BLM Winston-Salem Holds Rally For Jacob Blake

People gathered Wednesday night to demonstrate against the police shooting of Jacob Blake. He was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back seven times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 

Protesters held signs and chanted at a major intersection in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Winston-Salem, the city where Blake spent much of his childhood. Cars whizzed by responding to “Honk for Justice” signs being waved by a mixed gathering of young people standing on a narrow cement island.

Black Lives Matter organizers shouted out their demands: an end to routine stops, mandatory COVID-19 testing in local jails, extended moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures. The speakers were surrounded by roughly 40 demonstrators who listened from the sidewalk and nearby parking lot.

Charles Smith was born and raised in East Winston. He came across the demonstration by accident while riding his bicycle. He says he's glad he made the discovery because he's been meaning to speak out particularly since the Blake shooting.

"They wanted to kill him," says Smith. "Plain and simple. It's like they want to send a statement. They won't stop. And we won't stop either. We need to make a change. I mean, people are tired of it. We're humans. All of us."

Close by, Barbara Torres, looking after her three small grandchildren, has future generations on her mind. "My grandkids are black," she says. "And that's my worst fear that as they grow up, people look at them like, okay, you're black. It's okay for us to stop you and kill you."

Smith and Torres are both senior citizens who lived through the civil rights movement of the 1960s. But the vast majority of those in attendance were young students experiencing protests like this one for the first time. Mason Benton says he backs the demands being made on behalf of racial justice.

"There's so many things going on right about now," says Benton. "And I just kind of want to stick with the Black Lives Matter movement. I want to, you know, fight for everybody's rights pretty much. But, you know, for my own people, I want to stop the subjugation." 

One of the young demonstrators, Jasmine Johnson, is already a seasoned veteran, having taken part in dozens of local protests over the past several weeks following the police killing of George Floyd.

"I mean, I'm a Black woman," says Johnson. "You can only imagine. I have a child of my own. It was mortifying. But at this point, we are at 30 years of televised publicized deaths and brutalization of people of color on our video cameras. So, on the one hand, I hate it. But on another end, I'm a little numb. I'm just very tired."

This was one of several events planned in Winston-Salem this week demanding justice for Blake. On Friday night, “Winston for Peace” is inviting people to stand in solidarity with Blake in Winston Square Park downtown.