There was no calm before the storm.
The shift in this atmosphere didn’t give those about to experience what came next the luxury of storm clouds as a forewarning. One moment shoppers were browsing and buying without a care in the world at a South City strip mall on a warm fall day. In a single beat, the carefree and innocuous visit to Hampton Village Shopping Center that could have been a part of their Thursday night routine became an experience they will never forget. At the first sight of the large group walking with intention down Chippewa Boulevard carrying signs and making noise. Before the chants became fully audible, there was a mass exodus from all of the retail establishments. It resembled the mad dash to safety just before all hell breaks loose in films involving a natural disaster, or an evil villain who procured a nuclear weapon that is on the verge of detonation.
“Mommy, Mommy – why are we leaving?” a small child asked as she was being rushed from Walgreens to the family car by her mother. There was not a white plastic bag in sight to signal that any purchase had been made.
“Those people there are not very happy,” the woman told her daughter while moving faster than it seemed possible for someone with a baby on her hip and a youngster by the hand.
“Why not, Mommy?” the daughter persisted. “Because of Donald Trunk?”
“Yes, honey. And other things too,” the mother said while strapping her two little ones in the back seat. “But we have to hurry, or we will not get out.”
The demonstration took place more than twenty miles from Ferguson – and it was more than two years after the death of Michael Brown caused the region to erupt with months of relentless protests. But most of the shoppers knew the drill, and they were trying to avoid being swept up in the eye of the storm.
They exited on the Chippewa side just after police started redirecting cars and reduced the traffic to one lane – but before the intersection of Hampton and Chippewa was shut down altogether. Across the parking lot, in front of Schnucks, more than 200 protesters had just started their chants.
Retailers locked their doors. Prospective shoppers either high-tailed it to their cars or stood by and pulled out their phones to record. Protestors made their way to the street and began marching towards the busy intersection two blocks down from the St. Louis Police Officers Association’s administrative offices.
It appeared to be business as usual for the protestors who have kept their promise of nonstop disruption in response to former St. Louis Metropolitan Police Officer Jason Stockley being found not-guilty of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith.
The atmosphere of the protest was familiar – with one major exception. As the demonstrators prepared to cross the street to the Target parking lot, there was another group waiting for them.
The counter-protestors were outnumbered nearly 20 to 1, but they didn’t appear the least bit bothered by the size of the crowd. They stood on the small patch of land they designated for themselves. They waved American flags made with the blue, black and white colors of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. They heckled protestors and said they were out there “to stand in support of blue lives.”
Organizers told the protestors to ignore them. But the same passion and defiance that brought them to the streets compelled them to face off with the counter-protestors.
“All lives matter,” a female counter-protestor sang tauntingly as the protestors gathered around them. “Blue lives matter.”
The rebuttals to the statements – and their presence in general – came swift and all at once. Chatter from the protestors drowned out “all lives matter, blue lives matter.”
“Have you ever heard anyone say that white lives don’t matter?” said Rev. Karla Frye. “The assumption is that white lives already matter.”
“‘God Bless….’ Oh wait, ‘Oh, oh say can you see…,” the counter-protestor, who identified herself as Dee, started to sing. “Now take a knee!”
“Get the song right first,” demonstrator Marcellus Buckley responded. Buckley, a member of the Ferguson protest community, has been equally committed to the Stockley protests.
“I can sing ‘em both, baby,” Dee shot back.
“Why are some of you hiding your faces,” another counter-protestor asked. The counter-protestors were reluctant to share their names for the sake of this report.
The protestors were told by police to move on from the counter-protestors “for security reasons.” They made their way to the Target parking lot.
“I’m a volunteer firefighter, and you want to throw my [expletive] in jail for protesting, but these guys can kill those people and get away with it,” a white protester told Rev. Renita Lamkin Green. “Man, I hate [expletive] cops.”
Green interrupted him when he started bashing police.
