For the past eight nights, residents here in Memphis, TN have taken to the streets to protest the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin as three fellow officers looked on. The protests are part of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. For five of those nights, I donned my cloth mask and joined my neighbors in marching for a better, more just world. And while Floyd was the latest victim, and his name is chanted the loudest – there is a long history of unarmed black people being harassed, beaten, and killed by police officers (often white). The history of racial tension in this city is particularly heavy and there are reminders everywhere of the complicated and often brutal past. Memphis has played a critical role in the civil rights movement – it stands ready to do that again. What follows are some of my observations, thoughts, and feelings on this moving experience.
I Don’t Know Why
I often struggle to fully understand my motives – for anything. As much as I try to be pure of heart in the things that I do, I recognize that there are almost always ulterior motives at play. I wish I could tell you why I went out on Friday night to protest (my first night, the third night of the protest here in Memphis). I wasn’t compelled by outrage. I get saddened, disgusted, disappointed… but rarely in my life have I felt rage. I wasn’t looking to be at the forefront of things – I have no need or desire to be seen by cameras or news crews – if anything, I was a little afraid of being identified. I do feel strongly about injustice – I don’t like our economic system here in the US – it leaves far too many people behind and is an underpinning of almost all other social ills including crime and the problems of law enforcement. I’m not much of a joiner, but like lots of people, I get feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out). I was curious and wanted to be a part of something. I’m still pretty new to this city, and I’d like to understand it better. I know I wanted to be able to help and serve as a witness to the movement. The night before, there was a small protest in which the police used force to arrest people – I wanted to help with the safety in numbers aspect of things. I know I wanted to show my support and understanding. For a whole bunch of reasons, something in me on Friday night made me feel like I couldn’t sit out. The choice to join wasn’t easy. I was afraid of how it might turn out. I had tears in my eyes as I read twitter posts about how the city is going to erupt. Now, several days afterwards, I’m still not sure why I joined in. I can say that there were one or two nights, when I guilted myself in to joining. There were nights when I just wanted to sit home and have a beer and then I’d tell myself that George Floyd no longer has that choice. Call it white guilt or whatever, but it felt unfair that I still had that freedom.
My First Night (5/29/20)
I had never participated in a protest or march before. I was nervous. One of the posters had the anarchy symbol on it and posts on Facebook and Twitter urged participants to use caution, to have a buddy, to be prepared for the worst. I don’t know this city all that well and I don’t know more than seven or eight people in this city. I don’t have a buddy to look out for me. I don’t know the streets all that well. I don’t know how to prepare for a protest. Should I bring water? Should I wear all black? Do I carry my id with me? I put on the only t-shirt I had that felt appropriate, took a selfie with a “this could be it” feeling in my gut and left.
The protest was scheduled to start at the FedEx Forum, the basketball arena in the middle of downtown, at 7:00pm, with some posts indicating it would be 6:30. People here talk about Memphis time – nobody is on time for anything. The arena is only a few blocks from my apartment, but the anxiety was getting to me.
To calm my nerves, I left a little before 5:30 so that I could go for a walk along the river. Already, the police were aware and had the roads to the Forum blocked off. My immediate thought was this was an attempt to limit the number of demonstrators. I walked by, my pace a little quicker than usual. Despite my best efforts, walking by the the river did little to slow me or my thoughts down. Only one or two people know this about me, but I need to be early most of the time – I’ll feel antsy if I’m stuck waiting to go somewhere. I have a need to arrive so that I can find my place. After a short (and quickened) walk, I left the river park and went to the Forum. When I arrived (early), fewer than fifty people had gathered. They were milling about and talking. Some news cameras were being set up. I walked past it as though I were just a normal guy walking on the street and made my way around the building to scope things out and pass the time.
I approached an intersection on the back side of the building where a cop car blocked the road. As I walked, head slightly down, a pickup truck and a car slammed into each other in the intersection. If you’ve ever been in an accident or witnessed one, the sound of impact is distinctly unforgettable. It’s loud, violent, and sudden. The jarring part is often the contrasting silence that follows. I hurried up to the scene (I was maybe 300 feet away). I watched as the police officer struggled from within her car to put on her neon vest. I was surprised that she wasn’t immediately out of her car or calling it in. Another car had stopped to help. He checked on the driver of the car and I went over to the pickup truck to see if everyone was ok. I don’t know what I could have done if they weren’t. I wasn’t even thinking about what scene I might encounter. On the one hand, I felt like I had to offer help, and on the other – what was I going to do, call the police? There was a police officer already on the scene – much more capable and equipped for this than me. So many of my experiences here have been this odd sense of not knowing my place, of being a half-participant in the life of this city.
The pickup truck (newer and silver), and now the street, was full of work and landscape tools – odd pieces of wood, a busted up wheelbarrow, a pitchfork, maybe some bricks. The driver, a lanky, older black man in boots, jeans, red-checked tucked in button-down shirt, and a worn out cowboy hat was already pacing and on the phone cursing up a storm. He was shielded by the open driver’s side door and I had to make my way around the truck to get to him. There was what looked to be a confederate flag license plate on the front of the truck, the sight of which caught me off guard. I was afraid to approach this man from behind where he couldn’t see me coming. I could hear he was enraged. There were no visible injuries, but he had that rough look about him – the way a hard life (one of poverty, maybe drinking, and barely getting by) sags in the cheeks, sinks and yellows the eyes, and lowers the bony shoulders. I asked if he was ok, he paid no attention to me. There were three young kids in the truck, the oldest no older than five or six. They climbed over each other and looked out the window. Their eyes were big, their faces round, one was shirtless, the other two wore dirty, white sleeveless t-shirts (wife beaters is what we always called them). The windows of the truck were up, and the kids couldn’t hear me as I asked if they were ok. I mouthed the words and gave them a questioning thumbs up. They just looked at me. By this time, the cop was out of her car and talking to the driver of the other car. I made my way back and said there are three kids in the truck – they seem to be ok. Oddly, there was no sense of urgency about any of what was going on. As I left, another cop car came down the street and drove right past the incident. I don’t think I understand Tennessee.
