Signal Hill residents rally in solidarity with Black Lives Matter at ‘CommUNITY’ event
In 1993, Belleville’s Signal Hill neighborhood made national news when 60 Minutes reported on the tension between the neighborhood’s residents and the nearby city of East St. Louis, which is predominately Black.
“A few years ago, when a crime wave swept the wealthy Signal Hill area of Belleville, residents got together and spent their own money to build a wrought iron gate right on the edge of the city,” journalist Steve Kroft narrates in the segment as he and then-Belleville Police Chief Robert Hurst walk to the gate.
Hurst said in the interview that it would not bother him if Black East St. Louis residents did not feel welcome in the area.
On Sunday, 27 years later, more than 200 residents of that same neighborhood showed up to Signal Hill Park on a hot afternoon to attend a “CommUNITY” march in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
The event, organized by a group of Signal Hill residents, featured singers, poets and speakers who gave testimonies of the racial injustices they have seen in Belleville.
Jeremy Watson, who emceed the event, started the rally off by telling the story of his mother, who had to walk past a sign that read “no [n-word] allowed” in the neighborhood every day on her way to work in Belleville.
Years later, Watson would go on to buy his first home in the same neighborhood and send his four children to schools in the Signal Hill School District 181.
“This history of this city, the history of this county, the history of this neighborhood... we can do better than that,” Watson said. “And here we are: people of varied complexions celebrating and honoring Black Lives Matter.”
Jody King, a recent Belleville West graduate who delivered a poem she’d written to the crowd, said that it was important to have the march in this community as opposed to joining a protest somewhere else.
“I know I have a voice and that voice can help the movement so change can start happening,” she said. “The movement starts with you, so I’m starting with me and my community and telling the people that surround me.”
At the event, 10 Signal Hill youth read the biographies of unarmed Black people who have been killed in recent years — including Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Philando Castile, Jordan Davis, Botham Jean, Eric Garner, Jonathan Ferrell and George Floyd — encouraging the crowd to say their names.
Many parents brought their children to the event, including Signal Hill school teacher Kari Bechtold, who said she wanted her children to understand racism and speak up when they see it.
“They’re our future,” she said. “We need their voices.”
Her 9-year-old daughter Addy Bechtold added, “All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter.”
Jaime Wenberg, one of the event organizers, noted that the history of race relations in the neighborhood added context to why it was important to have the march there.
“People know the history of racial tension between Signal Hill and East St. Louis,” she said. “We want to show that we’re not what we were all those years ago.”
Wenberg said that it was important for white people to attend the event because it’s time for them to “pause, listen and engage without defense.”
“We shouldn’t be leaning on Black people anymore to educate us,” she said. “White people need to step up and take responsibility, even if it’s uncomfortable for them.”
Watson echoed the same sentiments when asked about the racial diversity in the crowd on Sunday.
“We need the white voices to be as loud as the Black voices so we can see an end to this.”
This story was originally published June 14, 2020 at 7:04 PM.
.jpg)