“The goal here is not for you to hate [expletive] cops,” Lamkin said. “The goal here is to love black people – to love them so much that when they hurt, you hurt. And to love them so much that they are not ‘those people’ but ‘our people.’”
“I’m already ready,” he said told Green. “I’ve been loving black people my whole life.”
When the protesters made it to the intersection of Hampton and Chippewa, the counter-protestors were right across the street from them.
“Get a job!” they yelled out as soon as Cori Bush, another familiar face from Ferguson, started speaking through the megaphone.
Bush continued.
“It looks like there is a counter protest of ‘blue lives matter,’” Bush said. “I want to make sure that you [over there] understand that the response to ‘black lives matter’ is not ‘blue lives matter.’ The response to ‘black lives matter,’ is ‘yes.’ We wouldn’t have to be here if everybody understood and acknowledged that black lives matter.”
She welcomed them to join the protest.
“We are not a hate group,” Bush said. “We don’t dislike you. We just want you to recognize that you can no longer kill black bodies disproportionately. If blue lives – which there is no such thing as a blue life – really mattered to you, you would get rid of the bad cops that are killing us. Then, we wouldn’t have to be out here.”
Nobody joined in. The heckling continued. One accused the protestors of being “un-American.” It compelled the protestors to head back over to them.
In calm voices, they explained to the counter-protestors that both sides being out there was what being American is all about.
“I appreciate that, but when you yell out some of those things, like ‘F the police,’ it is disrespectful,” a counter-protestor said.
“I’ll accept that,” the protestor said back.
“Y’all are entertaining bull [expletive],” a protestor said, trying to get the protestors to rejoin their group. “Come on, let’s go.”
“You’re giving too much attention to the wrong thing,” organizer Melissa McKinnies told the protestors.
They moved on and joined the march to the St. Louis Police Officers Association offices further down on Hampton.
Words for the POA
While in front of the offices, the regulars on the megaphone yielded to the unsung demonstrators so that they could share their thoughts and feelings. The children were up first.
“I want to say that my dad’s life matters,” a young boy said. He ran from the megaphone and leapt into the arms of his black father, while being kissed on the head by his white mother.
“We are doing this for them,” Bush said. “If we teach them this now, then we will have a generation coming up that will automatically love one another – and comes up loving humanity – and doesn’t care about what you look like, who you love or what you do.”
Organizers Bush and McKinnies told the crowd that it is not about the coordinators, but the collective family of protesters. They called up people who hadn’t had an opportunity to address the group.
“My sons are 29 and 36, and I’ve been afraid for them all of their lives,” Mildred Clines told the crowd. “When they were young I took them to the police station, so that the police would know them and hopefully wouldn’t kill them.”
She added that no mother should have to worry about their children losing their lives at the hands of law enforcement.
“We are out here because we want a better world,” Clines continued. “I’m 60 years old, and I’m fighting like I’ve never fought before. I never knew I could walk as much as I have walked. Where am I getting this energy from? But I do know that no matter how tired our bodies get, we have to keep fighting.”
A history student named Ben Girard decided he wanted to “watch history unfold in real time” by observing the protests. He got caught up in the mass arrest on October 3. He spent the night in jail at the Justice Center.
What happened when he walked out of the doors following his release had him choked up.
“I got out at 11 o’clock last night, and to see all of you out there, cheering for me after I was stared at and cursed out by police,” Girard said.
“I have to say to the people behind me, you lost me,” Girard said while pointing his thumbs towards the POA building. “St. Louis’ finest are right in front of me right now.”
They spoke up for Isaiah Hammett and Kiwi Herring, a white man and a black trans woman killed by police.
“Black trans lives matter,” Morgan Hunlan, a black trans woman shouted and was met with applause.
“If you are good, then you are standing up and speaking out,” Tricia Harris said during her remarks about the police. “Right now, you are going along with what you know is wrong. We shouldn’t have to live in fear. As long as we are, you are not St. Louis’ finest.”
