Youth-driven East St. Louis protest embraces MLK’s nonviolent principles
Wearing T-shirts that read “peace warriors” and holding Black Lives Matter signs, a small group of Black teens addressed a crowd of about 30 people as they gathered outside of the Ubuntu Center for Peace in East St. Louis before a protest on Saturday morning.
JaMaya Bonner, a leader of Join Hands Peace Warriors, welcomed the crowd.
“The mission of Join Hands ESL is to empower the people of East St. Louis, to walk in solidarity with those we serve, showing love and compassion to those in need and affirming and reflecting the beauty and potential of each individual,” said Bonner, an East St. Louis native.
“That’s exactly why we’re here marching today. We’ve seen that the Black community is not receiving this love and compassion from the world, and so we feel that it is very necessary to take a stand to show that we do have a voice, to show that our community is deserving of love and compassion, and to emphasize that Black lives do matter.”
The protest started at the Ubuntu Center for Peace on Missouri Avenue. It was the first one organized by Join Hands Peace Warriors , a teenage-driven social justice group in East St. Louis. Formed in 2018, the group dedicates its time to teaching Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent principles.
Jasmine Bonner, an organizer of Peace Warriors (and JaMaya’s sister), said Saturday’s march was based on King’s second principle: “Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.”
“We wanted to get the community to come together and stand up in a nonviolent way so we can have a better future for our community,” Jasmine, 18, said.
Jasmine said the eight-member team contemplated about whether it was too late to organize to march, considering that most protests in the Metro-East and across the country occurred in early June.
“We firmly believe that it’s never too late to use your voice and we feel like just because some people think that the protests are dying down doesn’t mean that they actually are, and we wanted to be an example that they aren’t,” Jasmine said.
Protesters marched along Missouri Avenue and 15th Street while chanting “No Justice, No Peace” and “Black Lives Matter” as pedestrians cheered them on. The crowd included white and Black people.
Cindy McMullan, a local group manager of Moms Demand Action traveled from Columbia, Ill., to participate in Saturday’s protest. She said it’s important for white people to show solidarity in the fight for social justice.
“We’re being silent, and being silent is being complicit,” McMullan, who’s white, said. “If we’re silent and not doing anything, then nothing is going to change. We have to get involved, not to take the lead, but to support the Black community and to be good allies. That’s how we’re going to make change.
“We know that if we really want to reduce gun violence in our cities, we need racial justice, and we need to end police brutality and racism.”
In wake of prosecutors recently announcing not to press charges against the officer who killed Michael Brown, protesters chanted Brown’s name while marching. They also chanted the names of recent victims of police brutality like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. JaMaya said she still thinks about Taylor’s death.
“It’s simply because she was in her house sleeping,” JaMaya said. “Also because she’s a Black woman, and we go through a lot in this country. People are often dismissive of our pain, and I think people have been super dismissive of Breonna Taylor’s pain. So I think we need to pay more attention to Black women as well.”
For Jasmine, Elijah McClain’s death still sticks with her. McClain was fatally shot by police in 2019 while walking home. She said constantly witnessing police brutality on social media at a young age takes a toll on her.
“It just made me really, really sad because it just shows that no matter who you are, it seems like as long as you’re Black you’ll always have a target on you,” said Jasmine, an incoming freshman at Southeast Missouri State University.
“Seeing stuff like that scares me a lot, especially as a person who wants to grow and have kids and things like that. It’s scary to bring more Black kids into the world knowing that I have to teach my kids that they’ll have a target on their back. And not even for my future kids, but for myself as well. I’m only 18 and I have my whole life ahead of me and I question whether I’ll be the next victim, and it puts a little fear in my heart. But I can’t live in fear.”
The protest ended at the Dream Path Teen Center on State Street. Jasmine hopes that the march encourages people to better understand the injustices Black people face on a regular basis.
“I want people to show empathy,” Jasmine said. “I just want people to understand that we’ve been dealing with this issue for so long, so I want people to be compassionate. Just showing your support for the movement can go a long way.”
This story was originally published August 1, 2020 at 4:52 PM.
