About three miles into the near five-mile trek protesters made through St. Charles Friday night, there was a moment of silence for Anthony Lamar Smith.
“[Expletive] black lives,” a man shouted and rushed towards the circle of people formed in the heart of the St. Charles downtown bar and restaurant row. “Blue lives matter.”
He was pulled away by friends.
“Black lives matter,” an elderly white protester yelled back. “Blue lives suck [expletive].” Other protesters followed suit and began to yell at him. He tried to rush back into the crowd, but his friends held him tight and successfully carried him away.
John Muhammad, the man facilitating the moment of silence, was furious.
“What the….what are y’all doing,” Muhammed said. “That was a distraction. We are not here to be distracted. We are not here to be agitated. We are here for Anthony Lamar Smith.”
He was angry and frustrated with the crowd for taking the bait, but he quickly got his emotions in check.
“We are not anti-police. We are not anti-white,” Muhammad said. “We are anti-racism and we are anti-injustice. There’s a verse in the bible that says that wherever two or three are gathered in my name, the devil is also present. There is darkness all around us. We must continue to be the light. Now let’s try this again.”
They stood and sat silently for six minutes. They ignored the heckles that continued to come. Friday night was a long one for the protesters.
They met on the parking lot of the St. Louis Outlet Mall (formerly St. Louis Mills) at 6 p.m. Law enforcement had been alerted that they would be coming. The mall was already shut down by the time they got there.
They hovered to say they would be heading to St. Charles. The exact location was never disclosed. Protesters were told to follow the flashing lights. Some got lost along the way, but eventually found the location where the action would begin – along South Main Street, as the city’s annual Oktoberfest carried on.
Police in riot gear were already stationed there when the group began to arrive. The heckles began well before the march started.
“[Expletive] and your black lives matter [expletive],” a man heading to the festival said. “You’re the real racists for bringing this [expletive] to St. Charles.”
The protesters waited for the rest of the demonstrators to arrive, then they proceeded to march.
A few from St. Charles decided to jump into the crowd and square off. Each time St. Charles police pulled the individual out of the crowd.
As they made their first turn, a car attempted to drive forward in the direction of the protesters.
The car hit a popular demonstrator known in the protest community as Chocolate.
“This [expletive] just hit me!” Chocolate screamed. The car stopped, then jerked forward again.
Chocolate rammed the pole of the red, black and green flag she was carrying directly into the windshield of the car.
“Try that [expletive] again,” Chocolate said. “Try it.”
She bashed the pole into the windshield again with enough force to break the glass and her pole.
The car backed out and rerouted.
The march continued. They circled the area around Oktoberfest, but never attempted to enter. They passed by bars, restaurants and shops.
Some booed. Others scowled and shook their heads. A few showed their support.
“Woo hoo! I with you guys all the way,” A young white waitress said.
A water bottle came flying from the crowd, just missing the young woman’s head.
Scolds came from the protesters shaming whoever committed the act.
“Hey, I was saying I’m on your side,” the young woman said before getting yanked into the restaurant by a coworker, who proceeded to lock the door.
“Agitator! Agitator,” a person from the crowd yelled. “Where is the agitator?” Cori Bush asked. There was a scurry in the crowd. After someone else yelled “Over here.”
“We will call out all agitators. You will be called out.”
They continued.
An inebriated man came into the crowd swinging. A bike policeman who was following the protest attempted to subdue him. The man bit the officer on the ankle. Riot cops stepped in and detained him. It was the only time they used force the entire course of the march.
“We’re trying to keep things quiet here,” an officer said as he marched on the sidewalk across from protesters. “The last thing we need is some drunk [expletive] to mess that up.”
As they entered the street across from where the Oktoberfest festivities were taking place, a man who was selling water to festival goers offered bottles to protesters for free.
A wrought iron gate separated festivalgoers from protesters as they came along this stretch. They were shouted down with “white lives matter,” “blue lives matter.” Expletives were hurled their way.
A man appearing to be inebriated stumbled around the protesters. He then slapped the camera of Riverfront Times photographer Theo Williams with such force that it fell to the ground. The man then ran off.
On the last road before the march ended, four people attempted a standoff against the two hundred-plus protesters.
They stood awaiting the group at the intersection. The group walked around them. They yelled and cursed and attempted to physically confront the group. A tall black man was pushed. He asked the man why he was being so aggressive.
“Because this is our city,” the man said. “You don’t have the right to be here. This is St. Charles. These are our streets. We had nothing to do with that drug dealer getting killed.”
The man asked the tall black man why he was covering his face. He pulled his bandana down and attempted to have a conversation with the man leading the standoff. The crowd began to chant “Black Lives Matter.” The other three with the man started chanting “all lives matter.”
Another protester pulled the tall black man away from the conversation so that he wouldn’t lose the rest of the marchers.
They stopped for another pep talk before the march concluded.
“I need for you to understand that when they say, ‘all lives matter,’ they are not talking about us,” Torry Russell told the crowd.
“That’s why we are out here. We are letting them know that our lives matter – and that as long as injustices like this keep happening against us, they will no longer be able to enjoy sitting back and ignoring it.”
As they prepared to disperse around 11 p.m., Chocolate was arrested. She was released later in the night/early morning.