Tyjuan Morrow talked about the liberating feeling he has coming to the protests and being a part of the movement. He told the crowd that the nation is founded on racism – and it is woven into the fabric of the country.
He also said that by working together they can create a new foundation.
“White people, I don’t have a chance to talk to all of the racists and bigots – but believe it or not, they are in your families,” Morrow said. “I need for you to have those hard conversations. For those that look like me, the change is now. We are at a special time – in this country, not just in St. Louis – we must hold this tempo. We cannot fall back. We must stand up and teach others to stand up. This is the time to speak up.”
As they blocked Hampton and Chippewa, Emily Kaplan jumped out of her Volkswagen station wagon with her baby and joined in with the line of protestors.
“I just came out to get Pampers, but I believe in everything you guys are saying,” Kaplan said before being swept away by protestors to be loved on.
Conversing with the counter-protestors
An opportunity for one of those hard conversations Morrow spoke of came just as they were ending the action.
“Do you even pay taxes?” a counter-protestor who identified herself as “Pocahontas” yelled as a protestor and another counter-protestor were talking.
Others jumped to the protestor’s defense.
Pocahontas accused them of ganging up on her and attempting to intimidate her.
“You threw a rock and hid your hand,” a protestor, who was white, said. “You said some ignorant [expletive] and then when we confronted you about it, you acted like we were the problem. That’s basically exactly what white privilege is all about.”
The counter-protestor said that the white protestor was being racist towards her by saying those things – and assuming she was white based on the color of her skin. Though white presenting, she claimed to be of Native American ancestry.
She then said that the protestors should be arrested because they were blocking citizens’ “freedom of movement.”
State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr. stepped in to address the “all lives matter” remarks.
“We agree with you that all lives matter – but until the system shows marginalized people that their lives matter too, we have to be specific,” Franks said. “When a particular holiday comes up and you say, ‘Merry Christmas,’ we don’t say, ‘all holidays matter.’”
“When something happens, and there’s a shooting, we don’t say ‘all shootings matter.’ We concentrate the attention on what’s happening then and there. When society shows us that ‘all lives matter,’ then we can talk about all lives matter.”
It seemed to be an “aha moment” for several of the counter-protestors. Several faces softened. A few leaned and listened as opposed to their futile, but willfully committed attempts to match the protestors decibel to decibel.
“That’s a different narrative than what’s happening out here,” Pocahontas said. “We can all agree with that.” All of them didn’t agree with Pocahontas, but more than half seemed to have connected with Franks’ words.
The protestors shook their heads and rolled their eyes.
“That’s all we’ve ever said the whole time we’ve been out here,” another protestor said. “That’s the only narrative about what we are doing that is true – and we say it every time we come out.”
Pocahontas decided to start another argument, but another counter-protestor decided to take the moment he had with protestors as his captive audience to discuss the issue he has with how they go about sharing their message.
“I see what you are saying, but let me take it a step further,” the man said. He pointed out two teenagers before he stated his case.
“These guys here, their parents are police officers,” he said. “They are white, and they are always being abused by you guys because you are saying, ‘Oh, you are a killer,’ or ‘you’re a racist’ about their mom or dad. In their eyes, you’re just a group screaming and hating on the police – just like people believe that the police are hating on the black community. Does that make sense?”
The protestors calmly listened – until the conversation spurred a debate about the Stockley verdict.
Franks tried to explain to Pocahontas why it is important for them to come out and protest. She was no longer listening. He had never identified himself during the conversation, but when he mentioned that he was a state representative and still feared being pulled over by the police, her entire demeanor changed.
“Wait, are you Bruce Franks?”
Pocahontas extended her hand to him when she realized it was indeed Bruce Franks.
Her gesture shocked Franks – and outraged the rest of the protestors who were gathered around him.
He glared down at her hand without reciprocating.
“Come on, y’all, let’s roll,” Franks said, abruptly ending the conversation.
“You didn’t respect him as a black man – as a person – until you found out he was an elected official,” another protestor said after Franks walked away. “That’s the problem.”