenue traffic for about 45 minutes Monday evening as part of the national Black Lives Matter movement condemning police use of lethal force against black people.

[Jappleseed]

15. Ha a bunch of white supremacist sleeping on the job!

Great photo I hope this working together continues despite a few agitators.

[John Poet]

41. I do see mostly white people in that pic...

Glad to see lots of white support for BLM!

[stone space]

2. It isn't nice.

[Supersedeas]

44. Isn't it supposed to be disruptive...a jolt to ordinary thinking

[TM99]

3. This is the type of protesting

that I can fully support.

They then marched to Hamline and University avenues and held up that intersection and another train while chanting "You can't stop the revolution! Black power is the solution!"

Organizer Adja Gildersleve said that meant: "We need to be loving ourselves. We need to be supporting ourselves."

This is a hell of a lot more positive than calling a crowd 'white supremacists' and demanding a Jewish man 'bow down'.

Well done.

[Igel]

7. Gildersleeve, I suspect,

has more than enough self-love to spare.



You steal $50, it's wrong.

You steal 45 minutes from a hundred people, it's high morality.

Perhaps she should be held up for 45 minutes at random times for a month: Now she's late for work, now she's late to class, now she's late for some appt., now she's late getting dinner made or to bed or for a date or to pick up her kids. Because time taken from others is a good thing.

If she gets fired, if she had kids and they get into trouble, if her appt. is canceled and she's billed for it, if she misses a test, well, it's because somebody somewhere didn't sufficiently love her.

Navel gazing.

[azurnoir]

9. Trust me here I live in the area and no one was held up for 45 minutes

the area is heavily cris--crossed with residential side streets every block there were plenty of ways around the protest if one wished to get around it, at least for drivers and possibly bus riders too, who could easily transfer from the light rail-they run the same routes

[LanternWaste]

33. Yours was the same excuse used by Police Chief Laurie Pritchett when he arrested civil rights...

"You steal 45 minutes from a hundred people, it's high morality."

Yours was the same excuse used by Police Chief Laurie Pritchett when he arrested civil rights marchers in Albany, GA in 1962/3

[candelista]

14. Blocking traffic attacks the working class, including black workers.

Politically not a good idea. We used to do it during the Vietnam War, and all it did was piss people off.

[restorefreedom]

19. i agree.

the ones inconvenienced or even imperiled (fire,ambulance delays) are not the ones who can make the changes needed to fix this problem.

it gets attention, but can sour people who are just trying to get to work, or wherever.

[ripcord]

46. I once received a repremand for being an hour 15 late

Some immigration protestors blocked an intersection in idowntown Los Angeles and clogged up traffic in the entire downtown area. I no longer support groups who think an appropriate way to protest is to hurt my chance to make a living.

[jwirr]

4. Great pictures and sounds like a well planned protest. Stopping a train is not a small thing.

[winter is coming]

5. +1. n/t

[Supersedeas]

42. how long before whites begin crying give me convenience or give me death

[jwirr]

43. Not likely in MN.

[Iliyah]

6. Its smoldering there and it doesn't help when MO Union Police claimed

it was Officer Wilson's day, the exact day Michael Brown was killed a year ago.

[riversedge]

23. Yes. that was a real nasty.

[jeff47]

8. I'm sorry, but I've been informed that this kind of protest is impossible.

There was no easily-accessible stage, where a mic can be commandeered. Therefore, it is impossible to protest.

[restorefreedom]

20. +1 nt

[azurnoir]

10. This part left me saying HUH?

Police escorted and monitored the marchers the entire way.

Organizer Vanessa Taylor said that didn't mean they were on the same side.

"You all think the police out here escorting us give a damn?" she said. "All they want to do is look good because there's media here."

I seriously doubt anyone thought the cops were there to protect anyone especially protesters

[seveneyes]

11. "Black power is the solution!"

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How about all races are equal power instead of this superior shit.

[candelista]

12. +1. nt

[hamsterjill]

17. My thoughts, too.

When one group starts to tout itself as being "above" another, that's where they lose me. I want equality for all.

I also don't think the chanting of "We're ready for war" is going to result in ANY movement getting much respect.