A little shaken, I calmed my breathing and made my way around to the front of the Forum. A few more people had gathered. I found a spot on a concrete ball away from the various groups. I sat. I overheard. I waited. It’s hard to know who is friendly or approachable when everyone is wearing a mask – we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. Sitting on the concrete ball next to me, maybe two or three feet away was another lean black man who has probably seen a thing or two. Tattooed on his right cheek under his eye were the letters OG which I assume stood for original gangster and on his left cheek was the number 38. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t dare. He had other tattoos, one or two gold teeth, a few missing teeth, mid-length corn row braids, a hat, a sports shirt – might have been a Grizzlies jersey. He talked to me a bit, but between the slang and the southern accent, I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying. If you’ve ever watched King of the Hill, his speech was like that of the character Boomhauer but with a slightly less country twang. I nodded along, but by this time, I had my mask on, and he couldn’t see that I was smiling and listening (or at least trying to listen).
As the crowd grew, most of the people seemed to gather in a semicircle in front of where I was sitting. The press seemed to be setting up behind me, with a few protesters behind them. The organizer, a young black man named DeVante Hill, stood in the middle of this loose circle, bullhorn in hand, and divided the bulk of the crowd in to three sections. The people to my left were North Memphis (they’d scream out Noooort – the o is elongated and the h is silent). The people across from me were Midtown (a peppy two syllable shout), and the people to my right were South Memphis (they’d scream out Soouut – again the h is silent and is sounds more like sowt). Once again, I (along with a handful of people around me) was on the outside looking in. As DeVante talked and asked each group to pick one or two leaders to share their stories and let their voices be heard, I sat trying to figure out which group I would join. Admittedly, at times, I was looking to see which one had the more attractive women (sorry). I was trying to figure out if the groups would be splitting up and marching to those different neighborhoods – some of which are pretty far, some of which are pretty rough. How would I choose? Would my fear be obvious if I chose the gentrified area? What about practicality… how am I getting home from whatever neighborhood? Which of these groups looks like they might have my back?
We stayed at the Forum for quite some time. Eight or nine different people spoke and told their stories of why they were out there, why they were pissed off, why they want equality. I think half of the speakers were from the LGBTQ community, another underrepresented group with a lot of hurt and anger and determination. I listened. I thought. I watched. I tried to look tough and serious and understanding all at the same time. I didn’t know how to be. To my great relief, we were not splitting up. Dividing the group was just a way to manage the conversation, get people to cheer for their “neighborhood,” and eventually bring us all back together as one city, one Memphis. 901!
From there we marched.
The route we took and much of the rest of the night was a blur. I later told my friend Stacy that it felt a little like when you have to give a public speech: you give it, and then afterwards have no recollection of what you’ve said. It’s as if you blacked out during the event. I know we made our way down Main St. I know we stopped and chanted in front of City Hall and marched past the prison. Early on in the march, we knelt for 9 minutes, roughly the amount of time that officer Chauvin had his knee on the neck of George Floyd. And while the organizer asked us to think of Floyd, I could feel the burn in my legs as I held the pose, and thought about how much force was needed to hold a man down for that long. How much fear and anger transpired in those nine minutes, between those men.
We snaked our way through the city. We made our way up and down streets that I walk every day. However, in this context, none of it was familiar. Most of the time, I walked quietly, sometimes I chanted. The louder I chanted, the more emotional I felt. It was as if I was speaking for the very first time. I didn’t like feeling like I couldn’t control the tears that would form or the way my voice would crack, yet there was a sense of relief in letting it out.
I paid attention to how the police moved about. I paid attention to how they positioned their cars on the side streets to block traffic. I watched the helicopter circle overhead. At times I felt like I was an extra in a movie. At times it felt scripted. How did they know which direction we would go? I thought about how there are cameras everywhere and that cities use technology and algorithms to predict traffic patterns and movements all the time – even in our randomness, we might be fairly predictable. I watched as the police sometimes stood outside of their cars, arms folded, as protesters stopped to shout at them. There was one woman, fit and light-skinned and powerful in her blackness who positioned herself in front of every police car and stood silently and defiantly holding up her sign. Quite often as we passed the police, we would raise our hands and chant “hands up, don’t shoot.” Any one of these moments could have been that moment. The one in which the officer snaps, or the protester goes too far. In an instant we could have been living the scene in the movie where the crowd flees in every direction and people are trampled beneath the cloud of screams and smoke.
But none of that happened. We marched from one end of downtown to the other and eventually made our way to the Lorraine Motel where we knelt before the balcony where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. We observed a moment of silence. The protest organizer talked about how we, the city of Memphis, were going to pick up the torch that dropped from King’s hand when he was killed. Different protesters shared their stories on why they marched. At one point a protester climbed the stairs towards the balcony and we collectively held our breath both in shock and shame. He was trying to get a picture of the crowd and was quickly asked to come down from there – everyone knew it was sacrilegious.
I got home that night around 11:30. I was exhausted. I couldn’t sleep. I compulsively checked news feeds to see if other things were happening in Memphis. I checked to see what was going on elsewhere. Other cities weren’t faring as well. American was burning. I couldn’t process what I was seeing or what I had just experienced. I tried to write about it, and the best I could do was a paragraph or two. I fell asleep around 1:30.