[HooptieWagon]

29. That's NOI rhetoric.

BLM is borrowing heavily from them.

[Eric J in MN]

13. I'm against blocking traffic. Other people may need to get somewhere in a hurry.

The people who were stuck in traffic or stuck on that train are probably less sympathetic to the BLM message than before.

[840high]

27. +1

[Taitertots]

16. Counter productive. Shitting on the people you need to support your cause is never a good idea

A few hundred people just succeeded in driving a few thousand people away from their cause.

[Daniel537]

18. +1

Making working peoples lives more difficult is not something to be commended. These traffic-shutdown protests never accomplish a damn thing.

[stone space]

22. What's so hilarious about this subthread is that I have absolutely no idea whether...

...one or both of you are serious are just being snarky.

Folks say this with a straight face every day.

[murielm99]

28. I don't understand all the snark

in this thread either.

This looks like an effective protest to me.

[Taitertots]

37. What metric are you using to determine success or failure?

it's obvious that getting people to support your cause isn't the metric that you are using.

[murielm99]

38. I don't know what you are talking about.

I am not sure that it is worth finding out.

[Taitertots]

39. You said it was "an effective protest". What is it doing effectively?

It seems like it's very effective at driving people away from BLM and not much else.

[murielm99]

40. I don't think so.

I am seeing snark from thing-skinned Bernie supporters who are outraged that their candidate was not treated with kid gloves. I am seeing that many of them are trying to discredit BLM. BLM is all over the news and the social media. That is effective.

Who is being driven away from BLM? Not black people. It is their movement. And I see many white people in that picture.

I see no proof that BLM is losing steam. I see the opposite.

[cstanleytech]

45. Its early still though so losing steam can happen, look what happened Occupy in the US for example.

It was a big movement that seems to have largely fizzled away and BLM could suffer that same fate if it does not move on from just conducting protests like this and actually start working to get people into postilions in the government that support BLM and I dont mean just the office of president but rather every office from a simple local representative on up.
After all the presidency while an important position is only one of many in our government and its power does have its limits.

[Calista241]

32. +1

People get enraged by normal traffic, there's no telling how mad they'll get when people cause an intentional traffic roadblock.

And you're supposed to be winning people to your side, not making them suffer.

[LanternWaste]

34. Much as in Albany, GA in 1963...

Much as in Albany, GA in 1963 during the Committee for Nonviolent Action's Quebec to Guantanamo march ...

[restorefreedom]

21. for those old enough to remember,

this country is starting to have a very late 60's feel to it. the unrest, all the racist crazies who came out after obama was elected, the protests, clashes with police, endless war,....

starting to feel that no progress was made in all those years.

and fearful it will get worse before getting better

[dgibby]

26. History almost always

repeats itself because people either forget what it was like or were too young/not born yet to remember. Seems like the only way people learn is by personal experience. I remember the '60's like it was yesterday. I graduated high school in '64, nursing school in '68, and joined the Navy Nurse Corps in '69. My first duty station was in Oakland, Calif. We were a major casualty receiving hospital. Don't think I'll ever forget that, and I agree with you, I think history is about to repeat itself, but I have a feeling it's going to be much worse than anything that happened back then.

[restorefreedom]

35. sounds like

you had a very interesting career. i hope you are wrong about things being worse, but sadly, i have a sick feeling it could be pretty bad.

it will be an all hands on deck era. even some republicans might have to cooperate.

[dgibby]

36. I hope I'm wrong, too,

but I've been around a long time, and if I'm reading the tea leaves right, we're in for a rough time. Another Civil War wouldn't surprise me at all, but instead of North vs. South, it's more likely to be Left vs. Right.

[the_sly_pig]

24. This story is about a protest...

The vast majority of people of all races already understand that black lives matter.

You've done nothing here, especially explaining the protest. You stopped traffic. Who cares.

[fbc]

25. Stopping traffic, the surest way to get people to hate your cause.

[HooptieWagon]

30. Well, there's always calling people white supremacist liberals.

[romanic]

31. Look at all those white surpremacists liberals

/sarcasm

It's great to see proactive protests but I still don't agree with blocking traffic at all. Go protest in front of police stations or city hall instead, don't get in the way of working class people heading to and from work.